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Imoigele Aisiku. Courtesy Imoigele Aisiku

By Daniel Dunaief

Stony Brook University named physician-scientist Dr. Imoigele “Imo” Aisiku as chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine, starting Aug. 15.

A national leader who has dedicated his career to critical care and neurocritical care in emergency medicine, Aisiku worked for more than a decade at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Aisiku, who was born in Nigeria and raised in Brooklyn and Auburn, Massachusetts, found several factors appealing about the Stony Brook role.

“My immediate family is predominantly in the Northeast” stretching from New York to Richmond, Virginia,” he said. Additionally, he suggested that numerous aspects of the role were “right in my area of expertise.”

His experience at Brigham and Women’s Hospital involved integrating systems, and he recognizes the opportunity to deploy that skill set at Stony Brook, where he will help integrate the emergency department at different hospitals.

He also has considerable experience in critical care, which is a strength at SBU.

“There are some natural synergies that you couldn’t script” he added, including strong clinical interest in stroke, telehealth, critical care and a desire to develop a systems integration model

Indeed, before he came to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Aisiku worked at the University of Texas at Houston. UT Houston/Memorial Hermann was one of the earliest to be named a JCAHO Comprehensive Stroke Center.

Aisiku was the medical director of their neurosurgery intensive care unit, which had one of the first mobile stroke units in the country. The unit was a collaboration between EMS, neurology, the stroke division, EM and the ICU.

A mobile stroke unit can provide critical and timely diagnostics and care for people having a stroke, which can not only save lives but can also lead to a dramatic improvement in the outcome after a stroke event for patients.

Stony Brook currently has two mobile stroke units and is working on adding a third.

“I hope to leverage what is the strength of Stony Brook with my experiences” and strengthen any weaknesses in a bidirectional manner, said Aisiku, who will report to Peter Igarashi, dean of the Renaissance School of Medicine.

For his part, Igarashi was eager to welcome the new addition to the emergency department.

“We are thrilled that Dr. Aisiku will lead Stony Brook’s remarkable team of emergency physicians,” Igarashi said in a statement. “As a pioneering physician-scientist in neurocritical care, and as an emergency medicine scholar and researcher, Dr. Aisiku will help advance our capacity to save lives and care for critically ill patients in the years to come.”

Evolutionary change

The new emergency department chair is hoping to learn more about Stony Brook’s strengths and weaknesses before implementing any changes.

“I hope to make a change and a difference,” Aisiku explained in an email. “I believe it is prudent to aim for evolutionary change and, if there is an opportunity, for positive revolutionary change.”

His goal is to see the department grow from a regional strength to a national and even an international strength.

He plans to develop partnerships with other chairs and departments and hopes to enhance programmatic and faculty development.

Aisiku also hopes to develop opportunities for faculty at Stony Brook, including in areas that involve research. He would like to see the department earn more National Institutes of Health and federal funding.

DEI experience

An accomplished physician, researcher and administrator, Aisiku also has considerable experience building and encouraging opportunities for underrepresented groups in medicine.

Aisiku was the founder and director of the Offices of IDEaS, which stands for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Social Justice, in Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he credits a team of faculty administrative staff and supportive chair for the success of that effort.

Aisiku “played a crucial role in the development of the office of IDEaS,” Jayelani Hall, administrative manager for Emergency Medicine and the Office of IDEaS at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, explained in an email. Aisiku’s vision for creating an inclusive environment and commitment to equity and diversity were “instrumental in shaping the initiatives and programs that define IDEaS today.”

IDEaS has launched several initiatives, such as the Profile in Diversity Series and the SPAK Grant program, which provides funding to projects that advance diversity, equity and inclusion.

The office established scholarship programs to support underrepresented students pursuing careers in medicine and health care, Hall added.

The president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital named Aisiku endowed Distinguished Chair in Health Equity and Diversity.

The broader Stony Brook area extending to New York City “draws diverse and international people to the region,” Aisiku explained. “While I acknowledge that [DEI] is an area of controversy in our country, I believe continuing to strive for diversity has a significant role for the development of our youth all the way to impacting our patients.”

In speaking with the leadership of the hospital and medical school, Aisiku believes his diversity goals are “aligned in these efforts” as he looks forward to developing strategies that will lead to diverse students, residents and faculty.

In addition to providing opportunities to students in the health care field, a more diverse population of caregivers enhances the patient experience, Aisiku contends.

A diverse health care force provides greater opportunity for patient choice and advocacy, he added.

Aisiku, who has master’s degrees in business administration from Goizueta School of Business and a master’s in clinical research from Rollings School of Public Health at Emory University, would like to partner with the business school and the school of public health, among others, to build diversity, which may broaden and enhance his efforts in this area.

People who have worked with Aisiku appreciate his commitment and openness to those around him.

Aisiku is “known for his compassion and dedication both as a physician and as a leader,” Hall wrote. “He consistently goes above and beyond to ensure that his patients receive the best care possible and his commitment to equity in health care is evident in all his endeavors.”

Hall suggested that the Stony Brook community is fortunate to have Aisiku in this role.

“Given his track record, I fully expect him to engage deeply with students, faculty and community members, fostering connections and driving positive change,” Hall explained.

From left to right, Robert Samuel Decosta Higgins, Jayelani Hall, Imoigele Aisiku, Ron Walls and Mike VanRooyen, at a ceremony for Aisiku. Photo courtesy Imoigele Aisiku

Telehealth experience

Over a decade ago, Aisiku started iDoc Telehealth Solutions, a telemedicine company dedicated to critical and neurocritical care and tele-stroke services, with the goal of providing this type of care to people in areas that didn’t have enough clinicians with that experience.

Since then, he has become co-CEO of a public company called VSEE Health.

He expects to pass the torch on to other executives. His commitment is to the university as his obligation to the company is for about four more months.

To be sure, he wants to ensure there are no conflicts of interest in his roles at Stony Brook and in the decision about how and in what ways the university can continue to build telehealth capacity.

“If there is an opportunity to enhance an area, with full disclosure, there can be pathways to achieve things that improve the patient experience while separating ‘church’ and ‘state’ so to speak,” he explained in an email.

Morana Lasic, interim chief diversity & inclusion officer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, suggested that Aisiku has served as a personal and institutional resource for a wide range of people.

Aisiku “works with those who are yet to enter the medical field and need mentorship, just as he does with institution presidents,” Lasic explained in an email. “He empowers those on his team and pays special attention to those who are often forgotten in mentorship (such as young administrative staff.)”

Lasic added that Aisiku was generous with his time and has reached out to her with emails and new thoughts and ideas at any time of day.

“Just like the rest of his life, his sleeping schedule is unique and his own, and he wears an Oura ring (which tracks sleep patterns) just to confuse it,” Lasic said.

In his research, Aisiku has focused on three areas: traumatic brain injury, subarachnoid hemorrhages and acute respiratory distress syndrome/sepsis.

Aisiku is living with his wife Diana, who is a nurse, and their 4 1/2-year-old son Myles in Westbury. They are in the process of searching for a home.

Outside of work, Aisiku has a black belt in the martial art of Jeet Kune Do, enjoys working out and played Division 3 tennis and basketball, at Worcester State University. He is also a motorcycle enthusiast.

As for his likely contribution to the Stony Brook community, Lasic, who has been at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for 25 years, suggested that she anticipated he would continue on an impressive journey.

Aisiku is “one of the most innovative leaders in academic medicine I have seen in a long time,” she wrote. “He is a true role model in his ability to connect with those around him.”

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Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Sports resides somewhere near the center of the currency of communication in our house.

In fact, recently our daughter, who is a gifted back row volleyball player despite just clearing five feet tall, and her brother, who is a lifelong baseball player, exchanged amusing anecdotes.

Our daughter attended a minor league baseball game with her friends. In the middle of a close game, she wondered aloud whether, with runners on first and second base and no outs, the batter would bunt.

“Huh?” one of her friends responded. “Why? What are you talking about?”

She tried to explain the strategy, but gave up after it was clear that her friends were more excited to go out together than they were to inhale the drama of a baseball game.

Her brother was watching Olympic volleyball with his friends. They didn’t understand much about back row hitting or trying to spike the ball on the second hit.

Our family enjoyed the parts of the Olympics we watched and, of course, discussed some of our favorite events.

One of mine was the 1,500 meter men’s race. All of the build up described the fierce on-the-track rivalry and off-the-track trash talking between Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Brit Josh Kerr.

The spotlight followed them from the moments before the race through the starter’s gun. While this one competition might not settle who is the fairest of them all, I mean, the better runner, it would give one of them a gold medal, presumably, and, perhaps more importantly, bragging rights.

Ingebrigtsen dashed off to the front of the pack, setting a blistering pace while maintaining what looked like a business-like attitude.

But then, a funny thing happened on the way to the expected finish. American Cole Hocker snuck around Ingebrigtsen’s left side, finding a higher gear and accelerating towards the finish. Kerr pushed towards the line as well, even as American Yared Nuguse closed the gap. At the end, it was Hocker first, Kerr second and Nuguse third, a mere hundredth of a second behind Kerr.

Oh, and Ingebrigtsen came in fourth.

It was such a delightful unscripted moment, particularly after humility seemed to be in such short supply between the favorites.

There are a few things we will not miss. We didn’t need extreme close ups of athletes who are doing as much in their chairs waiting to compete as we are watching them. At one point, Simone Biles, whose name you might have heard a few thousand times over the fortnight, took off her warm up jacket, which we all saw on TV. The announcer, lacking any other detail to share and exhausted from overusing the word “redemption,” decided to announce that she was taking off her jacket. You stuck the landing on that insightful observation, buddy boy.

So, now, here we are. The Olympics are over, the flame is out, the days of trying to avoid sports headlines until after watching the prime time replay are over.

We can go back to reading the important news of the day, assuming we can find some. 

What’s changed in our house? Well, our dog is much happier. He probably has nothing against the Olympics, but we shouted at the TV much more often than we typically do during a baseball or basketball game.

We can consider the what ifs in our own lives. These Olympians train every day, eat the right foods, try to stay on a sleep regimen and forego other id-driven moments.

And then, on that day, they might win by a hundredth of a second or less. 

At their best, they can inspire us, the way a new year sends people into a list making frenzy. If they can be so amazing, maybe we can, too.

Or, perhaps, we can figure out what else to watch or binge watch on TV. Oh, and there’ll be a winter games, assuming there’ll be a winter, in Italy in two years. Those athletes are undoubtedly doing everything they can to shave another hundredth of a second off their times.

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Student falling asleep at his desk. Courtesy MetroCreative Connection

By Daniel Dunaief

Imagine a typical school classroom filled with adults, listening as intently as they can to a detailed lecture about the finer points of tax law or multivariable calculus.

The adults in the room who weren’t particularly interested in the topic might struggle to concentrate, and several of them might try — perhaps unsuccessfully — to stay awake.

Now, bring a group of 8-year-olds into the same room, with the same instructor, and the same material. The likelihood that any of those younger students would fall asleep in their chair is far lower.

One reason for that difference is that the younger set, consistently, gets more sleep, while the older generation, from high school students on up the chain, typically, are not as well-rested.

“We think it’s normal, if you’re bored, to fall asleep, but it’s not,” said Dr. Steven Feinsilver, director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Northwell Lenox Hill Hospital. “Falling asleep in a lecture that doesn’t interest you means that you either have a sleep [problem] or, more likely, are sleep deprived.”

Indeed, the percentage of the population that is sleep deprived is estimated at around 50% or more, a staggering number, which means that at least half the population needs more restorative sleep.

With the start of another academic year just under a month away, sleep experts are urging students to start shifting back to their respective school sleep schedule in the coming weeks.

These sleep experts suggest that students who may sleep until 9 a.m. or later during the summer, but will soon get up for school at, say, 6 a.m., are experiencing a type of jet lag people often feel when they travel across the Atlantic.

Sleep experts say that changing an adolescent’s schedule to an earlier waking routine, a week or more before school starts, can ease that school-year transition, while others recommend shifting up wake-up time, by an hour earlier per day during the September lead-up.

“If you know you’re going to have to be waking up at 6 a.m. for the first day of high school, you should be starting to wake up within that hour, within three days or so, before that so your body gets used to it,” said Lauren Hale, professor of preventive medicine and sleep behavior expert at Stony Brook Medicine.

Routines, including getting enough sleep, are important in preparing for the mental effort required to meet daily learning challenges.

“Our brains like a consistent schedule,” said Brendan Duffy, director of Sleep Services at Catholic Health, which includes Port Jefferson-based St. Charles Hospital and Smithtown-based St. Catherine of Siena. “It’s important to get up at the same time,” even on weekends.

Teenagers need more sleep

The academic age group that needs the most sleep is the one that is often getting the least.

High schools often start just after 7 a.m., in part because after-school activities such as athletic practices and events, as well as other extra-curricular activities, take up the hours between the end of school and the onset of darkness.

“Between 15 and 25, everybody’s clock tends to run slow,” Feinsilver said.

The school districts that have pushed high school start times back have seen their test scores go up, added Feinsilver.

He acknowledged that it’s challenging for parents who are managing their own work schedules to balance their children’s academic hours. Parents and schools can and should try to compromise, he urged.

Benefits on the athletic field

Boy chases a soccer ball. Pixabay photo

A return to school also means the restarting of athletic programs, some of which begin before the first day of the new academic calendar.

Student-athletes are pushing their minds and bodies, as they juggle demanding academic requirements with training and competition.

Sleeping the estimated optimum of seven to nine hours per night not only helps improve an athlete’s competitive skills but also helps prevent physical problems.

Sleeping enough is a “way to avoid injuries,” said Duffy, who has been talking to students in a range of ages all the way through college.

Duffy added that professional teams are also encouraging athletes to budget for the sleep their minds and bodies need.

Additionally, he suggests sleep is a form of prehab, as sufficient rest can prevent injuries that would require rehabilitation.

Duffy has spoken with several area teams about the importance of sleep, including the Stony Brook women’s soccer team.

“For 90% of the players, this is the first time” they hear about the importance of sleep athletically, said Tobias Bischof, the head coach of SBU women’s soccer team. “My players are 18-to-22 years old and it’s not on their radar yet how important sleep is.”

He describes sleep as “probably the greatest recovery tool we have” and believes it’s “super important for injury prevention.”

As a coach, Bischof has started journaling his sleep patterns and believes he and others can be better coaches with enough rest.

He suggested that coaches are under tremendous pressure and sleep helps him become more patient.

Numerous factors contribute to success on and off the field with these student athletes, including nutrition, hydration, self-care and relationships with their families, as well as sleep, Bischof added.

The soccer coach doesn’t ask about sleep when he’s speaking with high school players who might join the SBU team, but it comes up when athletes ask about ways the school works with athletes beyond training.

He describes mental health support as well as sleep education.

“You always want to make them a better version of themselves,” Bischof said.

Jim Taylor, who specializes in the psychology of sports and parenting and who has been a consultant to the U.S. and Japanese ski teams, met Duffy when they were on a podcast panel related to sport psychology in 2022. Taylor suggested that sleep is much more than a physical process, as it has psychological and emotional implications.

“One of the most powerful tools that athletes have is sleep, which impacts them in so many ways,” he explained in an email.

Taylor, who competes in triathlons, has seen his results improve from top 20 in his age group to two national championship titles and three world championship podiums.

“Of course, I’m sure other factors contributed to my improved results, but I know that improved sleep was a key contributor,” he explained.

Mental health

Sleep can also be a sign of, or a contributing factor to, mental health issues.

In a Sleep-to-Rise campaign, the Sun Belt Conference suggests that talking about sleep is a gateway to discussing mental health.

Not getting enough sleep or poor sleep quality can increase the risk for mental health issues, while poor sleep itself can reflect mental health challenges.

In its sleep-to-rise online effort, the conference urges athletes to consider sleep a “competitive advantage.”

“With student-athletes, we emphasized the importance of prioritizing your sleep,” Lauren Shear, assistant commissioner of Championships & Sports Administration at the Sun Belt Conference, explained in an email. “This meant highlighting how sleep affects both mental health and physical health.”

Shear added that the conference tries to provide educational resources on mental health, nutrition, sleep and other factors to equip the student-athletes with the information they need to succeed in and outside competition.

She tries to get seven to eight hours of sleep per night and has noticed that when she gets six or less, she’s more irritable and lethargic. She’s also more likely to get sick.

Stony Brook’s Hale added that sleep, unlike diet or other life changes, can provide a noticeable benefit.

“People can see immediate results quicker than other behaviors,” Hale said. “If you choose not to have dessert, you might feel like you lost something and you don’t see a benefit the next day. If you actually got a full night of sleep, you might feel the benefits that day.”

Sleep tips from SBU’s Hale

•  Prioritize your sleep health

• Try to have regular sleep times, even on

weekends

• Make sure you get morning light

• Avoid substance use, like caffeine late in

the afternoon

• Put screens away before bedtime

• Sleep in a cool, dark, quiet place

• Pay attention to your body. Figure out when you get restorative rest compared with when you don’t.

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Jesús Pérez Ríos at the New York Public Library in 2023. Photo by Anne Martinez Hoth

By Daniel Dunaief

When he’s looking to relax, he builds and rebuilds some of the LEGO sets in his house in East Setauket. One of the things he likes best about being on Long Island, where he’s lived for the last two years, is that he can be alone to think and develop new ideas.

To hear Jesús Pérez Ríos describe himself, he is “just a kid having fun.” An Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University, Pérez Ríos enjoys bridging scientific knowledge, applying his physics background to questions, problems and puzzles in other fields.

Recently, the Stony Brook physicist, who is also an affiliated faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences, collaborated with Stefan Willitsch, Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Basel in Switzerland, to explore the forces that might be inhibiting the reaction between hydroquinone and neon.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Chemistry, Pérez Ríos, Willitsch and members of their teams described in detail several potentially opposing forces that affect the reactivity in the experiment.

Jesús Pérez Ríos at the Barnes and Noble in New York City in 2022 with Lego batman. Photo by Anne Martinez Hoth

“I started collaborating with [Willitsch] because he had accurate results, and it was hard to explain the observations,” said Pérez Ríos. “We had a hypothesis but needed to develop models to test it.”

Pérez Ríos described two interactions in detail. One is due to the long range atom-molecule interactions and the other comes from internal rotational dynamics.

With the experiments in Willitsch’s lab and the theory developed by Pérez Ríos and his colleagues, they highlighted the role of rotational quantum states in a hydroquinone-neon chemi-ionization reaction. A similar mechanism and approach may be suitable for other reactions as well, such as molecular ion-atom reactions.

These molecules are akin to puzzle pieces coming together. Instead of a two-dimensional alignment where pieces find each other and lock together in their complementary parts, these pieces also have rotational effects that can cause a misalignment.

“That is one of our key findings,” Pérez Ríos explained. “It is like the shape of the puzzle piece evolves depending on the molecule’s collision energy and internal state.”

The results presented in the scientific paper are in the realm of fundamental research, with no “immediate practical application in synthesis or catalysis,” explained Willitsch.

Nonetheless, the insights gained through this collaboration “leads to a better understanding of the relevant reaction mechanisms and thus enables a more efficient design of future chemical reactions.”

At this point, Willitsch has presented the work at several conferences, where he has found a receptive audience and expects it will “foreseeably stimulate further work in the field.”

A search for answers

Pérez Ríos explained that Willitsch had some possible explanations for his data, but he did not have a mathematical model to test his hypothesis.

Jesus Pérez Ríos in Port Jefferson in 2022. Photo by Anne Martinez Hoth

“He mentioned the experimental details to me and we discussed the data,” said Pérez Ríos, who has known Willitsch for about 12 years. “Then, we started to do calculations from our side.”

Pérez Ríos has a team of 7 PhD students, one postdoctoral researcher, one Master’s candidate and three undergraduates.

Members of his lab work on simulations of physical phenomena regarding atomic and molecular processes. Additionally, they work on machine learning applications to atomic and molecular physics, exploring ways to teach a machine classical mechanics or quantum mechanics through chemical reactions.

In the reaction he was studying, Willitsch was working with hydroquinone, which has two conformers. These are two molecules with the same chemical formula that have two different structures.

Willitsch was able to select for a particular type of conformer in its reaction with neon.

Pérez Ríos considered many possibilities and models, none of which was fully satisfactory. 

An insight at a conference

When he was at an Air Force Office of Scientific Research review program in Washington DC, Pérez Ríos was considering the problem from numerous perspectives.

He had tried many possibilities, but none were convincing. He needed something new.

“I had the physical picture of the model during a conference: in a break, I started to work on the code, and, in a few hours, I had something ready to get some very preliminary results,” Pérez Ríos recalled.

Willitsch enthusiastically embraced the preliminary results and the group decided to make it more realistic, developing the version of the code to explain Willitsch’s data.

The dynamics simulations were ready in a month, with extra checks conducted for another month to ensure everything was correct. The joint effort took over a year and a half to produce a fulfilling explanation.

Many of Pérez Ríos’s collaborators come from different disciplines, which gives the Stony Brook Assistant Professor an opportunity to learn about a variety of topics. He has worked with particle, atmospheric, atomic and plasma physicists and spectroscopists and chemists.

Pérez Ríos suggested that a physics perspective can help in a variety of settings, even including household problems and daily challenges.

Echoing a theme from the main character Jason Nesmith (played by Tim Allen) in the movie Galaxy Quest, Pérez Ríos said, “you can never surrender.”

 Pérez Ríos added that you “are the only one putting limits on yourself. However, you need to pick the battles worth fighting, which is a very difficult matter.”

More American than Americans

A resident of East Setauket where he lives with his wife Anne Martinez Hoth, Pérez Ríos grew up in Guardamar del Segura, a small town in Alicante, Spain.

The son of restaurant owners,  Pérez Ríos said he didn’t travel during summers to the beach, the way many of his friends did.

When he wasn’t helping in the restaurant, he used his free time to learn about math, zoology, genetics, chemistry and physics.

He enjoys living on Long Island and in the United States. His wife suggests he is “more American than the Americans” because he likes the American job philosophy and the freedom.

At Stony Brook, Pérez Ríos teaches quantum mechanics to undergrads, some of whom say he is strict.

“I have a very particular approach focusing on learning to think rather than knowing how to solve a problem,” he said.

As a research partner, Pérez Ríos is an unusual find, bringing constructive and valuable insights to discussions.

“I have rarely collaborated with someone so energetic and broadly interested” as Pérez Ríos, Willitsch said. “I particularly value his pragmatic approach and that he is not afraid to leave his comfort zone to delve into totally new classes of problems, which have not been tackled before either by himself or others.”

Willitsch added that few scientists have the same broad knowledge of physics and chemistry, which is “vital to push this interdisciplinary frontier.”

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

I’m tired, crabby, angry, annoyed, frustrated, disappointed, appalled and short tempered. 

Sleep, as a feature in TBR News Media this week suggests, will cure some of that.

But I’m just so fed up with the nonstop negativity in the country. Half the country not only wants to win, but seems thrilled with the prospect that the other half will lose. The worse the losers feel, the happier they are.

We’ve become a society of stomping toddlers, eager to crush the careful creations and ideas of those we oppose under our feet. Cut it out! This isn’t helping.

Okay, let’s take a step back from politicians and discuss us, you know, John and Joan Q. Public.

We are generally sleep deprived, according to statistics and people who pinch themselves not out of sheer joy but out of the necessity of staying awake each day.

More than one out of two people in the cars next to us may not only be texting and/or talking on the phone, but is also likely struggling to stay awake. That’s not good for them or for us.

Think about it: when you go to a store for stuff, call a company to send someone to fix your air conditioners in overbearing heat, or need someone to provide a skill set that you don’t possess, you don’t ask a long list of questions to make sure they were on the winning political team or that they believe everything you believe or even that they got enough sleep the previous night.

But, wait, what if the help we need is part of the other political team or, even going outside the realm of politics, is a devoted fan of the Red Sox, believes in red herrings, or is a fan of the color red?

You might privately enjoy the victory of your team or your would-be political leader, but are you really eager for them — you know, the “others” who are a part of our lives — to be miserable?

Their misery could become your misery.

It might tickle you to watch them cry and to ponder the existential threat that the person you support won and the person they supported lost, but you still need them even if you have no use for their political leaders.

If they lose sleep and are worse at their jobs, you might have to wait longer in line, deal with an incorrect bill you have to keep fighting, or suffer through the consequences of getting a meal that contains an allergen you told the waitress you couldn’t eat.

Even if you feel a momentary satisfaction that people who are supporting the wrong candidates  lost, you shouldn’t be too eager to push their head in the mud or to throw tomatoes at them. You might need those people and your tomatoes.

What happened to agreeing to disagree, to the art of compromise or even just to listening?

If whichever side loses feels like they still have a seat at the table, an ability to affect policies, an opportunity to help our children learn — is anyone on this campaign talking about education, ever? — and confidence that someone will listen to their ideas, the political and cultural temperature wouldn’t be so high and we the people would sleep and work better.

Yes, the extremes on each side can be absurd and frustrating, but even those people with the most ridiculous signs can be agreeable and helpful outside the context of political ideology.

So, just to recap, we might want to consider this great experiment in democracy as a team effort. We don’t always say and do the right things and we don’t always back the right horses, but, together, we can be greater than any one election or one would-be leader.

Unless we’re ready to live on a farm and eat our own food, educate our children, provide our own energy and entertainment and perform necessary surgeries on ourselves, we need each other. Once we remember that, we might have a better chance of sleeping well at night, which will make us better at our many roles, from parenting, to working, to contributing to our communities.

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Pregnant woman standing beside crib. METRO Creative Connection photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Cases of syphilis, a sexually-transmitted infection, have climbed dramatically on Long Island over the last decade and have continued to increase, creating a health care risk for those infected including pregnant women and their unborn children.

The number of infectious syphilis cases on Long Island quadrupled between 2011 and 2021, reflecting a national trend, Dr. Cynthia Friedman, Director of Public Health Suffolk County Department of Health Services, explained in an email, citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

“Unfortunately, case numbers continued to increase through 2022,” while 2023 numbers were not yet finalized, Friedman added.

Photo of Cynthia Friedman.

The incubation period for syphilis is between two and three weeks, with primary symptoms including painless open sores or ulcers and enlarged lymph nodes near the sore.

Left untreated, syphilis can progress through four stages, from primary, to secondary, latent and tertiary, with the last of those occurring in about 30 of cases and threatening the heart and brain and potentially causing death.

“The CDC and New York State Department of Health have issued advisories urging providers to screen their patients for syphilis when appropriate,” Friedman wrote. “Prevention of congenital syphilis is a priority.”

Indeed, pregnant women can pass along syphilis to their unborn children.

Children born with syphilis look healthy, but develop problems as they age.

“It’s a life-long debilitating disease” for infants, said Dr. Sharon Nachman, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. “It affects the brain, bones, growth, teeth and every part of the body.”

Nationally, the number of children born with syphilis has also increased, with CDC data indicating that 3,700 were born with the disease in 2022, 10 times the level from 2012.

Area hospitals have been actively screening pregnant women for syphilis and, in cases where tests come back positive, have been prescribing Bicillin L-A, a form of penicillin that treats the disease and protects unborn children.

“We at Stony Brook have been very aggressive about knowing each mother’s status,” said Nachman.

At Huntington Hospital, pregnant women are also screened at least three times, on initial intake, in the middle of a pregnancy and on admission to the hospital, explained Dr. Mitchell Kramer, Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Suffolk County runs a Congenital Syphilis Prevention Program, which follows women who test positive for the infection during their pregnancy to ensure they are adequately treated and that their infants receive appropriate monitoring and follow up, Friedman wrote in an email.

Still, infections occur among newborns in the county.

“There are generally a few babies born with congenital syphilis in Suffolk County each year,” explained Friedman. “This usually occurs when mothers have had no or limited prenatal care.”

Supply of medicine

Hospitals have been extremely careful with their supply of Bicillin L-A, which is the most effective and safest treatment for pregnant women who aren’t allergic to penicillin.

“Across our institution, nobody could touch those [treatments] unless they were treating a pregnant woman,” said Nachman.

Pfizer, which manufactures the drug, indicated in June that they have enough Bicillin to treat diagnosed cases of the disease.

Kramer said the earlier supply limitations of Bicillin L-A hadn’t been an issue in his practice, although he “wouldn’t be surprised if smaller health care facilities had a shortage.”

Causes of the increase

Health care professionals suggested several possible causes of the rise in syphilis.

An improvement in the prevention and treatment of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has likely led to a reduction in the use of condoms, which help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections.

An increase in the use of apps to find potential partners may also have increased the spread of these infections, said Nachman.

Additionally, some people may feel there is a “stigma associated with STIs” and may be reluctant to go to a doctor and ask for a test, said Kramer.

Numerous states have lost funding for STI prevention, which also likely reduced the awareness of the need for people to protect themselves, Kramer added.

Populations where there’s disparities in health services and that don’t have access to screening and treatment are “health care deserts” as patients “are not getting proper care and screening,” Kramer said.

Syphilis isn’t just a problem for any one age group.

The infection has been making the rounds at senior centers and assisted living facilities, with cases rising among people over 65 years old. Seniors who aren’t concerned about pregnancy can be at risk for contracting a sexually transmitted disease.

Area hospitals have been urging residents to understand the prevalence and health consequences of STIs and have urged people to protect themselves from the disease.

“There is a concerted effort to get the message out,” Kramer said.

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Qingtao Sun, postdoctoral researcher at CSHL, presents a poster of the cachexia research taken at a Society for Neuroscience meeting in 2023 in Washington, DC. Photo by Dr. Wenqiang Zheng

By Daniel Dunaief

Cancer acts as a thief, robbing people of time, energy, and quality of life. In the end, cancer can trigger the painful wasting condition known as cachexia, in which a beloved relative, friend or neighbor loses far too much weight, leaving them in an emaciated, weakened condition.

A team of researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has been studying various triggers and mechanisms involved in cachexia, hoping to find the signals that enable this process.

Recently, CSHL scientists collaborated on a discovery published in the journal Nature Communications that connected a molecule called interleukin-6, or IL-6, to the area postrema in the brain, triggering cachexia.

By deleting the receptors in this part of the brain for IL-6, “we can prevent animals from developing cachexia,” said Qingtao Sun, a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Professor Bo Li.

Through additional experiments, scientists hope to build on this discovery to develop new therapeutic treatments when doctors have no current remedy for a condition that is often the cause of death for people who develop cancer.

To be sure, the promising research results at this point have been in an animal model. Any new treatment for people would not only require additional research, but would also need to minimize the potential side effects of reducing IL-6.

Like so many other molecules in the body, IL-6 plays an important role in a healthy system, promoting anti- and pro-inflammatory responses among immune cells, which can help fight off infections and even prevent cancer.

“Our study suggests we need to specifically target IL-6 or its receptors only in the area prostrema,” explained Li in an email.

Tobias Janowitz, Associate Professor at CSHL and a collaborator on this project, recognized that balancing therapeutic effects with potential side effects is a “big challenge in general and also is here.”

Additionally, Li added that it is possible that the progression of cachexia could involve other mechanistic steps in humans, which could mean reducing IL-6 alone might not be sufficient to slow or stop this process.

“Cachexia is the consequence of multi-organ interactions and progressive changes, so the underlying mechanisms have to be multifactorial, too,” Miriam Ferrer Gonzalez, a co-first author and former PhD student in Janowitz’s lab, explained in an email.

Nonetheless, this research result offers a promising potential target to develop future stand alone or cocktail treatments.

The power of collaborations

Working in a neuroscience lab, Sun explained that this discovery depended on several collaborations throughout Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. 

“This progress wouldn’t be possible if it’s only done in our own lab,” said Sun. “We are a neuroscience lab. Before this study, we mainly focused on how the brain works. We have no experience in studying cachexia.”

This paper is the first in Li’s lab that studied cachexia. Before Li’s postdoc started this project, Sun had focused on how the brain works and had no experience with cachexia.

When Sun first joined Li’s lab three years ago, Li asked his postdoctoral researcher to conduct an experiment to see whether circulating IL-6 could enter the brain and, if so where.

Sun discovered that it could only enter one area, which took Li’s research “in an exciting direction,” Li said.

CSHL Collaborators included Janowitz, Ferrer Gonzalez, Associate Professor Jessica Tolkhun, and Cancer Center Director David Tuveson and former CSHL Professor and current Principal Investigator in Neurobiology at Duke University School of Medicine Z. Josh Huang.

Tollkuhn’s lab provided the genetic tool to help delete the IL-6 receptor.

The combination of expertise is “what made this collaboration a success,” Ferrer Gonzalez, who is now Program Manager for the Weill Cornell Medicine partnership with the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, explained in an email.

Tuveson added that pancreatic cancer is often accompanied by severe cachexia.

“Identifying a specific area in the brain that participates in sensing IL-6 levels is fascinating as it suggests new ways to understand physiological responses to elevated inflammation and to intervene to blunt this response,” Tuveson explained. “Work in the field supports the concept that slowing or reversing cachexia would improve the fitness of cancer patients to thereby improve the quality and quantity of life and enable therapeutic interventions to proceed.”

Tuveson described his lab’s role as “modest” in promoting this research program by providing cancer model systems and advising senior authors Li and Janowitz.

Co-leading an effort to develop new treatments for cachexia that received a $25 million grant from the Cancer Grand Challenge, Janowitz helped Sun understand the processes involved in the wasting disease. 

Connecting the tumor biology to the brain is an “important step” for cachexia research, Janowitz added. He believes this step is likely not the only causative process for cachexia.

Cutting the signal

After discovering that IL-6 affected the brain in the area postrema, Sun sought to determine its relevance in the context of cachexia.

After he deleted receptors for this molecule, the survival period for the test animals was double that for those who had interleukin 6 receptors in this part of the brain. Some of the test animals still died of cachexia, which Sun suggested may be due to technical issues. The virus they used may not have affected enough neurons in the area postrema.

In the Nature Communications research, Sun studied cachexia for colon cancer, lung cancer and pancreatic cancer.

Sun expects that he will look at cancer models for other types of the disease as well.

“In the future, we will probably focus on different types” of cancer, he added.

Long journey

Born and raised in Henan province in the town of Weihui, China, Sun currently lives in Syosset. When he’s not in the lab, he enjoyed playing basketball and fishing for flounder.

When he was growing up, he showed a particular interest in science.

As for the next steps in the research, Sun is collaborating with other labs to develop new strategies to treat cancer cachexia.

He is eager to contribute to efforts that will lead to future remedies for cachexia.

“We are trying to develop some therapeutic treatment,” Sun said.

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Students are asked to craft a story inspired by the above sea glass fragment.

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Once a piece of glass falls in the ocean, the magic begins.

Given an opportunity to enter the Whaling Museum & Educational Center of Cold Spring Harbor’s sea glass fiction writing contest, students from around Long Island accepted the challenge, offering a dynamic, exciting and inspiring range of stories.

Students from third grade through high school looked at the same piece of glass and developed stories filled with literary devices like onomatopoeia (where a word, like “whack” comes from a sound), personification and more.

The narratives ran the gamut from tales of mermaids to creations of new mythology to a search for meaning and identity. 

Along the way, the writers seized on the opportunity to share the journey sea glass takes as it transitions from a sharp piece of glass into a smoother, colorful object.

Some of the stories offered vivid descriptions of the world beneath the waves, taking readers into a magnificent aquatic seascape.

Amid narratives about pirates and mermaids, some writers chose to address dramatic and challenging themes, weaving emotionally resonant stories that tackled broken families, alcoholism and infidelity.

As a judge for the contest, I was not only surprised by the directions these stories took, but was also appreciative of the combination of realism and fantasy that suffused the writing, the willingness to take chances, and the pieces of the writers I could hear through their imaginations.

The writers imagined the glass either as the centerpiece of an important story or as a passenger, observing the dynamics that define the way people interact.

Judging writing and fiction is a subjective process, with each judge bringing his or her own ideas to the process.

I’m glad I wasn’t the only judge and enjoyed the opportunity to consider why the readers at the Whaling Museum & Education Center of Cold Spring Harbor chose to rank the submissions in a particular order.

I invite TBR readers to immerse themselves in these entries and to enjoy the worlds these writers have created or, in some cases, reflected. You can see some of the entries in the Arts & Lifestyles section of this week’s papers.

As for the writers, I want to thank them for finding time in their lives to share their ideas and to create their own stories.

In a contest in which third through fifth graders could write up to 500 words, sixth through eighth graders, 750 words, and high schoolers, 1,000 words, they developed stories, backdrops and themes that offered complete narratives and that carried readers off the page.

I particularly appreciate how these writers found the time to prepare and submit an entry. Student lives are filled with activities and assignments. Homework, required reading, chores, and sports and theater practices, to name a few, fill busy schedules that rarely leave them time to add an extra assignment or challenge to their calendars.

And, of course, social media and virtual communication often require regular check-ins and updates. The modern-day student, after all, can’t take too long to answer an urgent text from a friend at the risk of becoming less of a confidant or of sliding down the social hierarchy.

And yet, somehow, even with the importance of staying plugged in, none of the sea glass stories included references to social media and none was told through the prism of a social media world.

I hope the students enjoyed the opportunity to write something outside the context of a graded assignment and that they reveled in the freedom to go in any direction, imagine any characters, and create excitement or drama that appealed to them.

As for what’s next, the museum plans to run the competition next year, giving new entrants the opportunity to unleash their imaginations.

Many of the stories shared similarities with the sea glass itself: they shined in the distance, becoming increasingly interesting on closer inspection.

See pages B13 to B16 for the winning entries.

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Writer and director Brandt Andersen
A scene from 'The Stranger's Case'. Photo courtesy of Philistine Films
A scene from 'A Stranger's Case'. Photo courtesy of Philistine Films

UPDATE: “The Strangers’ Case” won the Jury Award for Best Feature at the Stony Brook Film Festival.

TBR News Media reporter Daniel Dunaief recently spoke with Brandt Andersen, writer and director of the film “The Strangers’ Case,” about five families in four countries who are confronting the refugee crisis. Andersen will attend a screening of his feature film directorial debut at the Stony Brook Film Festival on July 20th at the Staller Center.

Listen to the episode now.

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Mario Shields Photo by David Cardona-Jimenez

By Daniel Dunaief

Friend or foe? The question isn’t as easy in the world of molecular biology as it might be after captains pick players for a team.

An important biomolecule in one context could trigger the growth or spread of cancer, while in another system or organ, that same signal might suppress or stop the development or growth of a disease that can threaten people’s health.

So it is for G-proteins, which, in some tumors, serve as tumorigenic signaling hubs that participate in invasion and metastasis and promote inflammation and immune evasion.

In tumors “there was this notion that it works in a certain way, driving tumor development and progression,” said Mario Shields, Associate Professor of Research Pathology at Stony Brook University. “We had that original hypothesis when we investigated it in pancreatic cancer. We found that it’s the opposite.”

Indeed, when the specific proteins he studies, called G alpha 13, are absent, mouse models develop well-differentiated tumors that reduce their survival.

“My research now is to understand why it’s playing the opposite role that we initially expected,” Shields, who joined Stony Brook in July after six years at Northwestern University.

Having worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the lab of Mikala Egeblad from 2012 to 2018, Shields is returning to the Long Island area with a focus on defeating a problematic type of cancer that steals precious time from people and robs families of important members.

“I have come to appreciate the dire situation of people who are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,” Shields said. “We need to figure out how to lower the curve.”

A recipient of the National Cancer Institute’s Moonshot Award, Shields is one of the first 11 Cancer Moonshot Scholars who received a total of $5.4 million.

The program, which was launched by the Biden administration in the summer of 2023, seeks to advance cancer science while diversifying the pool of early-stage researchers and approaches to research that NCI funds.

The goal of the program is to inspire and support scientists from diverse backgrounds, including those from underrepresented groups in the biomedical sciences.

The NCI award, which Shields brings with him to Stony Brook, will support his efforts.

Egeblad, who is now Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Tumor Microenvironment, has stayed in contact with Shields since he left her group. The work he’s doing is “very important” in understanding the “basic mechanism of pancreatic cancer progression” as he has been “very successful in making discoveries and raising funds for his research.”

Egeblad appreciates his contribution to her lab. Shields “was responsible for establishing our research program in pancreatic cancer,” she explained. “Before he joined my lab, I had only worked on breast cancer and [Shields] established the various models to also study pancreatic cancer — models that we are still using.”

Building on CSHL work

At CSHL, Shields worked in Egeblad’s lab and received advice and oversight from David Tuveson, Cancer Center Director at CSHL, who developed the mouse model Shields uses.

Shields has been using human and mouse cell lines to interrogate the mechanism of action of these G proteins in suppressing cancer. 

At Stony Brook, he plans to use patient samples to develop patient-derived tumor specimens.

The major hub of what Shields is studying is the mTOR pathway, which stands for mammalian/ mechanistic target of rapamycin. First isolated in a bacteria on Easter Island in the middle of the 20th century, rapamycin is an immunosuppressant drug.

Any defects that activate the mTOR pathway can lead to the growth and development of cancer.

A developing field

Shields explained that the G protein he is studying, G alpha 13, is a “niche” area right now, with few other labs pursuing the same mechanistic pathway. The G proteins are of more interest to molecular pharmacology and drug design.

In his studies, Shields hopes to use the information on the response to changes in the protein to predict how patients respond to therapy that inhibits the mTOR pathway.

Specifically, he is exploring how alterations in the microenvironment can cause the tumor to progress in pancreatic cancer.

Shields has found some “interesting dependencies” in the mechanism he’s studying. In the first year of work at Stony Brook, he would like to figure out how Ga13 regulates mTOR signaling, as the current context dependency is vague.

The gene that codes for this protein is not heavily mutated. Shields anticipates that a threshold level of the protein may be responsible for conveying its benefit in suppressing cancer, rather than a specific mutational change.

He is eager to explore whether nutrient availability plays a role in cancer progression through the reduction in this G protein. He has exploring that in vitro and is curious how that will translate at the organismal level.

Returning to Long Island

Shields had recently been Research Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.

Having worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Shields felt comfortable moving back to the Long Island area.

“Stony Brook is a good place to do research,” said Shields.

Additionally, Shields was impressed with the number of people who had presented their research from Pathology Chair Kenneth Shroyer’s lab at a conference.

“Further discussions [with Shroyer] indicated we have areas of common interest in terms of pancreatic cancer,” Shields added.

Shields appreciates the greenness of Long Island. When he worked at CSHL, he enjoyed walking on trails and enjoyed the variety of fall colors.

Shields brought one person with him from Northwestern and plans to have a lab of about six people.

As for running his lab, Shields plans to “be patient” and to “see where people are coming from and what they are capable of” as he takes on the role of mentor for members of his lab at Stony Brook.

Shields hopes to inspire and encourage under represented groups to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Egeblad suggested that Shields is warm and calm, which “helps those entering the field really take to his instruction.” She added she believes he is an inspiration to many young scientists.

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