Enterprising students Lumanti Tuladhar, Mario Acua, Carlos Acuna, Yuele Zhang and Kongment Chi have teamed up with Professor Nick Kapp, Ph.D. to found the Biotechnology Devices Club, which meets every Friday from Noon to 1:00 p.m. in the Biotechnology lab at Room 7-204. The club focuses on how to use engineering skills and biology knowledge as well as the advice of various Skyline College faculty including the Biotechnology and Fab labs to create items that span both the engineering and biology worlds.
The club is already working on 4 projects:
- Use soy bean urease and alginate beads to make a device that would supplement dialysis.
- Team up with the Berkeley start-up Fiat Lux to test and validate their Fermenter sensors using the Bioreactors and other equipment from the Biotechnology lab.
- The club’s first sensor, built from scratch, as a conductivity meter run by an Adreno processor, hopefully using parts available in the FAB lab.
- Assembling a mind storm robot to facilitate filling of micro centrifuge tubes and very small volumes for the Biotechnology manufacturing program.
If any students are interested in engineering, biology or both, please come and see what the club is about.
Article and Photo by Nick Kapp