Nerd Nite Hong Kong: Edition #10
Event: Nerd Nite Hong Kong: Edition #10
Date: 26th February 2018
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Location: Mezcalito; 27/F, 18 On Lan St, Central.
Entry Fee: Free! Thanks to the support provided by the venue! You just got to buy your own drinks!
Speaker 1: Dr. Tami Zhang Jingshu
Topic: The Social Network of Microorganisms
Quick Nerdisms: TBA
Nerd Cred: Dr Zhang joined HKU-Pasteur Research Pole, School of Public Health of HKU in 2015. She obtained a Bachelor of Bioengineering in 2007 at the China Pharmaceutical University and a PhD degree in 2013 at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Dr Zhang is a trained cell biologist/virologist to work on various aspects of virus-host interactions in the context of dengue infection and influenza. Her current research interests are the roles of ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like modifiers in viral protein trafficking and in cellular signaling pathways during viral infections.
Dr Zhang is a trained cell biologist/virologist to work on various aspects of virus-host interactions in the context of dengue infection and influenza. Her current research interests are the roles of ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like modifiers in viral protein trafficking and in cellular signaling pathways during viral infections.
Speaker 2: Dr. Scott Edmunds
Topic: Building genetic literacy through decoding the Hong Kong Bauhinia
Quick Nerdisms: Far outpacing Moore’s law, the growth of genomics, sequencing the genetic code of all living organisms, is predicted to overtake the data volumes produced by astronomy, streaming video, and social media. The effects of the genomics revolution are already touching all our lives, and our health and wellbeing in the 21st century. To better equip the people of Hong Kong with the literacy and training to make informed decisions and work in this new genomic era a group of us launched Bauhinia Genome, a grassroots, citizen science project using the crowdfunded sequencing of the genome of the Hong Kong emblem to better understand where our mysterious emblem came from, and train local students to assemble and analyse the data. Crucial skills needed for this field to advance, as well as engage the public through local pride.
Nerd Cred: Scott Edmunds is executive editor of the open science journal and repository Gigascience, working out of the Tai Po offices of BGI, the world’s largest genomics organisation. With a background in cancer genetics, his PhD at the Royal London Hospital was on the molecular pathology of a nasty and rare form of eye cancer. After postdocts at the WHO International Agency for Research in Cancer in Lyon and at Queen Mary, University of London he then moved into open access publishing where he ran journals genomics research. He is passionate about open data, teaching data management at HKU and working as an executive committee member of Open Data Hong Kong to promote the fight for open knowledge. From getting involved in crowdsourcing disease outbreak data, Scott has worked on a number of other citizen science and education projects in Hong Kong, including BauhiniaGenome and CitizenScience.Asia.