The pandemic has made life difficult for most people, but it also has created some interesting opportunities. Because UW students couldn’t attend classes in person in 2020 and 2021, those in science majors were unable to work in labs. Students missed opportunities to further their education and gain hands-on experience. However, two UW professors came up with a clever way to keep their students engaged and learning. James Lai, former UW Bioengineering research associate professor now at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and John Hill, affiliate associate professor in UW Bioengineering, invited their students to gather research on exosomes and write a paper about their findings to benefit other researchers. For more than 12 months, four UW undergraduate students collaborated on the study with five university students living in Taiwan, which led to the paper being published in the respected journal Advanced Science.
The four UW students are new graduates Ruby Lunde (bioengineering ’22) and Samuel (Sam) Chen (mechanical engineering, ’22) as well as rising seniors in bioengineering Zoe Chau and Joanne Liu. Katalin Korpany, UW Bioengineering research scientist, was also a co-author on the paper.
