On November 14, 2014, 60 of NYU Shanghai’s Foundations of Science (FoS) students—freshmen and sophomores, along with faculty and staff, visited the GE China Technology Center in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park. GE has been involved in China for over one hundred years and has played a pivotal role in innovating greener and cleaner solutions to address the country’s energy needs. Other than creating solutions to China’s energy demands, GE has focused on areas such as healthcare and medical research in order to improve the efficiency and lower the cost of medical treatment in China.
Visiting this center allowed students to see technology that has been developed to address these issues in China and will hopefully inspire them to use their science education toward innovating new solutions for future problems.
For their second field trip to Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park on December 5, FoS students, faculty, and staff visited the National Center for Protein Science Shanghai (NCPSS). Recently completed in 2013, this research center's primary focus areas include the decoding and maintenance of genetic information, biological processes across membranes, non-coding RNA-protein interaction and molecular mechanisms, and techniques in the discipline of supramolecular chemistry. For most students, this trip was their first exposure to large-scale protein production, mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and laser and electron microscopy.
If pursuing a career in the biology field of protein science, it is possible that students will one day use these instruments in conducting cutting-edge research. This is also a good opportunity to build further collaboration on research for faculty and staff.
Often coined the "Silicon Valley of China," Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park is most known for its inclusion of companies such as GE, Intel, Sony, eBay, IBM, and Citibank. As the trips provided exposure to such high-level industry and research institutions, students expressed a rejuvenated interest in the life sciences, stimulated by the trip's tours. With an open mind and an open future, this budding interest can develop into the pursuit of significant research and a promising career.
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Written by Francesca Goodstein, Biology GAF