We are committed to building awareness of the new discipline of Cellular Engineering and the potential of harnessing the power of cells to develop innovative approaches to complex environmental and medical challenges.
The Center seeks to engage the public across a broad range of ages and backgrounds with Cellular Engineering through Outreach. The Center’s signature Outreach activity involves an extensive collaboration with the Exploratorium focused on developing new experiences for museum visitors that reveal how cells move and respond to their surroundings through engagement with microscopes, live specimens, and models. The Exploratorium, one of the world’s largest science museums, is world renowned for its hands-on approach to science education. It is a destination for over 900,000 visitors from around the world each year. Center faculty, affiliates, and students have collaborated with Exploratorium staff to develop exhibits as part of the Exploratorium’s new, permanent exhibition Cells to Self that elucidate the big ideas of Cellular Engineering and build the public’s awareness of this emerging discipline. The partnership with the CCC was integral to the development of many of the exhibits within this large exhibition.
The Cells to Self exhibition area also contains a demonstration station, where there are twice-daily demonstrations. Novel demonstrations for the stations have been designed by CCC student interns. One of these, the Cell-fie demo, allows visitors to image their own cheek cells.
Finally, CCC faculty, affiliates, and trainees also participate in live events at the Exploratorium, engaging directly with the public – both adults and children – at the Exploratorium’s themed After Dark events (for adults) and Latino Engineering Day (for students).
Center faculty, affiliates, and trainees are all very interested in engaging the public with the work of the Center and, in addition to the work with the Exploratorium, many participate in regional events that promote the awareness of science such as the Bay Area Science Festival, or highlight the work of the Center in a wide variety of activities that they arrange on their own, including visits to local schools and after school programs.
To learn more about our public outreach efforts, please visit our YouTube Channel.
For an example of our public messaging:
- The Ten Craziest Things Cells Do, a public lecture by Wallace Marshall on iBiology.
- The Wonderful World of Life in a Drop of Water, a TED talk by Simone Bianco (IBM)
