Patricia Chin

Class of 2020

Education: BS in Biology at UCSD; MS in Biological Sciences at Cal Poly

 

Biography

Patricia was born and raised in the beautiful city of San Francisco, where she attended Lowell High School. After graduating, she pursued higher education at U.C. San Diego, obtaining a B.S. in Biology, as well as a double minor in Literature/Writing and Chemistry with emphasis on Organic Chemistry. Although she has always loved biology, it wasn't until she started working on her own project at the Schjerven Lab at UC San Francisco that she fell in love with research. She aims to work in one or more of her fields of interest: neuroregeneration, limb and organ regeneration, hematopoietic research, or cancer research. She loves how the very definition of the omnipotent stem cell entails limitless possibilities because her goals in life are just as infinite. After she attains her master’s, she will either undoubtedly continue pursuing her passion, whether by pursuing a higher degree or directly donning a lab coat and getting to work.

Patricia did her internship at ViaCyte, Inc. in the Cell Process Development department under Emily Benz and Alan Agulnick. She was involved in scaling-up and closing the process in which human embryonic stem cells are differentiated into pancreatic beta cell precursors (PEC-01™). She achieved this by optimizing the use of bioreactors in lieu of using traditional cell culture techniques. This contributed to the advancement of ViaCyte’s goal to produce a functional cure for type 1 Diabetes.