Hi.
Welcome back to eat your crust podcast.
I'm Crystal.
I'm Jisoo.
And I'm Eric.
This year, we wanted to focus a little more on career paths on the podcast, and today we brought on a friend who is pursuing a higher degree to talk about what it's like and kind of what it entails within his industry.
Yeah, Eric is a long term family friend of mine who is currently pursuing a bioengineering PhD.
And actually right now for the summer, he's in Boston doing a summer internship as well.
So, Eric, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what made you decide to pursue a PhD?
Yeah, so, my name is Eric.
I just finished my fourth year of bioengineering PhD at the University of California, San Diego, or UCSD.
And, yeah, yeah, we all went to UCSD at some point.
That's cool.
So my lab focuses on using nanoparticles.
I'm in a.
Even though I'm a bioengineering student, I'm actually in the nano engineering program.
Research wise, I'm in the lab of doctor Nicole Steinmetz.
In our lab, we use plant viruses for a lot of different, like, a wide variety of different applications, ranging from things like cancer vaccines, infectious diseases, even agriculture.
But my work really kind of bridges, I think, the cancer and the vaccine side.
So I work on a lot of cancer applications as well as vaccine applications.