Local Restaurant Recommendations from the Locals

Looking for somewhere to eat in San Diego? Locals offer their top picks for San Diego-area restaurants. Check out any of these locally recommended selections.

Café Sevilla
Type of Cuisine: Spanish (tapas bar)
Distance from Convention Center: 0.3 miles
Cost per person: $1-$25
Great atmosphere, good food, novel. Slightly pricey.

Neighborhood
Type of Cuisine: Modern American Gastropub
Distance from Convention Center: 0.5 miles
Cost per person: $1-$25
Great selection of local craft beers complemented by good food.

The Oceanaire Seafood Room
Type of Cuisine: Seafood
Distance from Convention Center: 2 blocks
Cost per person: $50-$100
Oyster selection is excellent and fish generally very good.

Salt Box
Type of Cuisine: New American
Distance from Convention Center: 4 blocks
Cost per person: $25-$50
Great cocktails, great food—especially the pumpkin soup, best ever!

Extraordinary Desserts
Type of Cuisine: Dessert/bar/small plates
Distance from Convention Center: (2 locations) 0.5 mile, 1.5 miles
Cost per person: $1-$25
Best desserts in the city—tasty and beautifully presented. They also serve meals, but the desserts are the focus. Great coffee, sandwiches, and a full bar.

The Fish Market
Type of Cuisine: Seafood
Distance from Convention Center: 0.9 miles
Cost per person: $25-$50
Excellent variety of seafood, all uniformly high in quality. Fabulous views.

Cucina Urbana
Type of Cuisine: Italian
Distance from Convention Center: 2 miles
Cost per person: $25-$50
Great food, great atmosphere. Italian with a Californian twist.

Crest Café
Type of Cuisine: American
Distance from Convention Center: 4 miles
Cost per person: $1-$25
Great diverse cuisine served quickly without pretension.

Pizza Nova
Type of Cuisine: Italian
Distance from Convention Center: 4 miles
Cost per person: $1-$25
Good food with an unusual twist.

Solare
Type of Cuisine: Italian
Distance from Convention Center: 4 miles
Cost per person: $25-$50
Very good food and atmosphere, reasonable prices, and ample parking.

El Agave
Type of Cuisine: Authentic Mexican
Distance from Convention Center: 4.4 miles
Cost per person: $25-$50
Really good authentic Mexican moles (not tacos, quesadillas, etc.). More varieties of tequila than you’ve ever seen before.

Point Loma Seafoods
Type of Cuisine: Seafood
Distance from Convention Center: 5 miles
Cost per person: $1-$25
Great place for lunch—not open for dinner.

Phil’s BBQ
Type of Cuisine: Barbecue
Distance from Convention Center: 5 miles
Cost per person: $1-$25
Great-quality food and inexpensive.

Flavors of East Africa
Type of Cuisine: East African
Distance from Convention Center: 5.3 miles
Cost per person: $1-$25
Delicious and affordable.

Bali Hai
Type of Cuisine: Hawaiian Fusion
Distance from Convention Center: 6.8 miles
Cost per person: $25-$50
Good food, reasonably priced, great cocktails, and not to forget, an incredible view of San Diego Bay and downtown San Diego!

Tacos El Gordo
Type of Cuisine: Mexican
Distance from Convention Center: 7.2 miles
Cost per person: $1-$25
They make probably the best tacos ever.

Los Arcos
Type of Cuisine: Mexican Seafood
Distance from Convention Center: 9 miles
Cost per person: $25-$50
This Mexican seafood is authentic (they have actual restaurants in Mexico), delicious, and there are lots of choices.

Don’t see your favorite San Diego restaurant on the list? Share it with 56th Annual Meeting attendees here.

Open Letter to BPS – Sincerely, Kansas

Ladies and gentlemen,

For the next few paragraphs I am going to convince you that this blog is going to be so riveting, so incredibly insightful, and so controversial that it will be the first thing you want to read in the morning, and the last sight you want to see before you sleep.  I will convince you that even though I’m a mere undergraduate (on my way out!), wisdom pours from me like BS from politicians.

But in reality, the vast majority of BPS meeting-goers won’t even read this post.  That’s okay with me; I’m not a big blog reader myself.  For those of you brave souls who care enough, or have such an incredible amount of downtime to read this, I promise to make it entertaining, concise, and most importantly, somewhat meaningful.

My name is Gage Brummer, and I’m 22 years old from the geographic center of the United States – Kansas.  I’m able to attend this meeting because of a travel award I won at The Scripps Research Institute for a poster I presented (read: my poster is pretty stunning, you would be a fool to miss it.)  Tomorrow night I will finish teaching an organic chemistry lab at 10:30, drive the 2 hours from Manhattan (Little Apple) to Kansas City, and board a plane for SD at 5:50 in the morning.  So I’m pretty pumped about that.

That’s all you need, and probably wish, to know about me.  So on to what my posts will primarily include.  Look forward to:

1. Picturesque descriptions of awkward moments that I observe or am directly involved in at the meeting.
2. Drink specials and drinks worth getting more than one of.
3. Interesting anecdotes from the hostel that I am staying at.
4. Poems and soliloquies inspired by the South California sun and its liberal rays of glory.

I hope I’ve got you hooked.  If I don’t, then I’m not going to cry, but there’s a really good chance that my psyche will be bruised for a while.  I’ll now let you get back to your regularly programmed life, wishing you the happiest of days and the most pleasant of meeting experiences.

SEE YOU IN SAN DIEGO, FRIENDS.

G

Small Scientist, Big Conference: First Timer Looking for Advice

Before you get too far into this post I have a confession to make:

I have never been to a conference.

I’ve been to a few poster sessions held by my small liberal arts college and one regional meeting, but I have never attended a big scientific meeting.

I’m an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, and in three days I’ll roll up my poster, put on my flip-flop, and fly across the country to San Diego to attend my very first scientific meeting. Luckily, in this tech savvy era I have resources. So I’m blogging about my adventure to California and attempting to bring as many wiser and more worldly scientists as possible along with me.

That’s where you come in.

I want to know what you want to see.

•        Which new and notable has you the most excited?
•        Which subgroups, platforms, and symposia will be the best?
•        Who presents the nicest posters?

Leave a comment and let me know. If more than one person recommends it, I’ll go, and I’ll blog all about it.

Preparing for the Big Show in San Diego.

The Big Show is what I refer to the many times you will see biophysicists and researchers alike show there work.  I am excited to see the fascinating research that awaits in San Diego.  The Biophysical Society meetings, unfortunately, are only 5 days out of the year where we can come together to disseminate our work, network, and learn all the while having a good time as a part of BPS.  I look forward to the blogging and comments on various topics of the 2012 meeting!

My name is Eric M. Johnson-Chavarria and I am 4th year graduate student at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign’s Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology Program.   I am currently working on single cell gene expression using a microfluidic device for free solution confinement.  I am Texas native and took some getting use to the cold winters here in Illinois.   My background is in physics at the University of Texas San Antonio.  Planning for two more years till PhD completion then hopefully back in the Lonestar state.  I am giving my prelim exam at the beginning of May, so I am currently pushing for more and more data!

Here is a brief list of the topics I plan to write about…so stay tuned!

• Nanoscale Biophysics Subgroup meeting
• Travel award reception
• Graduate and Postdoc Institution Fair (Ill be representing my program…stop by Sunday 1-3pm if your interested)
• Of course the keynote lecture, poster, and oral presentations
• Local hotspots and dining

Safe travels and see you all soon!

Eric

The data that I mentioned.

Rolling Cells on the BiophysJ Cover

Mehmet Toner and his group at the BioMEMS Resource Center, Massachusetts General Hospital describe the illustration that appears on the cover of the current issue of Biophysical Journal.

A longstanding interest in our lab is the sorting and separation of complex mixtures of cells, which is important for diagnostics, therapeutics, and basic cell biology. Our general approach has been based on the selective capture of cells using antibody-functionalized surfaces in microfluidic devices. However, interfacial phenomena at low Reynolds numberscan impose “speed limits” on how efficiently cells can be captured.

For the cover image, we worked with medical illustrator Janet Sinn-Hanlon to visualize the two physical mechanisms utilized to circumvent these “speed limits.” Our microfluidic device incorporated a nanoporous, fluid-permeable membrane that allowed us to steer cells directly towards the bottom capture surface. To illustrate this, the background of the image shows a mixture of target cells (red) and other cells (green) entering the microfluidic channel. As these cells travel from the image background towards the viewer, we also emphasized their movement downward on the page. Janet conveyed this idea by progressively increasing the opacity of the cells and sharpening the focus. In addition, streamlines and bubbles were used to suggest a sense of movement in the fluid.

After being transported to the membrane, the cells must also interact specifically with antibodies by “rolling” in order to be captured. Since the flow is primarily directed into the surface, the diminished flow along the surface promoted specific capture of target cells but also limited non-specific adhesion of other cells. This was illustrated by showing only the red cells rolling to a stop as they approached the foreground, while the green cells continued onward. This behavior is reminiscent of the in vivo “homing” of leukocytes and stem cells to porous vasculature during inflammation and injury.

We are thrilled that our image was chosen for the cover of Biophysical Journal, in conjunction with the publication of this article. The fundamental ideas and issues we explored are highly relevant for the development of new microfluidic technologies to diagnose cancer, burns, and trauma, or HIV/AIDS. We hope this cover inspires public interest in the exciting research problems we investigate at the interface of the physical sciences, clinical biomedicine and technological development, which are described further at our website, http://cem.sbi.org.

Style and Science at the BPS Meeting

I’m planning to run an experiment while attending this years BPS meeting. No, I’m not talking about the computational experiments on membrane proteins that I’ll be cranking out back at University of Toronto. Rather, I’ll be carrying out a photography experiment.

The first thing that comes to mind might be a study of how fast I am tackled and physically injured after photographing unpublished scientific research. Out of respect for the BPS photography regulations and my own well-being, that experiment will not be conducted. Instead, my aim is to photograph stylish scientists, Sartorialist-style.

If the blog “This is What a Scientist Looks Like” has taught us anything, it’s that scientists have bizarre hobbies. Discounting that, it illustrates that many scientists possess a fashion sense! I’m not talking about conceptual runway fashions here, I’m talking about  adhering to some basic set of sartorial guidelines for men and women. If fashion really isn’t your thing, you have nothing to worry about (no fashion don’ts).

I’ll be on the hunt for individuals looking sharp and going that extra angstrom on their BPS presentation outfit. As you can imagine, I can’t be everywhere at once so if you notice a smartly dressed scientist at BPS this year, snap a paparazzi photo and throw me an email.

Resume/CV uploading

I just finished uploading my CV to the BPS job board and it was MUCH MUCH MUCH more difficult than I anticipated and than it should be.  If you read no further, read this: format your CV first in microsoft word (I used PC and I don’t know if Mac will give other issues).  The .docx format is fine.  BUT – once you upload the file, it will go through an html interpreter that will screw up the formatting.  Then you get to go by hand and fix it.  DO NOT upload a pdf.  The interpreter is terrible with the pdf format, in my single experience.

Why couldn’t the format have only been pdf, which is then saved without any html interpretation and printed straight into the employers book they will receive?  These formats are equally searchable electronically.  All the trouble of html interpretation and the by-hand fixing it requires is nonsense.  Plus, some of the formatting just isn’t possible unless you are willing to hash your own code.

Okay, wanted to get that out there for anyone else who was planing to wait until the Feb 21 deadline for submission to get incorporated into the Resume/CV Binder for the conference.