Nerd Nite SF #19: Sex differentiation, future of medicine, and more!

Hey there, boys and girls! Uh, actually, as you will learn in Erica’s talk about the biology behind your junk, the phrase “boys and girls” is a lot more complex than you think. We’ll also hear from an expert on the future of medicine, and another surprise speaker! I think your brain will atrophy over Winter Break if you don’t exercise it, so you should come on down to meet, mingle, drink, and learn with your fellow nerds. Be there and be square!

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“Genes, gonads, and genitals: the miracle of human sex differentiation” by Erica Li

Rosie is a popular, pretty 17 year old young lady who wants to become a whale biologist. She has always been healthy, is active at sports, and is a graceful ballet dancer. Then she comes to the doctor with her Mom because she still doesn’t have her period! Rosie is starting to feel very different from her friends, which is causing her quite a bit of distress. When the doctor examines Rosie and does some tests, she discovers that Rosie is a healthy young lady in every way except she has no uterus and her blood testosterone level is very high. Karyotype came back and reveals that her sex chromosomes are XY. How can this be? What should the doctor tell Rosie?

This talk will go over some basics of the very complex and fascinating topic of human sex differentiation.

Erica Li is a senior medical student from UC Davis, currently doing a one-year research fellowship on faith-based organizations’ potential role in preventing teen relationship abuse. She is currently interviewing all over the country for a residency position in pediatrics. A classical pianist, she is into music by composers ranging from Franz Schubert to Stephen Sondheim, and she thinks digital planetariums are the coolest things in the world.

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“Adam’s Apple – Imagining our grandchildren’s healthcare” by Adam Bristol, PhD

Todays’ news headlines about the state of healthcare are pretty depressing. With aging baby boomers, we have rising “superbugs”, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease, all within an inefficient healthcare system that gets more expensive every year. What will our poor grandchildren ever do? Well, it’s been ten years since the sequencing of the human genome and medicine is starting to look a whole lot better. Buckle up and join biotech investor Adam Bristol for a ride into a future of medicine. Tell your grandkids you heard about personalized medicine, predictive bioinformatics and medtech’s great rebirth way back in 2011.

Adam Bristol did his PhD at Yale and post-doc at Stanford Med School in Neurobiology. He recently co-founded Aquilo Capital, a life sciences investment fund so his job really boils down to daydreaming about great ideas in medicine.

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And a third speaker to be announced!

Plus: DJ Alpha Bravo selects vinyl cuts to illuminate our presenters’ themes. Alpha Bravo is VP of left-field pop label, Radio Khartoum, and was one of the forces behind legendary SF pop-club nights, Anisette and Schokolade.