Unsolved Problems and Challenges in Medicine, Technology, and Beyond
Identifying Unsolved Problems and Taking on Challenges in Medicine, Technology, and Beyond
Senior faculty are increasingly called upon to serve on advisory boards of centers, institutes, and programs worldwide. In these roles, they hone the ability to solve problems beyond their own disciplines—skills that, when brought back to their home institutions, can transform approaches to science, engineering, and medicine. These problem-solving frameworks are not only powerful but teachable: students, postdocs, staff, and junior colleagues can all learn how to identify and tackle meaningful, unsolved challenges.
Join Dr. Paul S. Weiss, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Bioengineering, and Materials Science & Engineering at UCLA, for this talk, as he shares how this mindset has shaped several of his group’s recent initiatives, from efficient, safe, and economical high-throughput gene editing, to personalized medicine, invisible sunscreens, suturable hernia patches, and non-toxic fire retardants. He will also explore how this interdisciplinary, impact-driven approach serves as both an educational model and a recruiting tool, uniting curious, creative faculty and trainees around high-stakes research questions with real-world consequences.
About Paul S. Weiss
Paul S. Weiss is a nanoscientist and holds a UC Presidential Chair and is a distinguished professor of chemistry & biochemistry, bioengineering, and materials science & engineering at UCLA, where he was previously director of the California NanoSystems Institute. He currently holds visiting appointments at Harvard’s Wyss Institute and several universities in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, and Korea. He studies the ultimate limits of miniaturization, developing and applying new tools and methods for atomic-resolution and spectroscopic imaging and patterning of chemical functionality. He and his group apply these advances in other areas including neuroscience, microbiome studies, tissue engineering, cellular agriculture, high-throughput gene editing, liquid biopsies, and personalized medicine. He led, coauthored, and published the technology roadmaps for the BRAIN Initiative and the U.S. Microbiome Initiative. He was the founding editor-in-chief of ACS Nano and served in that role from 2007–2021. He has won awards in science, engineering, teaching, publishing, and communications. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, AAAS, ACS, AIMBE, APS, AVS, Canadian Academy of Engineering, IEEE, MRS, National Academy of Inventors, and an honorary fellow of the Chinese Chemical Society and Chemical Research Society of India.