SSU Engineering Students Visiting Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Four engineering students, Anthony Arjona, Joshua Paine, Jesus Gonzalez Villafuerte and Matthew Rosi were invited to visit Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS). The visit was arranged by Dr. Corie Ralston, head of Berkeley Center for Structural Biology Physical, at Biosciences Division Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The purpose of the trip was to explore how the engineering students at Sonoma State can assist the team of scientists at the Berkeley Lab to automate their fluorescence signal collection process while adjusting the X-ray dose to the protein samples. Through this process the researchers at the Berkeley Lab can catch the snapshots of the state of molecules at a particular time and learn about a protein's native state. In this visit, Dr. Sayan Gupta, a research scientist at the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division, demonstrated how the X-ray beamline at the ALS is currently being used to study protein samples. "This collaboration is a great example of how complex problems require multidisciplinary approaches. We are very excited that our engineering students have the opportunity to collaborate with the researchers at the Berkeley Lab and assist them to improve their system," pointed out Dr. Farid Farahmand, an engineering faculty at SSU.