Coronavirus: From Genome Sequencing to mRNA Vaccine Production, in Less Than One Year!

Presenter: Tim Herman, Ph.D, Milwaukee School of Engineering & 3D Molecular Designs

Thursday, March 31st - 9:30am

COVID 19: Science to the Rescue! The COVID 19 pandemic has created many challenges for educators over the past two years. Amidst all this chaos, there is one positive outcome of this pandemic – it has provided educators in the molecular biosciences with an opportunity to highlight the power of modern molecular biology and the many ways in which this science has been used to provide solutions to the control of this virus. This workshop will tell the story of the COVID 19 pandemic from the perspective of the CoV-2 virus, the structure of the spike protein, the molecular mechanism of the infection process and the successful application of an mRNA vaccine to provide protection from infection. Workshop participants will use physical models of the Cov-2 coronavirus – enhanced by Augmented Reality – to explore these topics.