Mechanical Engineering of Wet-materials (MEOW) Laboratory

We are every honored to host Dr. Yen-Ping Hsueh, the Director of Max Plank Institute for Biology, for her visit to Johns Hopkins. Ping is an expert in inter-species interaction. Her research on the molecular mechanism behind the killing of worms by fungi is world-renowned. Ping gave a fascinating seminar talk “Fungi That Eat Worms: Nature’s Tiny Predators at Work” during her visit. We learned a lot!

Picture: Ping with MEOW lab members tour the Bloomberg building after a good lunch at the Telescope Institute (NASA) cafeteria.

Thank you for your visit. We hope there will be opportunities to work together!

We welcome Prof. Jonathan Woodward from University of Tokyo for his much anticipated 5-day visit to Johns Hopkins and the lecture in the special seminar “Microspectroscopic Detection of Magnetic Field Sensitive Radical Pair Processes in Biological Systems”.

Jonny is the pioneer in quantum biology and our close collaborator in engineering magnetosensitive proteins to control biochemical reactions and modulate cell behaviors. Over the years,  our two groups have made interesting findings together.

We were very excited to have Jonny visit us. Excitedly, we introduced landmarks in the Homewood campus, near the medical school and at the inner harbor.

Of course, we also dined together, exchanging scientific notes and sharing anecdotes.

We had a great time learning from Jonny and brainstorming new experiments. We are very glad to return the great hospitality provided by Jonny and his wonderful group when Yun visited Tokyo earlier this year.

Thank you for the collaboration- we are very fortunate.

We are happy to have Dr. Taro Kumitomi from Juntendo University visit us on this breezy Friday in May.

As a physician, Taro came to receive a short-term clinical training at Johns Hopkins Hospital for two weeks. He efficiently combined the visit to MEOW lab in the same trip.

We exchanged ideas about research in biophysics and medicine. Taro participated in our lab meeting and toured our laboratories.

We are touched that Taro’s interest in joining our research team in the near future. A over-due group dinner to welcome our visitors and to celebrate Eileen’s and Daniel’s birthdays ensued after the busy day.

The dinner was an echo of another pleasant dinner with Taro, Dr. Takehiro Yasukawa and other colleagues in Tokyo back in this past February.

We hope to see you soon, Taro!

During the first week of March, we attended the second Quantum Biology Gordon Conference in beautiful Tuscany, Italy. More details are here.

Due to the rules stipulated by GRC, we did not take photos to commemorate the posters and the talks given by us. But we had a lot of fun learning new and exciting research, exchanging notes and discussing future plans together.

We also found time to have some wine tasting and take a group photo of MEOW lab members on our way to the vineyard. We were very happy to celebrate the news that Alejandro will join us as a postdoc very soon! Can you tell that our smiles were brighter than the Tuscan sun? Welcome aboard again Alejandro!

We made new friends. Hiking with new friends was an adventure through wooded paths and flooded trails. It was great to see so many kindred spirits from other countries who find quantum biology interesting!

Overall, we had enjoyed the GRC very much, despite knowing there was some troubling news  and a lot of uncertainty waiting when we got home. Discussing with our long-term collaborators Drs. Woodward, Bowen and Kim, and many more old/new friends psyched us to move forward bravely!

(We love Mike!)

We also visited Florence before heading home.

Hopefully, one day, our work will be remembered, like Michelangelo’s!