City College of San Francisco
Biology Seminar Series
Spring 2013
Seminars are held at the Ocean campus and are co-sponsored by the City College Concert and Lecture Series. The lectures are free and open to the campus community and the public. Seating can be limited. For this reason we recommend contacting the seminar organizers listed below if you wish to bring a group over 10. Please note: we ask that attendees be seated in a timely manner and turn off cell phones out of courtesy to speakers.
Helminthology in Ethnic Foods: Worms in Food that Disease You, Tease You, and Even Please You!
Speaker: Nader Shatara, REHS, Senior Environmental Health Inspector, San Francisco Department of Health
Date: Friday, February 22nd
Location: Science 300
Time: Noon-1 pm
Synopsis: Finding a worm in your food does not always spark amazement and fascination. It usually triggers fear and disgust. In this lecture, we will explore the life cycles and facts surrounding a variety of parasitic worms that are nothing less than amazing & fascinating. We will also discuss non-parasitic worms that cause more fear than harm when found in foods as well as worms that enhance the quality of food! Please join us as we get to know and love our vermiform friends.
Astrobiology: The Science of Searching for Life Beyond Earth
Speaker: Alice Pevyhouse, Instructor, CCSF Astronomy Department. Talk Co-sponsored by CCSF Astronomy and Biology Departments.
Date: Rescheduled to Friday April 19
Location: Science 136
Time: Noon-1 pm
Synopsis: Have you ever wondered about the possibility of life out in the Universe? If so, come listen to a talk about Astrobiology. The hour will be filled with what the goals of astrobiology are and what life on our own world can tell us about the possibility of life beyond the Earth. The search for extremophiles has vastly expanded our understanding of the environmental conditions that life can not only tolerate but thrive in. This greatly opens up the possibilities of worlds we previous thought had no chance of sustaining life to be included in an ever-growing list of places that could possibly harbor life.
Alzheimer's disease 2013: Progress and Challenges
Speaker: Gil Rabinovici, M.D. Assistant Professor of Neurology, UCSF Memory & Aging Center
Date: Friday, March 8th
Time: noon-1 pm
Location: Science 300
Synopsis: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia. With the aging population, the prevalence and cost of AD are increasing rapidly and represent an impending public health crisis. Despite major advances in diagnostics, many clinicians at the forefront of geriatric care remain nihilistic about AD, and fail to diagnose or treat patients appropriately. This talk will provide an update on the current state of AD research. We will discuss genetic and environmental risk factors for the disease, and demonstrate how clinical neurologists incorporating brain imaging and biological markers diagnose AD. We will review data that suggest that the AD pathological cascade is initiated 10-20 years before the onset of symptoms, leading to the evolving concept of "preclinical AD." We will conclude by reviewing novel therapeutic strategies that aim not only to modify the disease course but ultimately to prevent AD.
HIV in China: One Country Five Epidemics
CCSF student speakers: Adam Gutierrez, Pingwah Poon, Stephanie Reinhardt, Chong Zhou.
Date: Friday, March 15th
Time: noon-1 p.m
Location: Science 300
Synopsis:
Students that participated in the Biology of HIV class at CCSF in Fall 2012 will conduct a group presentation involving the multiple factors involving HIV transmission in China.
The Human Microbiome - A New Frontier in Human Health.
Speaker: Susan Lynch Ph.D., Associate Professor In Residence, Director, Colitis and Crohn's Disease, Microbiome Research Core, Division of Gastroenterology, University of California San Francisco.
Date: Friday, April 12th
Time: noon-1 p.m
Location: Science 300
Synopsis:
The gut microbiome (the entirety of microbes residing in the gut, their collective genomes, and their interactions with the human host), have a profound impact on human health. Microbial communities influence host physiology, metabolism, neonatal immune development as well as innate and acquired immune responses. Disruptions of the microbiome or lack of early-life exposure to certain bacteria are associated with development and progression of intestinal and non-intestinal diseases of childhood and adulthood. A relatively limited number of microbial restoration strategies exist to reestablish a stable gut ecosystem. This appears to represent a promising therapeutic approach for a number of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Based on microbiome strides, a new wave of rationally designed, niche-specific, probiotic formulations represents a promising approach aimed at manipulating these communities to improve disease outcomes.
Contact the seminar coordinators:
Carole Toebe, PhD. Stephanie Lyons.
Biology Department, CCSF Coordinator Concert Lecture Series
Tel: 415-239-3475 Tel: 415-239-3580
email: carole.toebe@mail.ccsf.edu email: slyons@ccsf.edu