2008 Eighth Annual Beckman Scholars Symposium
Saturday Guest Speaker

Michael Berns, Ph.D.
Department of Biomedical Engineering and Beckman Laser Institute
University of California, Irvine
Department of Bioengineering
University of California, San Diego

Laser Scissors and Tweezers In Space and Time

Laser scissors and laser tweezers have evolved in space and time in consonance with an array of other optical and molecular tools. This presentation will focus on the use of pulsed lasers for cutting and CW lasers for optical tweezers (traps) in combination with genetically engineered fluorescent proteins and image processing techniques to study the relatively slow movement of chromosomes during mitosis and the relatively fast movement of sperm from a variety of species (humans, monkeys, cats, and dogs). These studies have practical applications in the fields of genetics and fertility in both humans and endangered species. They are being conducted using a robotic laser microscope, RoboLase, that can be operated via the internet from anywhere in the world by anyone with high-speed computer access.

Michael Berns, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Professor at University of California Irvine, is also Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Surgery, and Cell Biology at UC Irvine, and Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego.

While at UC Irvine Professor Berns has served as Chairman of the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, Founding Director of the Center for Biomedical Engineering, and Co-Founder with Arnold O. Beckman of the Beckman Laser Institute in 1982.

Dr. Berns earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York -- specializing in genetics, cell biology and developmental biology. He has published more than 400 research articles and has authored and/or edited five books that have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Serbo-Croatian. He is currently editing a book titled LASER SCISSORS AND TWEEZERS to be published in 2007 by Academic Press.

Professor Berns was awarded the UCI Medal in 1984 (the highest honor awarded by the University of California, Irvine) and elected one of a few foreign members of the Royal Norwegian Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2001 he was elected Fellow of the Zoological Society of San Diego for his application of laser technology to the preservation of rare and endangered species. In 2005 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Society of Optical Engineers.