March 21st, Virginia Tech KTU exhibitors

VOICE, Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine

Virginia Tech’s Chapter of VOICE (Veterinary Students as One In Culture and Ethnicity) is a student organization at the veterinary school that focuses on issues related to diversity within veterinary medicine. VOICE will be talking about a number of topics in veterinary medicine, including animal anatomy, radiology, and cardiology. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about dogs, cats, horses, as well as different farm animals and how veterinarians take care of those animals. There will be x-rays and other specimens to interact with for a hands-on learning experience.

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Bacterial Computers and Microfluidics

Just like we can run programs on computers, we can run programs in living bacteria, like the E. coli in your gut.  This is called synthetic biology.  In the near future, synthetic microbes will be used to clean the environment, test for toxic chemicals, and even produce fuel for our cars.  At our booth, we will let you tinker with these cells and share your work for your friends and family to see!  The way we design and test synthetic bacteria is by using "microfluidics," which is tiny plumbing that we can put on a microscope.  Fluid is moved through the plumbing by controlling the height of syringes using computers and motors.  Come to our booth for an interactive demonstration!

Mather Lab, Physics Dept., VT

The Mather Lab is part of the Dept. of Physics and affiliated with the Dept. of Biology.  We are actively researching topics in synthetic biology and biophysics, including both theoretical and experimental components.  Our research is into the foundations of gene circuits in bacteria, especially considering how the degradation of proteins leads to novel circuit behavior.