The Craft Center Visiting Artist for Winter Term is glassblowing artist, Dan Friday. 

Dan Friday is a Skagit Valley–based artist and member of the Lummi Nation who has spent over 30 years working primarily in glass. His work draws heavily on Coast Salish imagery and cultural traditions, expressed through contemporary glass art. Friday has taught at numerous institutions and craft schools, founded the Native Youth Outreach Program at Pilchuck Glass School in 2017, and completed residencies at major museums and cultural centers worldwide. His work has earned multiple prestigious awards, appeared on Netflix’s Blown Away, and is held in museum and private collections internationally.

Exhibition On View: January 5-March 20 The Craft Center gallery is located on the 2nd floor of the Erb Memorial Union by the Adell Mcmillan gallery. Artist Talk & Reception: February 6, 12pm-1pm Join us at the Craft Center for an inspiring artist talk with Dan Friday. This event is free. Registration is required. Please register by visiting myemu.uoregon.edu. Glassblowing Demonstration: February 6, 1pm-4pm & February 7, 1pm-4pm Dan will demonstrate the techniques behind his glass sculptures, offering insight into the creative processes that shape his work, with two demo offerings available. Participants will also have the opportunity to engage in discussion about his art and studio practices. Free. Registration required at myemu.uoregon.edu.

The Department of Bioengineering is pleased to host Dr. Farshid Guilak, Mildred B. Simon Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University, Director of Research for the St. Louis Shriners Hospitals for Children, and co-director of the Washington University Center of Regenerative Medicine.

Please join us Monday, March 16, from 1:00 - 2:00 pm in the Knight Campus Beetham Seminar Room, followed by a brief networking reception. Dr. Guilak's talk is titled “Reprogramming stem cells with synthetic gene circuits: It’s about time!” 

Dr. Farshid Guilak is the Mildred B. Simon Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University, Director of Research for the St. Louis Shriners Hospitals for Children, and co-director of the Washington University Center of Regenerative Medicine. His laboratory focuses on multidisciplinary approaches that combine biology and bioengineering to study arthritis, with the goal of developing new stem cell therapies or pharmacologic treatments for arthritis. He has published over 440 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has co-edited four books. He has won numerous national and international awards, including seven honors for excellence in mentoring, most recently the renaming of the Orthopaedic Research Society’s mentoring award to the “Farshid GuilakExcellence in Mentoring Award”. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Inventors for advances in the fields of regenerative medicine and mechanobiology, including the applications of synthetic biology to these fields. He is also the founder of several biotechnology startup companies.

Reprogramming stem cells with synthetic gene circuits: It’s about time! Arthritis represents a painful and debilitating family of joint diseases that is characterized by progressive degeneration of the articular cartilage and other joint tissues; however, there are currently few disease-modifying treatments available. Using several methods for genome engineering, we have reprogrammed pluripotent stem cells to create living tissue replacements that possess intrinsic capabilities for biologic drug delivery with tunable, inducible, or feedback-controlled, auto-regulated biological responses. Using this approach, we have developed synthetic gene circuits that respond to inflammatory pathways by secreting anti-inflammatory biologic drugs. We have also created “mechanogenetic” gene circuits that express therapeutic transgenes in response to defined mechanical signals, and synthetic “chronogenetic” gene circuits that delivery drugs on a prescribed timed basis. Such “smart” cells and living implants can provide controlled drug delivery and immunomodulatory responses for a wide variety of conditions. —LT

ASUO will be opening the Price Science Library, Week 10 and finals week, and will be open everyday for 24 hours.