Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes students in the "Nanobiomaterials" course have produced a series of blog posts that discuss this cutting-edge field for their capstone projects. This three-week course was taught by Jagannath Padmanabhan, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Surgery at Stanford, and featured a guest lecture by Professor Geoffrey Gurtner and visits to the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility.
In addition to learning about the basics of nanobiomaterials (definitions, classifications, design considerations, applications and challenges) students studied the scientific method which meant evaluating primary literature, creating a hypothesis, crafting an experimental design, and interpreting results. As part of this process, groups of 2 or 3 students produced high-quality blog articles that reviewed primary literature on various topics.
The idea came to Padmanabhan after he wrote a review article with his Ph.D. advisor. With that review of nanomaterials in 2014, Padmanabhan believed he had paid tribute to scientists who inspired him, and this course seeks to do the same thing. He added that these reviews also have a clear pedagogical value, commenting:
"My teaching philosophy is that when you give students the right tools and let them explore a topic of their choice, they not only learn 'research' on their own initiative but they also produce great work which can be used for educating others and science communication."
Read the five articles below:
Nanoparticles: the Grand Quest to Circumvent Bodily Rejection
Be Nice to Teeth, They have Fillings too (Using Nanobiomaterials)
The solution to the clean water crisis may be smaller than you could ever imagine
Enhancing Conventional Cancer Treatments with the use of Carbon Nanotubes
Tissue Regeneration after a Heart Attack with Nanobiomaterials