Education Commons^™

Bubble Lab Exercise, Peter Beltramo

Science and Engineering Saturday Seminars

The cell membrane is a ubiquitous component in mammalian cells which control many vital biological functions. It consists of a phospholipid bilayer with embedded protein molecules which serve to transport molecules between the interior and exterior of the cell. Understanding what makes cell membranes so important and how they function requires concepts from physics, chemistry, and of course biology, but it is difficult to learn and conceptualize the structure and function of membranes due to their nanoscopic size and dynamic nature which can’t be properly appreciated in a static textbook. This activity draws analogies between the chemistry and structure of …

Modeling Epidemics, An Introduction, Shubha Tewari

Science and Engineering Saturday Seminars

• Group discussion of videos watched – Mainly focus on 3Blue1Brown videos

• Discussion of known facts about Covid-19/SARS-CoV-2

• Joint look at news articles and websites – Discussion of exponential growth

• Introduction to SIR (Susceptible-Infected-Recovered) model

• Excel demonstration of SIR model

• Other models: SEIR, others

• Modeling using python (time-permitting)