Nerd Nite @ Live in Ann Arbor

Nerd Nite

Talks start at 7:00pm. These events are sponsored by the Ann Arbor District Library. Parking is $1.65/hr in the city parking structures. The surface lot across from the venue is $2.65/hr.

Gather ‘round for an evening of informed and informal talks from a friendly neighborhood expert! We’ll have three speakers, each presenting on a different topic and sharing interesting facts that you never knew you never knew! Past Nerd Nite speakers have led deep dives into topics from the legacy of Louis Pasteur, to the origin of elements, to how a trumpet works, to a dissection of romance novel tropes. So bring a friend, grab a drink, and enjoy an evening among fellow nerds. Be there and be square!

SPEAKERS
We’ll start with Critical Hits in Medicine: How to find the weak points of a multidrug resistant fungal pathogen. Pathogenic fungi are continually evolving resistances to antifungal drugs, which necessitates further research into developing new medications. Antifungals kill a pathogen by targeting essential genes that the fungus needs to survive, but how do we find which genes are essential? In this talk, Dr. Ajay Larkin will review how survivorship bias can help biologists learn which genes are critical for cell growth!

Dr. Ajay Larkin is part of the Michigan Medicine Department of Microbiology and Immunology, where he studies gene essentiality, gene regulation, and high-frequency promiscuous gene incorporation in the emerging fungal pathogen, Candida auris. Dr. Larkin received his Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

From there, we’ll turn to Reckoning with Deeds of Injustice. Justin Schell will share an update from the Justice InDeed project that focuses on racially restrictive covenants in Washtenaw County, including publicly available maps and data created by more than a thousand volunteers. He’ll discuss tools the project has to help us all reckon with and repair the harms done by this particular lineage of individual and structural racism that informs persistent segregation and inequality in our communities.

Justin is a librarian, media producer, and bumper sticker aficionado. Most of his daily activities revolve around the demands of his two calico cats, Scanner and Pixel.

We’ll end the night with Oxygen is good for you…or is it? Humans have evolved to need oxygen to live, but on the flip side that same evolution has made us uniquely sensitive to reactive oxygen species. This has far-reaching impacts on us, including disease progression, drug development, and the exploding industry of antioxidants. Is the antioxidant industry onto something? Do we need help battling oxygen? Find out more with Ananya Sen, a microbiologist by training and a science writer at Michigan Medicine.

Nerd Nite A2 | Ann Arbor District Library

Nerd Nite Ann Arbor