Friday, October 16, 2009
- Jazz Fusion
- Duende Radio
- Paris Radio
I consider myself being rather adventurous most of the time, in that I have my own little obsessions with the exotics and the unknowns. However, when it comes to art, I have a particular, and in some way, conservative taste. This summer, I have been building up my tolerance and expanding my palate to the myriad of other art forms besides impressionism. It took me quite a journey to take off my color lenses. But I think it's worth a shot. A friend once said, "art, after all, is just a social phenomenon." I think it somewhat makes sense.
EVEN techno.. hmm... hmm?
Hi Matisse.
(in process)
Manual Human Femoral Head Reamer
Human Knee Device
(completed)
Human Femur Device
Human Acetabulum Device
Goat Femur Device
Goat Acetabulum Device
Molds for Injection Molding
This is for my E25 (Biotechnology) final project - yeah, I know, it's a joke. They said we could choose to interview a scientist, or do a demonstration, or a webpage, or a form of art... basically anything that we could potentially justify that it is related to biotechnology... One day, I ran into someone in my dorm who eats 6+ eggs every meal. Suddenly, I got the inspiration for this comics...
The photo on the right was snapped by Dow Jones Newswires’ Jennifer Corbett Dooren, who visited Sanofi-Aventis’s new vaccine plant in Swiftwater, Pa. The new plant is a testament to the efforts to ramp up vaccine manufacturing capacity, not only to produce more annual flu shots, but also to be able to crank out more doses in a hurry the next time a pandemic emerges.
The new plant cost Sanofi $150 million; the company will also upgrade its older vaccine plant, with the help of a $77.4 million federal grant.
Yet the picture is a reminder that, while newer manufacturing technology is emerging, flu vaccine is still mostly made in a months-long process that requires incubation in millions of chicken eggs.
Spurred by warnings of an impending worldwide influenza epidemic, biotechnology companies are racing to develop faster ways to make flu vaccines.
With current vaccine manufacturing methods, it would take six months to create a clinically tested vaccine if a pandemic started today. By that time, the virus could have circled the globe.
Traditional Flu Vaccine Production Process
Flu vaccines are currently grown in eggs, a lengthy process that requires large numbers of embryos. But many companies such as Baxter are developing methods that use cell culture, a technique that could potentially grow vaccines in several weeks, rather than the months necessary for egg-based production. In the cell-culture process, cells are infected with the virus and then grown in tanks, like those used for fermenting beer.
Progress in vaccine technology has been slow because the vaccines do not provide enough economic incentive for manufacturers. In November, the WHO convened an unprecedented closed-door meeting to encourage public-private partnerships and gather financial support. Several countries have agreed to support programs to develop pandemic vaccines.
Last month, WHO has cleared Baxter to create a mock-up swine flu immunization as the outbreak continues. Baxter will now develop the treatment, to be called Celvapan, after the pharmaceutical company was contacted by the WHO about developing a vaccine.
Vero Cell Flu Vaccine Production Process
Baxter’s Vero cell technology uses a well-established cell line originally derived from African green monkey kidney cells in 1962. A continuous cell line has been derived from these cells so that an unlimited supply of cells is available without the requirement of generating additional cells from animals.
To produce a vaccine using Vero cell technology, a frozen vial of seed or starter virus is thawed and then injected into a large bioreactor, where it grows and reproduces. The virus is then harvested from the bioreactor and inactivated. It then undergoes purification and quality testing before it is formulated and filled into vials or syringes. Baxter grows “wild-type,” or natural, virus directly in its Vero cell culture, which reduces production time.
Wild-type virus is important because Baxter can work with the virus as it exists in nature, and create a vaccine with a better fit to the virus circulating in nature, working with a genetically altered strain of the virus.

My final project for a class ME203 (Manufacturing Design) at Stanford (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLHyktiN6tQ). I wanted to make a paintbrush cleaner that can 1) separate paint and turpentine after washing so that the liquid always stays relatively clear; 2) hold paintbrushes of different sizes when they're not in use; 3) hold a roll of paper towel for drying.
Furthermore, besides holding paintbrushes, it can be used for dining as well. The aluminum sink can be used for placing dining wares. The acrylic display disks can be used for umm...bread sticks? or forks and knifes... A soup bowl can be suspended on the swing-like structure. Doesn't that make an awesome meal? Hell yes!
The entire project is made of aluminum, acrylic and polycarbonate which I machined on lathe, mill and laser-camm. Three acrylic disks have holes of different sizes and can slide past each other. 
My last day at EAP, my art school in Paris. On my way back home, I almost cried. The thought of leaving has been lingering in my mind since last week. And I have been praying for the time to stop and that day never comes... I don't really know why I have this particularly strong affection for this place. Probably it's because of the special crowd who share the same interest with me, probably because of the chance it offered me to be eventually able to discover the other side of myself, probably because of the joy of a greater ability to express my feeling in a brushstroke of jaune or violet, probably because of... chais pas.
Maybe one day I will be back here, and go to an art school in Paris?...
和好友背着画具外出,每遇雅致之处,不是立马举起相机,而是不约而同地翻开画册,用自己的画笔来诠释眼前的景色。绘画将我一步步地推进我的理想小世界。一切热血青年的想法--浪迹天涯。Maybe I should just stick with my BME?...