CLOSE
Authors Posts by Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

1628 POSTS 0 COMMENTS

by -
0 1152
From left, Nilanjan Chakraborty, Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering at SBU and IV Ramakrishnan, Professor of Computer Science, demonstrate how CART could hold a cup and move its arm. Photo by John Griffin/SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

Caretakers of those with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (or “Lou Gehrig’s disease”) have an enormous responsibility, particularly as the disease progresses. People in the latter stages of the disease can require around-the-clock care with everything from moving their limbs to providing sustenance.

IV Ramakrishnan, Professor of Computer Science and an Associate Dean in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Stony Brook University, recently received a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Army to lead a team that is building a Caregiving Robot Assistant, or CART, for ALS patients and their caregivers. 

The grant, which is for three years, will cover the cost of building, testing and refining a robot that a caregiver can help train and that can provide a helping hand in challenging circumstances.

Using off the shelf robot parts, Ramakrishnan envisions CART as a robotic arm on a mobile base, which can move around and, ultimately, help feed someone, get them some water and help them drink or open and close a door. They are also developing a special gripper that would allow the robotic arm to switch a channel on a TV or move a phone closer.

In working through the grant process, Ramakrishnan emphasized the ability of the robot, which can learn and respond through artificial intelligence programs he will create, to take care of a patient and offer help to meet the needs of people and their caregivers who are battling a progressive disease.

“As the needs evolve, the caregiver can show the robot” how to perform new tasks, Ramakrishnan said.

The project includes collaborators in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Nursing, the Renaissance School of Medicine, and clinical and support staff from the Christopher Pendergast ALS Center of Excellence in the Neuroscience Institute at Stony Brook Medicine.

At this point, Ramakrishnan and his team have sent out fliers to recruit patients and caregivers to understand the physical challenges of daily living. 

Ramakrishnan would like to know “what are the kinds of tasks we should be doing,” he said, which will be different in the stages of the disease. They know what kinds of tasks the robot can do within limits. It can’t lift and move a heavy load.

Once the team chooses the tasks the robot can perform, they can try to program and test them in the lab, with the help of therapists and students from the nursing school.

After they develop the hardware and software to accomplish a set of actions, the team will recruit about a dozen patients who will test the robot for one to two weeks. Members of the ALS community interested in the project can reach out to Ramakrishnan by email.

A biostatistician will be a part of that group, monitoring and calculating the success rate.

At this point, the development and testing of the robot represents a pilot study. After the group has proven it can work, they plan to submit a follow up proposal and, eventually, to apply for approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Ramakrishnan estimates the robot will cost around $30,000, which is about the same cost as a motorized wheelchair. He is unsure whether Medicare will cover this expense.

As a part of the development, Ramakrishnan recognizes that the first goal, similar to the Hippocratic Oath doctors take, is to do no harm. He and his team are incorporating safety features that make the robot withdraw automatically if it gets too close to someone.

A key part of the team

Members of the CART team: Vibha Mullick, and her husband, ALS patient Anuraag Mullick, are in the center. Back row, from left: Clare Whitney, Nilanjan Chakraborty, Theresa Imperato, C.R. Ramakrishnan, and Wei Zhu. Front row, from left, are Maria Milazzo and I.V. Ramakrishnan. Photo by John Griffin

Vibha Mullick, a Senior Web and Database Analyst in Computer Science and resident of South Setauket, will be a key team member on the project.

Mullick has been caring for her husband Anuraag Mullick, who is 64 and was diagnosed with ALS in 2016. Anuraag Mullick is confined to a wheelchair where he can’t swallow or breathe on his own.

“My husband also wants to participate” in the development, said Mullick, who spends considerable time reading his lips.

Caring for her husband is a full-time job. She said she can’t leave him alone for more than five or 10 minutes, as she has to suction out saliva he can’t swallow and that would cause him to choke. When she’s at work, a nurse takes care of him. At night, if she can’t get a nurse, she remains on call.

If her husband, who is in the last stage of ALS, needs to turn at night, use the bathroom or needs anything he makes a clicking sound, which wakes her up so she can tend to his needs.

 “It tires me out,” Mullick said. In addition, she struggles to take care of typical household chores, which means she can’t always do the dishes or wash the laundry. She suggested a robot could help caregivers as well as ALS patients.

In the earlier stages of ALS, people can have issues with falling. Mullick suggests a robot could steady the person so they can walk. She has shared the news about the project with other members of the ALS community.

“They are excited about it and encouraged,” she said. 

Origin of the project

The idea for this effort started with a meeting between Ramakrishnan and the late Brooke Ellison, a well-known and much beloved Associate Professor at Stony Brook University who didn’t allow a paralyzing car accident to keep her from inspiring, educating and advocating for people with disabilities.

Encouraged by SBU Distinguished Professor Miriam Rafailovich, who was a friend of Ellison’s, Ramakrishnan met with Ellison, whose mother Jean spent years working tirelessly by her side when she earned a degree at Harvard and worked at Stony Brook.

Ramakrishnan, who developed assistive computer interactions technologies for people with vision impairments, asked Ellison what a robot arm could do for her and mean for her. 

He recalled Ellison telling him that a robot arm would “transform my life,” by helping feed her, set her hair, or even scratch an itch.

“That moved me a lot,” said Ramakrishnan.

While CART will work with one population of patients, it could become a useful tool for patients and their caregivers in other circumstances, possibly as a nursing assistant or for aging in place.

Road to Stony Brook

Ramakrishnan, who is a resident of East Setauket, was born in Southern Tamil Nadu in India and attended high school in what was then called Bombay and is now Mumbai.

He earned his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.

Ramakrishnan is married to Pramila Venkateswaran, an award-winning poet and is retiring this summer after 33 years as a Professor of English at Nassau Community College. The couple has two grown children, Aditi Ramakrishnan, who is a physician scientist at the Washington University in St. Louis and Amrita Mitchell-Krishnan, who is a clinical pediatric psychologist.

As for the work on CART, Ramakrishnan is eager to help patients and caregivers. The ultimate goal is to “reduce the caregiving burden,” he said.

by -
0 1021
Leaders from Northwell’s Cancer Institute and its Center for Genomic Medicine celebrate the opening of the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory. From left to right, Joseph Castagnaro, Jeff Boyd, Dwayne Breining, Richard Barakat, Naima Loayza, Anna Razumova, Angelo Carbone, Rita Mercieca and Kathryn Cashin. Photo courtesy of Northwell Health

By Daniel Dunaief

Northwell Health Cancer Institute and its Center for Genomic Medicine opened a Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, which will reduce the cost of testing and shorten the time to get test results for cancer tests.

At a cost of $3.2 million, the 2,800 square foot facility will use next generation sequencing to provide tumor and patient genomic profiling and to assist in testing for biomarkers and determining the choice of cancer therapy.

The MDL, which is using the space Northwell Health Labs owned, will offer an array of tests in a phased approach. It is starting with a set of single gene tests to inform precision therapies for lung, melanoma, pancreatic, and colorectal cancer, which can be conducted in 24 to 72 hours.

“We like to get cancer therapy started as soon as possible for patients with metastatic disease,” said Jeff Boyd, vice president and chief scientific officer and director of the Northwell Health Cancer Institute’s Center for Genomic Medicine. When Northwell sent out similar tests to for-profit centers, the results, depending on the test, could take weeks.

The MDL is performing these tests on patients with advanced stage disease and/or recurrent diseases, which increases the need to generate results quickly.

“That makes a huge difference for the ordering oncologist and, most especially and importantly to the patient,” said Boyd. “The sooner they can get on precision therapeutics to treat the disease, the better. Outcomes will reflect wait time until you get therapy.”

Northwell treats more New York residents for cancer than any provider in the state, according to the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System, inpatient and ambulatory surgery data. 

The center, which is located in Lake Success, started conducting tests several weeks ago.

The lab is using high-end DNA sequencing to extract and define the genomic details of each tumor. Each patient tumor is different, which affects decisions about the best possible treatment.

“When the diagnosis isn’t totally clear to the pathology team, the genetics of the cancer will often inform the diagnosis,” said Boyd. Some patients with the same type of tumor will respond differently to radiation.

The lab is offering four single-gene tests: EGF for non-small cell lung cancer, BRAF for melanoma, KRAS for colorectal, pancreatic and lung cancers, and BRAF/NRAS for melanoma.The MDL plans to offer a 161-gene NGS panel for solid malignancies, a 45-gene NGS panel for hematologic malignancies, and MSI-H, a genetic test that reveals whether tumors will respond to immunotherapy.

Long road

Northwell recruited Boyd to start a molecular diagnostic lab four years ago. He started working in February of 2020, a month before the pandemic caused local, state, national and worldwide disruption.

While he has other responsibilities, Boyd suggested that his “primary reason” for joining Northwell was to “create and direct a Center for Genomic Medicine.”

Northwell conducted extensive physical renovation of the core lab facility that houses the MDL. Northwell also hired six people for the MDL, which includes a lab director, a lab manager, two certified lab technicians, a director of bioinformatics and an LIMS administrator.

In addition, New York State Department of Health had to certify the tests. Northwell is working through certification for additional tests.

Patients don’t need to go to the Lake Success facility to benefit from the services offered by the lab.The cost to patients for these tests is less than it would be for a for profit lab, Boyd said.

“We are a non profit and all we’re looking for is the sustainability of the lab infrastructure,” he added.

At this point, the lab isn’t conducting any germ line testing to determine if there are genetic predispositions to various cancers.

“That might be one of those tests we role out in the future,” Boyd said.

For Boyd, who earned a PhD in toxicology and biochemistry from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the work is particularly rewarding.

To see his job “impact care tomorrow” based on a particular genetic alteration, “it doesn’t get much better than that for an individual with my background and profession,” he said.

by -
0 787
Gov. Kathy Hochul speaking with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory CEO Bruce Stillman during a recent visit. Photo courtesy of Darren McGee/ Office of Governor Kathy Hochul

By Daniel Dunaief

The transition from studying pancreatic cancer’s playbook to attempting new moves to wrestle it into submission is getting closer at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, thanks to support from New York State.

Recently, Governor Kathy Hochul (D) announced that the Empire State would contribute $15 million to a new Pancreatic Cancer Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as a part of the lab’s Foundations for the Future Expansion.

The funds will support the construction of a new center that will continue to try to defeat this insidious type of cancer as CSHL aims to develop new treatments.

“Patients should not feel there’s no chance and no hope” after a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, said David Tuveson, Director of the CSHL Cancer Center and a researcher whose lab has taken innovative approaches to pancreatic cancer. “They are watching the evolution of an area in a disease that previously has been challenging to treat. Through fundamental research, we are coming up with new approaches.”

As CSHL works with human organoids, which are tissues grown from a patient’s own cancer cells that can be used to test the effectiveness of various treatments and any resistance from cancer, animal models, and other techniques, they have moved closer to finding targets that could lead to new therapies.

Any novel treatment would likely involve creating new companies, likely on Long Island, that could develop these treatments, file for patents, and build a commercial presence and infrastructure.

“It’s an investment by the state to accelerate our translational research so we can go from preclinical to clinical,” said Tuveson. “Part of that will be to generate private entities that can focus on turning a lead to first-in-class, first-in-human products. It allows us to build that infrastructure.”

Tuveson has been working on a potential treatment for several years. Other potential treatments are also in the earlier stages of development.

Governor Hochul suggested that the state’s investment fits in the context of an overall goal to boost the local economy with new biotechnology companies.

“New York State is leading on innovative healthcare space, and this funding will advance research to better understand pancreatic cancer – one of the most devastating forms of cancer,” Governor Hochul said in a statement.

Big Picture

The Pancreatic Cancer Center will take a wide range of approaches to this particular type of cancer.

The Center will be, along with Northwell Health, a “pipeline from fundamental discovery science” to clinical trials conducted with hospital partners, explained Bruce Stillman, CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

The center will address early detection as well.

For Tobias Janowitz, Associate Professor and Cancer Center Program Co-Leader at CSHL, the investment means “we can strengthen collaborations between experts in metabolism, immunology, cancer cell biology, and whole body effects of cancer, all of them interconnected and relevant to therapy development in pancreatic cancer.”

Janowitz explained that patients with pancreatic cancer have the highest incidence of cachexia, in which chronic illness causes a reduction in muscle and fat, lowers people’s interest in food and causes extreme and potentially terminal weight loss. Pancreatic cancer patients almost universally experience a loss of appetite and profound weight and muscle loss.

Understanding cachexia in the context of pancreatic cancer will “enable care for patients with other cancers, too,” Janowitz added.

From that perspective, Janowitz hopes the New York State funds could enable discoveries that reach beyond pancreatic cancer.

As an MD/PhD, Janowitz could be involved in the translation of fundamental discoveries into clinical research and, ultimately, clinical care.

Janowitz has a specific interest in optimizing the therapeutic window for patients with pancreatic cancer.

“We are looking for management options that intensify the anti-cancer effect,” while, at the same time, protecting or reconditioning the whole body, Janowitz added.

Janowitz is using special transcriptomics on clinical samples in collaboration with Jon Preall, who leads the genomics core facility.

In a statement, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Chair Marilyn Simons described the state funding as a “catalyst to mobilize further private investment in pancreatic cancer research at CSHL.”

Simons added that her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of 75. A doctor offered him an exploratory operation, which enabled him to live another 14 years.

“Few people are so lucky,” Simons added in a statement. “Our wonderful scientists at Cold Spring Harbor are working with Northwell Health and the Feinstein Institutes to help more people get access to the latest biomedical advances.”

by -
0 543
METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Tis the season for the opposite of schadenfreude.

Schadenfreude, as you may know, suggests happiness at someone else’s misery. Not being a German speaker, I understand that “schaden” means “damage” or “harm” and “freude” means “joy,” or, if you prefer, is the last name of the founder of psychoanalysis, which, I guess, is either supposed to make you happy or more self aware, coupled with an “e” at the end to make it harder to spell, so that you can feel schadenfreude when someone misspells the word.

So, why, in an era when so many others are so happy to enjoy the misery of those on the other end of an ideological spectrum, is it the era of the opposite of schadenfreude?

Well, look around! You might notice people in caps and gowns, completing their journeys through an educational curriculum strewn with considerably more obstacles than most four-year periods, starting with the dislocation caused by Covid.

Students couldn’t meet their classmates, except on zoom, skype or social media. They got to know each other through the facial expressions they could see online or through the images on their screens, as some of their professors’ children played with LEGOs, their cats climbed across keyboards, or their neighbors took their daily jogs in neon colors.

These graduates endured dislocation, loneliness, and, in some cases, prolonged exposure to family members whose watchful eye and judgment they thought they were finally escaping. They remained trapped in the family fishbowl.

Uncertainty, which is, admittedly, part of life, became even greater, as they didn’t know when they could go back to normal. When, they wondered, could they take a brief nap in a biochemistry class while a professor described reactions on an overhead projector in a slightly dimmed room?

For a while, they couldn’t chat with people on the way to the dining hall or at a party or mixer, they couldn’t compare the challenges of helicopter parenting and they couldn’t wonder what it would be like to leave their home country, travel thousands of miles away, and only speak to their parents once or twice a month.

And then, slowly, the fog of the pandemic lifted, giving them a chance to see each other in person, to listen to the questions others asked, and to have those moments when they could teach or learn outside of class while enjoying a late-night pizza.

Yes, these are remarkable high school, college, graduate school and night school students. We can and should be happy for them, celebrating their resilience and determination. They learned to multitask and adapt in ways most graduates don’t endure.

As we clap for them, we might need to fight the urge to wonder “what about me?” Or, perhaps, to think “What was hard about school when I went?” or, if perhaps “I could have been a doctor, except for the science part.” (Thanks to Woody Harrelson in the movie “Doc Hollywood” for that line).

Yes, you had challenges, but this day and time isn’t about you. It’s about these students who not only graduated, but will also contribute to the world, realizing their dreams, the goals of their parents and/or grandparents, and their communities, who need professionals in a range of fields to contribute to society.

This is our time to shine as a part of a support system, to acknowledge, to admire, and to elevate those who will likely encounter future difficulties, knowing that they already triumphed under extreme circumstances.

Oh, and if you crave schadenfreude, people have seized on numerous other outlets for their free-floating frustrations, laughing at the disappointed voters whose candidates are no longer in the race or who seem poised for an agonizing defeat.

Graduations, however, are not a zero sum game, where you win and I lose or I win and you lose. We all win when these graduates design beautiful homes that raise the property value in our neighborhood, when they help us with legal challenges, and when they hold our hands and provide medical guidance during future health threats.

Let’s hold back on our urge to pinch them in their pictures, to put them in their place when they seem happy with themselves, or to talk about ourselves instead of them, and let’s admire them for their pothole-filled journey and wish them well in the days, months and years ahead.

by -
0 1164
Camila dos Santos Photo courtesy of CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

People often think of and study systems or organs in the body as discrete units. 

In a healthy human body, however, these organs and systems work together, sometimes producing signals that affect other areas.

Recently, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Associate Professor Camila dos Santos and graduate students Samantha Henry and Steven Lewis, along with former postdoctoral researcher Samantha Cyrill, published a study in the journal Nature Communications that showed a link in a mouse model between persistent bacterial urinary tract infections and changes in breast tissue.

The study provides information about how a response in one area of the body could affect another far from an infection and could provide women with the kind of information that could inform the way they monitor their health.

To be sure, dos Santos and her graduate students didn’t study the processes in humans, which could be different than they are in mice.

Indeed, they are in the process of establishing clinical studies to check if UTIs in women drive breast alterations.

The body’s response

In this research, the scientists demonstrated that an unresolved urinary tract infection itself wasn’t causing changes in breast tissue, but that the body’s reaction to the presence of the bacteria triggered these changes.

By treating the urinary tract infections, Henry and Lewis showed that breast cells returned to their normal state.

Further, when they didn’t treat the UTI but blocked the molecule TIMP1, which causes collagen deposits and milk duct enlargements, the breast cells returned to their normal state.

The TIMP1 role is “probably the main eureka moment,” said Lewis, who is an MD/ PhD student at Stony Brook University. “It explains how an infection in the bladder can change a faraway tissue.”

Lewis suggested that collagen, among other factors, changes the density of breast tissue. When women get a mammography, doctors are looking for changes in the density of their breasts.

Taking a step back from the link, these graduate students and dos Santos considered whether changes in the breast tissue during an infection could provide an evolutionary benefit.

“From an evolutionary standpoint, there should be some adaptive advantage,” suggested Henry, who is earning her PhD in genetics at Stony Brook University and will defend her thesis in July. Speculating on what this might be, she suggested the mammary gland might change in response to an infection to protect milk production during lactation, enabling a mother to feed her young.

Epidemiological studies

A link between persistent UTIs and breast cancer could show up in epidemiological studies.

Dos Santos and collaborators are exploring such questions in the context of European data and are working with US collaborators to collect this information.

In addition, dos Santos believes women should consider how other ongoing threats to their overall health impact their bodies. Women with clinical depression, for example, have worse prognoses in terms of disease. Humans have health threats beyond UTIs that could predispose them to developing cancer, dos Santos said.

Division of labor

Henry and Lewis took over a study that Samantha Cyrill, the third co-first author on the paper started. When Cyrill finished her postdoctoral work, Henry and Lewis “put on their capes and said, ‘We are going to take this to the end line.’ They are incredible people,” said dos Santos.

They each contributed to the considerable work involved.

Henry primarily analyzed the single cell RNA sequencing data, specifically identifying changes in the epithelial compartment. Gina Jones, a visiting CSHL undergraduate research program student, and Lewis also contributed to this.

Henry also participated in TIMP1 neutralizing antibody treatment in post-lactation involution mice, contributing to tissue collection and staining.

Working with Cyrill and Henry, Lewis contributed to the mouse work, including experiments like neutralizing TIMP1 and CSF3. Lewis also worked with Cyrill on the UTI infections in the animals and with Henry in processing tissues for single cell RNA sequencing and assisted Henry on the sequencing analysis.

While this result is compelling and offers an opportunity to study how an infection in an area of the body can trigger changes in another, dos Santos recognized the inherent risk in a new project and direction that could have either been disconnected or a been a dead end.

“It was an incredible risk,” said dos Santos. She was rejected from at least four different funding opportunities because the research is “so out there,” she said. She tapped into foundations and to CSHL for support.

Back stories

A resident of Brooklyn, Lewis was born in Queens and raised in Scarsdale. He joined the dos Santos lab in March of 2021. One of the appeals of the dos Santos lab was that he wanted to understand how life history events drive disease, especially breast cancer.

A big Mets fan, Lewis, whose current favorite payer is Pete Alonso, is planning to run his third marathon this fall.

Lewis is dating Sofia Manfredi, who writes for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and accepted an Emmy award on behalf of the staff.

Lewis considers himself Manfredi’s “biggest cheerleader,” while he appreciates how well she listens to him and asks important questions about his work.

As for Henry, she grew up in Greenport. She joined the lab in May of 2020 and is planning to defend her thesis in July.

Her father Joseph Henry owns JR Home Improvements and her mother Christine Thompson worked as a waitress and a bartender in various restaurants.

Henry is married to Owen Roberts, who is a civil engineer and works in the Empire State Building for HNTB as a civil engineer, where he focuses on traffic.

Henry hopes to live in Boston after she graduates. She’s adopted the rooting interests of her husband, who is a fan of Beantown teams, and will support the Bruins and the Celtics. A lifelong Yankees fan, however, Henry, who watched the Bronx Bombers with her father growing up, draws the line at supporting the “Sawx.”

As for the work, Henry and Lewis are excited to see what the lab discovers in the next steps.

“I do think this work is extremely informative, defining a relationship between an infection, UTI, and the mammary gland that has not previously been appreciated,” Henry explained.

“This provides information to the public,” said Henry. “I always think it is worth knowing how different events may impact your body.”

by -
0 2533
Marilyn Simons, left, and Jim Simons, third from left, toast the announcement of a $500 million contribution to Stony Brook University’s endowment with SBU President Maurie McInnis and Simons Foundation President David Spergel. File photo from John Griffin/ Stony Brook University

By Daniel Dunaief

James “Jim” Harris Simons, the founder of Renaissance Technologies and former Mathematics chair at Stony Brook University whose foundation donated over $6 billion to scientific and other causes, died on May 10 at the age of 86.

Simons, who was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to Marcia and Matthew Simons, touched the lives of many across Long Island and the world. He shared a dry sense of humor with those fortunate enough to interact with him, compassion with those who, like him, had suffered painful losses and a readiness to contribute personally and financially in a host of settings, including creating the beloved Avalon Preserve in Stony Brook.

Simons developed an early proficiency in mathematics that helped him earn prestigious distinctions and awards and after he left academia, helped him develop an investment approach that enabled him to amass personal wealth estimated at over $31 billion. Simons, whose cause of death wasn’t released, was the 55th richest person in the world, according to Forbes.

In 1994, Simons co-founded the Simons Foundation with his wife Marilyn. He provided much more than financial support to numerous efforts around the world, including to local institutions such as Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Indeed, last year, the Simons Foundation gave a $500 million unrestricted gift to Stony Brook University, which is the largest-ever unrestricted gift to a public institution and over the course of seven years, will more than double the endowment for the school.

“Our university is infinitely better because of [Simons], and his passing leaves an enormous hole in the hearts of all who were fortunate to know him,” Maurie McInnis, president of Stony Brook University wrote in a letter to the campus community.

Simons served on the boards of institutions like BNL and SBU, offering well-received advice to leaders of these institutions and to the scientists conducting the kind of work that could one day help combat diseases and improve the quality of quantity of life for future generations.

“He really applied his talents toward trying to better [Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory] and to other area institutions,” said David Tuveson, director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center.

In addition to funding a range of scientific research, the Simons Foundation also supported research into autism. The Simons’ daughter Audrey was diagnosed with autism when she was 6 years old.

The Simons Foundation committed over $725 million to support autism research for more than 700 investigators in the United States and around the world, according to the Simons Foundation.

Simons was “the largest private funder of autism research in the world,” Matthew Lerner, formerly an SBU research associate professor and now an associate professor and life course outcomes program leader at A.J. Drexel Autism Institute, explained in an email. Lerner added that the “impact of his loss will be enormous.”

‘Smartest and richest guy in the room’

When Simons was part of the board at Brookhaven National Laboratory, he offered insights that benefited the institution and the talented researchers who came from all over the world to contribute.

“He always had hard questions,” said Sam Aronson, the lab director of BNL from 2006 to 2012. “That was really stimulating and scary at the same time, talking to the smartest and richest guy in the room.”

Aronson recalled that Simons never needed a cheat sheet from the staff to know what to ask people giving reports when Brookhaven Science Associates, which is a combination of members from Stony Brook University and Battelle and oversees BNL, met to discuss strategy and science.

During fiscal year 2006, a reduction in funding for the nuclear physics program meant that BNL would likely have to cut staff. Simons stepped in to contribute and help raise $13 million to ensure the continued operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC.

“That was showing evidence that the board who knew what we were doing scientifically really cared about us getting it done and were not looking for someone to fire,” said Aronson, who became director at BNL just after Simons helped spearhead the financial support.

In addition, Simons, who was committed to educating students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, took time to speak with students about his life experience and these fields.

Doon Gibbs, who retired as lab director at BNL last year, recalled coming to the facility early on a Saturday morning with one of his sons.

Simons was at the lab early on a Saturday morning, telling these students to follow their interests and to rely on their own judgment and decision-making and interests, rather than what other people advised or told them to do.

“That demonstrates the commitment he had personally” to education and to inspiring students, Gibbs said.

Simons inspired leaders at the top of their fields, offering inspiration and encouragement.

Stony Brook “went from the concept of being a great math and physics center to being a great university and [Simons] was all on board for that,” said Shirley Kenny, who was SBU president from 1994 to 2009. “There’s no question that I could dream bigger for Stony Brook because of [Simons].”

The geometric path

A gifted math student who first attended Brookline High School in Massachusetts and then moved to Newton High School, Simons earned his bachelor’s degree in three years from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958.

After he graduated, Simons and friends from Colombia decided to ride motor scooters from Boston to Buenos Aires. At the time, he didn’t own a motor scooter and had never ridden one.

After seven weeks, he and his friends got as far as Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. Recalling the harrowing trip, Simons had said he came perilously close to death and was sure his mother wouldn’t have allowed him to take such a trip had she known of the risks.

After his motor scooter adventure, Simons chose to attend the University of California at Berkeley because he wanted to work with Shiing-Shen Chern. When he arrived at Berkeley, Simons, who hadn’t met Chern at that point, was disappointed to learn that the Berkeley professor was on sabbatical for the year.

While Chern didn’t serve as thesis adviser for Simons, the two mathematicians did work together, producing the Chern-Simons theory, which has applications in math and physics.

After earning his doctorate, Simons, who regularly smoked cigarettes and preferred to wear loafers without socks, split his time between lecturing at MIT and Harvard and working at the Institute for Defense Analysis in Princeton, where he served as a code breaker for the National Security Agency.

Publicly expressing opposition to the war in Vietnam cost him his job at the IDA.

In 1968, Simons, who was married to Barbara Bluestein, made the fateful decision to join the then 11-year-old Stony Brook University, enticed by President John Toll to become the chairman of the Math Department.

Irwin Kra, who joined the Math Department at Stony Brook the same year as Simons, suggested the two mathematicians became “good friends immediately.”

Building on a passion that Simons would share with friends and colleagues throughout his life, Simons and Kra shared time on a small boat that Kra described as a “putt-putt.” The motor on the boat regularly broke and Kra’s job was to hand Simons tools while he went under the engine trying to repair it, which he successfully did many times.

Kra and Simons, who are both Jewish, got into trouble with Irwin Kra’s wife Eleanor when they brought lobsters to a lake the night before Yom Kippur, which is the holiest day of the year in the Jewish religion and does not typically involve consuming shellfish prior to the Day of Atonement.

As a mathematician, Simons won the American Mathematical Society Veblen Prize in Geometry in 1976, which Kra described as a “very distinguished award in differential geometry — he attacked extremely difficult problems.”

In 1974, Simons and his wife Barbara, who had three children, Elizabeth “Liz,” Nathaniel and Paul, divorced.

Simons married Marilyn Hawrys in 1977. Jim and Marilyn Simons had two children, Nicholas and Audrey.

Birth of Renaissance

In 1978, Simons left the Math Department at Stony Brook to start a company that would later become Renaissance Technologies.

Recruiting mathematicians rather than typical stock pickers or money managers, Simons, who was well ahead of his time in his approach to the market, wanted to develop computer programs that would analyze the markets, deciding when to buy and sell commodities, at first, and then stocks.

The so-called quant funds used the early equivalent of artificial intelligence to find trends in the way the investments they bought and sold — sometimes within a single day — moved, profiting from gains that didn’t rely on typical fundamental Wall Street research.

Over time, Renaissance Technologies’ Medallion Fund established a spectacular track record, with annualized returns of 66% before fees and 39% afterward from 1988 to 2018, according to Gregory Zuckerman, author of “The Man Who Solved the Market,” a biography of Simons.

Simons retired from Renaissance in late 2009, with an estimated net worth of over $11 billion.

Empathetic friend

Simons, who lost his son Paul at the age of 34 from a bike accident in 1996 and his son Nicholas in 2003 when he drowned off Indonesia, gave from his wallet, his intellect and his heart.

In the late 1990s, when Shirley and Robert Kenny were managing through the difficulties of leukemia treatments for their son Joel, Simon sent them on a trip to the Caribbean aboard his yacht.

The boat took them to St. John’s, St. Croix and other islands, providing them with a “wonderful vacation,” Shirley Kenny said. “It was just heavenly. It was a very, very happy memory. We had this joyous time before we had this terrible time and that’s thanks to [Simons.]”

Simons was also known to connect with the families of friends who were experiencing medical challenges or coping with grief.

After his son Paul died, Simons was searching for a way to memorialize him. He reached out to The Ward Melville Heritage Organization to purchase land in Stony Brook. Gloria Rocchio, president of the WMHO, took Simons on a tour of the property that would become the first parcel of land for Avalon Preserve. Simon stood on top of the hill and said, “This is it,” Rocchio recalled, leading to the first land purchase of the Avalon Preserve.

Since then, Simons has added to the preserve, which now includes about 216 acres of property.

Up until this year, Simons remained involved in the preserve, as he wanted to build a tunnel so people wouldn’t have to walk on the road to go from one piece of property to another.

That tunnel, which took years of planning, will be completed in August.

In describing the growth of the preserve, Rocchio recalled how Avalon had added 15 acres, which included a run-down house the donor stipulated couldn’t change.

One day, the trustees arrived and walked through a plastic curtain in the house and discovered the rest of the house was missing.

Simons explained that there were too many termites and the house had to come down.

“That was [Simons],” Rocchio said. “He found out the house was structurally not able to be saved.”

Suffolk County Legislator Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) recalled how important it was to protect that land.

“I have seen most of the nature preserves around the state,” Englebright said. Avalon is not only the “finest in the entire state” but one of the “best I have ever seen anywhere.”

While Avalon is a memorial to Simons’ son Paul, it’s also “a memorial” to Simons, Englebright added.By remaining undeveloped and continuing to protect the old growth forest, the Avalon Preserve prevents the water of Stony Brook Harbor from the kind of pollution that runoff from developed property might otherwise carry.

Simons “turned a terrible tragedy into a living legacy,” Englebright said.

Simons also honored his son Nicholas, creating the Nick Simons Institute in 2006. The institute provides training, support to district hospitals and advocacy for rural health workers in Nepal.

Jim and Marilyn Simons visited Nepal regularly, traveling to remote parts of the country and visiting eight hospitals that would become a part of the Nick Simons Institute.

A humble legacy

Despite the many ways Jim and Marilyn Simons, who earned her bachelor’s degree and her doctorate in economics at Stony Brook University, contributed to science and to the area, they remained humble and accessible.

Aronson suggested to Simons that he wanted to honor him personally for his timely and important contributions to the RHIC at BNL.

When Simons declined, Aronson asked if he could name one of the roads on-site after Renaissance, which Simons approved.

On one of the Stony Brook buildings that bears their name, the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Simons focused on the student and faculty experience. He wanted to make sure people in the building had a place to eat and didn’t have to trek to the dining hall.

“He wanted a good restaurant there,” recalled Kenny.

Apart from ensuring the building served food, Simons found a problem he wanted to fix. At the opening of the center, he noticed that the elevators were too slow, so he hired the person who built the center to create a separate, faster elevator which was attached to the building after it was completed.

Still contributing

Despite stepping away from the world of academia to become one of the most successful fund managers in history, exceeding the returns of titans like Warren Buffett, Simons still found time to contribute to the world of math.

Bruce Stillman, CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, visited Simons’ office about six years ago. Stillman noticed a copy of a geometry journal on the coffee table and expressed his surprise that Simons was still reading math literature.

“What do you mean reading?” Simons replied, according to Stillman. He told the CSHL leader to open to a particular page, where he had co-authored an article.

“He was still publishing mathematics after being an extremely successful hedge fund manager,” said Stillman, who added that Simons was the largest contributor to CSHL. “He kept a lot of balls juggling in the air.”

Several people shared their appreciation for the opportunity to share relaxing and meaningful time aboard the various boats Simons owned over the years, including the 222-foot yacht called Archimedes.

Aronson took a trip around the harbor aboard the Archimedes soon after Simons had purchased it, describing the ride as akin to a “floating cocktail party.”

While on board, Aronson met famed Kenyan anthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey. Aronson wound up going on a number of trips to Kenya to work on ways to apply green energy.

As for Kra, he recalled a time when he was supposed to take a trip aboard Simons’ boat. One of the engines broke and Kra suggested he postpone the journey.

Simons refused to cancel and suggested the boat would come in slowly to Miami and would travel slowly to the Caribbean, navigating in calmer, shallower waters, which it did.

Numerous people shared their admiration for a man who contributed and continues to contribute to the lives of educators and students.

Famed actor Alan Alda benefited from his interactions with Simons. He was “a huge force in so many people’s lives, including mine,” Alda wrote in an email. He was “as generous as he was smart. And he was scarily smart.”

With the help of the Simons, Alda helped found the eponymous journalism school at Stony Brook.

“I’ll always be grateful for his and his wife Marilyn’s contributions to the Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook,” and of course, he will have touched countless lives through his landmark gifts to Stony Brook University, Alda added. “He certainly put his love of knowledge to good use.”

Simons is survived by his wife, three children, five grandchildren, and a great grandchild.

Stony Brook University plans to celebrate Simons’s impact in the coming months.

 

by -
0 1020
125 graduates of the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM) at Stony Brook University received their MD degrees in 2024. Photo by Arthur Fredericks

By Daniel Dunaief

On May 14, the Renaissance School of Medicine celebrated 50 years since its first graduating class, as 125 students entered the ranks of medical doctor.

The newly minted doctors completed an unusual journey that began in the midst of Covid-19 and concluded with a commencement address delivered by former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Dr. Fauci currently serves as Distinguished University Professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine and the McCourt School of Public Policy and also serves as Distinguished Senior Scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

“I have been fortunate to have had the privilege of delivering several commencement addresses over the years,” Dr. Fauci began. “Invariably, I have included in those addresses a reference to the fact that I was in your shoes many years ago when I graduated from medical school.”

This graduating class, however, has gone through a journey that “has been exceptional and, in some cases unprecedented,” Dr. Fauci added.

Indeed, the Class of 2024 started classes remotely, learning a wide range of course online, including anatomy.

“Imagine taking anatomy online?” Dr. Bill Wertheim, interim Executive Vice President for Stony Brook Medicine, said in an interview. “Imagine how challenging that is.”

Dr. Wertheim was pleased with the willingness, perseverance and determination of the class to make whatever contribution they could in responding to the pandemic.

The members of this class “were incredibly engaged. They rolled up their sleeves and pitched in wherever they could to help the hospital manage the patients they were taking care of,” said Wertheim, which included putting together plastic gowns when the school struggled to find supplies and staffing respite areas.

“Hats off to them” for their continued zeal and enthusiasm learning amid such challenges, including social issues that roiled the country during their medical training, Wertheim said.

Student experience

For Maame Yaa Brako, who was born in Ghana and moved to Ontario, Canada when she was 11, the beginning of medical school online was both a blessing and a curse.

Starting her medical education remotely meant she could spend time with the support system of her family, which she found reassuring.

At the same time, however, she felt removed from the medical community at the Renaissance School of Medicine, which would become her home once the school was able to lift some restrictions.

For Brako, Covid provided a “salient reminder” of why she was studying to become a doctor, helping people with challenges to their health. “It was a constant reminder of why this field is so important.”

Brako appreciated her supportive classmates, who provided helpful links with studying and answered questions.

Despite the unusual beginning, Brako feels like she is “super close” to her fellow graduates.

Brako was thrilled that Dr. Fauci gave the commencement address, as she recalled how CNN was on all the time during the pandemic and he became a “staple in our household.”

Brako will continue her medical training with a residency at Mass General and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where she will enter a residency in obstetrics and gynecology.

Mahesh Tiwari, meanwhile, already had his feet under him when medical school started four years ago. Tiwari, who is going to be a resident in internal medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, earned his bachelor’s degree at Stony Brook.

He was able to facilitate the transition to Long Island for his classmates, passing along his “love for the area,” recognizing the hidden gems culturally, musically and artistically, he said.

After eight years at Stony Brook, Tiwari suggested he would miss a combination of a world-class research institution with an unparalleled biomedical education. He also enjoyed the easy access to nature and seascapes.

A look back

Until 1980, Stony Brook didn’t have a hospital, which meant that the medical students had to travel throughout the area to gain clinical experience.

“Students were intrepid, traveling all across Long Island, deep into Nassau County, Queens and New York City,” said Wertheim.

In those first years, students learned the craft of medicine in trailers, as they awaited the construction of buildings.

Several graduates of Stony Brook from decades ago who currently practice medicine on Long Island shared their thoughts and perspective on this landmark graduation.

Dr. Sharon Nachman, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, graduated from Stony Brook Medical School in 1983.

In the early years, the students were an “eclectic group who were somewhat different than the typical medical school students,” which is not the case now, Nachman said.

When Nachman joined the faculty at Stony Brook, the medical school didn’t have a division of pediatric infectious diseases. Now, the group has four full time faculty with nurse practitioners.

The medical school, which was renamed the Renaissance School of Medicine in 2018 after more than 100 families at Renaissance Technologies made significant donations, recognizes that research is “part of our mission statement.”

Stony Brook played an important role in a number of medical advances, including Dr. Jorge Benach’s discovery of the organism that causes Lyme Disease.

Stony Brook is “not just a medical school, it’s part of the university setting,” added Nachman. “It’s a hospital, it has multiple specialties, it’s an academic center and it’s here to stay. We’re not just the new kids on the block.”

Departments like interventional radiology, which didn’t exist in the past, are now a staple of medical education.

Dr. David Silberhartz, a psychiatrist in Setauket who graduated in 1980, appreciated the “extraordinary experience” of attending medical school with a range of people from different backgrounds and experiences. He counts three of the members of his class, whom he met his first day, as his best friends.

Silberhartz, who planned to attend commencement activities, described the landmark graduation as a “wonderful celebration.”

Aldustus Jordan III spent 43 years at the medical school, retiring as Associate Dean for Student Affairs in January 2019.

While he had the word “dean” in his title, Jordan suggested that his job was to be a “dad” to medical students, offering them an opportunity to share their thoughts, concerns and challenges.

As the school grew from a low of 18 students to a high of 150 in 2021, Jordan focused on keeping the small town flavor, so students didn’t become numbers.

“I wanted to make sure we kept that homey feeling, despite our growth,” said Jordan.

Jordan suggested that all medical schools recognize the need for doctors not only knowing their craft, but also having the extra touch in human contact.

“We put our money where our mouth is,” Jordan said. “We put a whole curriculum around that” which makes a difference in terms of patient outcomes.

Jordan urged future candidates to any medical school, including Stony Brook, to speak with people about their experiences and to use interviews as a chance to speak candidly with faculty.

“When you have down time, you have to enjoy the environment, you have to enjoy where you live,” Jordan said.

As for his own choice of doctors, Jordan has such confidence in the education students receive at Stony Brook that he’s not only a former dean, but he’s also a patient.

His primary care physician is a SBU alumni, as is his ophthalmologist.

“If I can’t trust the product, who can?” Jordan asked.

As for Fauci, in addition to encouraging doctors to listen and be prepared to use data to make informed decisions, he also suggested that students find ways to cultivate a positive work life balance.

“Many of you will be in serious and important positions relatively soon,” Fauci said. “There are so many other things to live for and be happy about. Reach for them and relish the joy.”

by -
0 1362
Anthony S. Fauci, MD, addressing the RSOM graduating Class of 2024. Credit: Arthur Fredericks

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Speaking in a front of a receptive, appreciative and celebratory audience of 125 graduates of the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University who gave him a standing ovation before and after his commencement address, Dr Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, shared some thoughts on the hard lessons learned from the last four years.

Dr. Fauci currently serves as Distinguished University Professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine and the McCourt School of Public Policy and also serves as Distinguished Senior Scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

“I speak not only of lessons we have learned that can help us prepare for the next public health challenge, but, more importantly, of lessons that will apply to your future professional and personal experiences that are far removed from pandemic outbreaks,” Fauci said, after complimenting the class on persevering in their training despite the challenges and losses.

To start with, he suggested these new doctors expect the unexpected. In the early phase of the pandemic, the virus revealed multiple secrets, “some of which caught us somewhat by surprise,” Fauci said. “As well prepared as we thought we were, we learned that SARS-Cov2 is often transmitted from people who are infected but have no symptoms.”

Additionally, the virus continually mutated, forming more transmissable variants that caused illness even in those who had already contracted the virus.

“Each revelation not only humbled us, but served as a stark reminder that, when facing novel and unanticipated challenges in life, as you all will I promise, any predictions we might make about what will happen next or how the situation will unfold must always be provisional,” Fauci said.

Dealing with these challenges requires being open-minded and flexible in assessing situations as new information emerges.

He cautioned the new doctors and scientists to beware of the insidious nature of anti science.

Even as doctors have used data and evidence learning to gain new insights and as the stepping stones of science, anti science became “louder and more entrenched over time. This phenomenon is deeply disturbing” as it undermines evidence-based medicine and sends the foundation of the social order down a slippery slope.

Even as science was under attack, so, too, were scientists. “During the past four years, we have witnessed an alarming increase in the mischaracterization, distortion and even vilification of solid evidence-based findings and even of scientists themselves,” Fauci continued.

Mixing with these anti science notions were conspiracy theories, which created public confusion and eroded trust in evidence-based public health principals.

“This became crystal clear as we fought to overcome false rumors about the mRNA Covid vaccines during the roll out” of vaccines which Dr. Peter Igarashi, Dean of the Renaissance School of Medicine estimated in his introduction for Dr. Fauci saved more than 20 million lives in their first year of availability.

“I can confirm today that Bill Gates [the former CEO of Microsoft] and I did not put chips in the Covid vaccines,” Fauci said. “And, no, Covid vaccines are not responsible for more deaths than Covid.”

The worldwide disparagement of scientific evidence is threatening other aspects of public health, he said, as parents are opting out of immunizing their children, which is leading to the recent clusters of measles cases, he added.

Elements of society are “driven by a cacophony of falsehoods, lies and conspiracy theories that get repeated often enough that after a while, they become unchallenged,” he said. That leads to what he described as a “normalization of untruths.”

Fauci sees this happening on a daily basis, propagated by information platforms, social media and enterprises passing themselves off as news organizations. With doctors entering a field in which evidence and data-driven conclusions inform their decisions, they need to “push back on these distortions of truth and reality.”

He appealed to the graduates to accept a collective responsibility not to accept the normalization of untruths passively, which enables propaganda and the core principals of a just social order to begin to erode.

Fauci exhorted students to “seek and listen to opinions that differ from your own” and to analyze information which they have learned to do in medical school.

“Our collective future truly is in your hands,” Fauci said.

Fauci also urged these doctors and scientists to take care of their patients and to advance knowledge for the “good of humankind.”

by -
0 723
Gabrielle Pouchelon with technician Sam Liebman. Photo by Constance Brukin/CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

Gabrielle Pouchelon doesn’t need to answer the age-old debate about heredity vs. environment. When it comes to the development of the brain, she’s studying the response both to sensory cues and genetics.

Gabrielle Pouchelon.
Photo courtesy of CSHL

An Assistant Professor who joined Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in March of 2022, Pouchelon studies the interplay between sensory and neuromodulatory inputs and genetic programs in circuit maturation. She also studies other neuromodulatory inputs, usually associated with states of adulthood, which could control development.

A combination of genetics and environment shapes the way neurons connect in a healthy brain. In people who develop non-neurotypical behaviors, through autism, schizophrenia or other conditions, the development of neurological connections and architecture is likely different.

Researchers have associated genes of susceptibility with schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders. Scientists believe environmental cues provide the brain with activity that interact with these genetic components.

“We are trying to understand whether we can [intervene] earlier that can have different outcomes at later times,” said Pouchelon. “We are studying ways to intervene with these transient processes and examine whether dysfunctions associated with the disorders are improved.”

During critical periods of development, the brain has a high level of plasticity, where various inputs can alter neurons and their connections. This not only involves building connections, but sometimes breaking them down and rebuilding other ones. As people age, that plasticity decreases, which is why children learn faster than adults in areas such as the acquisition and development of language skills.

While the timing of critical periods is less well-defined in humans and language is a complex function, the ability to learn new languages at a young age reflects the high plasticity of the brain.

Scientists are studying language processes, which are specific to humans, with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Pouchelon, who isn’t studying language skills, hopes that understanding the architecture of developing brains and how they respond to sensory and neuromodulatory cues could shed light on the studies performed in humans. Since behavioral therapy and pharmaceutical treatments can help children with autism, she believes understanding how external cues affect genetic elements could uncover drug targets to alleviate symptoms of neurodevelopmental disorders at an early age.

Neurons & the environment

From left, technician Sam Liebman, Gabrielle Pouchelon and postdoctoral researcher Dimitri Dumontier. Photo courtesy of Gabrielle Pouchelon

In her lab, which currently includes three researchers but she expects to double within a month, Pouchelon uses sophisticated tools to target not only the effect of the environment, but also to look at the specific neurons that transmit information.

She is trying to “understand at a very precise level what a sensory input means and what are the neurons that integrate that sensory input.”

Sam Liebman, who became a technician in Pouchelon’s lab two years ago after graduating from the University of Vermont, appreciates the work they’re doing and her mentorship.

The lab is “unique and special” because he has that “close relationship” in what is now a smaller lab with Pouchelon, Liebman said.

Growing up in Huntington, Liebman, who hopes to go to graduate school in the fall of 2025, came to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for field trips in middle school and high school.

“I idolized this place and this campus,” said Liebman.

Pouchelon has asked for Liebman’s opinion on potential candidates to join the lab, even summer interns.

Fragile X Syndrome

Most of the work Pouchelon conducts is done on animal models. She is mainly studying animals with a mutation linked to Fragile X Syndrome. 

In Fragile X Syndrome, which can affect boys and girls, children can have developmental delays, learning disabilities and social and behavioral problems. Boys, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, typically have some degree of intellectual disability, while girls can have normal intelligence or some degree of intellectual disability.

Other models for autism exist, such as genetic mutations in the gene Shank3. “We are trying to utilize these models to apply what we understand of development in brains that are healthy and compare them” to the mutated models, Pouchelon explained.

While clinical trials are exploring receptors as drug targets for Fragile X Syndrome, she hopes to find new ones that are selective in early stages of the disease to modify their use depending on the stages of development.

An annoying nerd

Born and raised in Paris, France to a family that showed considerably more artistic talent than she, Pouchelon struggled with games she and her sisters played when they listened to music on the radio and they had to guess the composer.

“I was the one always losing,” said Pouchelon. Her family, including her two older sisters who currently live in France, knew “way more about art and history than I did. I was the nerd scientist.”

When she was young, she was curious and asked a lot of “annoying questions” because she was interested in the “mystery of everything.” In high school, she became interested in the brain.

Pouchelon, who isn’t actively searching for French food but finds the baguettes at the Duck Island Bakery exceptional, lives on the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory campus with her husband Djeckby “DJ” Joseph, a naturalized American citizen originally from Haiti who works in law enforcement at the VA Hospital in Manhattan, and their two-year old son Theo.

Eager to ensure her son benefits from a multicultural identity, Pouchelon speaks to Theo in French. He also attends on campus day care, where he learns English.

As for the decision to come to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Pouchelon, who conducted her PhD research at the University of Geneva in Switzerland and completed her postdoctoral research at New York University and at Harvard Medical School, is thrilled to discuss her work with the talented and collegial staff at the lab.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which is known internationally for meetings and courses, is an “exciting place” where scientists conduct cutting edge research.

by -
0 519
Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

I took my first trip to London with my wife and I never felt like we were far from home or from living history.

In Uber rides, the music of Justin Timberlake, the Pointer Sisters and numerous other American artists provided the soundtrack for our visit.

Walking around the city and descending into the tube, advertisements for American products such as Pepsi and movies such as “The Fall Guy” and “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” adorned the sides of hackney cars, the iconic red double-decker buses and the walls of the tube.

The cars on the tube were much narrower than I expected, as people sitting across from me tapped my feet without standing or stretching. 

For a country that drives on the left, I was mystified by the “keep right” signs. If they drive on the left, why do they walk on the right?

London has its fair share of “must visits,” such as the Tower of London, Big Ben and Parliament and the Churchill War Rooms. An imposing and impressive testament to the history of the city and the country, the Tower of London forms a small metropolis with its enormous towers and stories of prisoners. Graffiti on the walls bears the name and religious convictions of those confined to the tower and in some cases tortured or killed.

Big Ben was larger and more elaborate than I imagined. It reminded me of an earlier visit to Mount Rushmore, where I found the size and pageantry of the four former presidents magnificent and moving.

The Churchill War Rooms provided a close up view of the remarkable fortitude and foresight of the celebrated prime minister. At the age of 65, Churchill spent considerable time underground.

When he learned that the facility was vulnerable to a direct hit from a German bomb, he complained in a letter displayed on the wall of the memorial that Patrick Duff, who was permanent secretary of the Office of Works, had “sold him a pup.”

The government added concrete and, after a nearby bomb shook the bunker, Churchill lamented that the bomb didn’t strike close enough to test the reinforcements.

Veterans of the shelter, many of whom rarely saw sunlight underground, shared stories about going under sunlamps to increase their vitamin D, about Churchill’s need for quiet, and about their secret life.

The arms of one of Churchill’s chairs in the cabinet room bears the marks of his fingers digging into the wood, as he listened to testimony, prepared action plans and reacted to news.

Throughout his tenure during the war, Churchill traveled extensively, visiting everywhere from the United States, to Cairo to Moscow, rallying support for the war and visiting foreign leaders and dignitaries, sometimes for more than a month. The Prime Minister, who was almost 71 when the war ended, traveled over 100,000 miles during those tumultuous years. Observers shared parts of his routine, which included two baths a day and three meals per day.

Churchill, who was involved in everything from planning the war effort to offering advice about military technology, pointed out that the government named a tank after him “when they found out it was no damn good!”

Aside from our historical visits, we enjoyed listening to, and watching, people. Like so many other big cities, London attracts guests from around the world, as French, Spanish and German blended with Japanese, Chinese and Arabic languages.

We enjoyed the hospitality of numerous Brits. A beefeater at the Tower of London, which was hit by a few stray bombs, suggested the site wasn’t a target during World War II because it had no strategic value.

Or, perhaps, the Germans and their killer leader “liked the Tower” and didn’t want it or the crown jewels, destroyed.

On the lighter side, we experienced a range of London weather while on a short boat trip on the Thames, as sunlight gave way to dark clouds and wind turned some umbrellas inside out.

The tour guide on the boat offered one of the more unexpected linguistic differences. He described how certain buildings were converted from commercial properties into apartments.

“Wait, what did he just say?” I asked my wife, chuckling.

“What do you mean?”

“I think he’s talking about warehouses and he said, ‘Where asses.’”

Later, when he described a queen’s residence, he also suggested this was one of the queen’s favorite ‘asses.’

Yes, we had a “eck” of a time in London and would be more than “appy” to visit again.

Prev1...151617...163Next Page 16 of 163
TBR News Media is your local news and entertainment website.
We provide you with the latest breaking news and information for your community.
Contact us: [email protected]

Most Viewed

©