As we reach the beginning of December, we are only a month away from the inevitable promises to shed unwanted pounds.
Today, however, only a few days after our journeys to visit friends and families for Thanksgiving, I’d like to urge you to consider shedding unwanted baggage.
Metaphorically, we all lug unwanted baggage with us — remembering the spot where a girlfriend or boyfriend broke up with us; the moment we decided to substitute the wrong player in a game we were coaching; and the time our teacher gave someone else partial credit for the same answer on which we received no credit.
Some of that baggage is constructive, giving us the tools and the memory to learn from our mistakes and to have a perspective on the things that happen to us.
We might, for example, learn to cope with losses on the athletic field more gracefully when recalling how we felt the time we shouted at a coach, an umpire or an opposing player. Days, weeks, or years later, we might realize that we have the tools and the distance to understand the moment better and to develop a grace we might not have possessed when we were younger.
Extending the baggage metaphor, it seems that the more we carry with us everywhere, the harder it is to move forward. Baggage, like those unwanted pounds that make it harder to hike up a hill or to climb stairs, keeps us in place, preventing us from improving and moving forward.
Shedding pounds, which isn’t so easy itself, has a prescribed collection of patterns, often involving an attention to the foods we might mindlessly eat and a dedication to exercise.
But how do we get rid of the emotional baggage that gets in our way? What do we do to move forward when the burdens around us weigh us down?
For starters, we might learn to forgive people for whatever they did that annoys or puts us down. Forgiveness isn’t easy, of course. We sometimes hold onto those slights as if they are a part of our identity, becoming a doctor to show our biology teacher who didn’t believe in us that we are capable and competent or developing into a trained athlete after a neighbor insulted us.
Holding onto those insults gives other people unnecessary power over us. We can and should set and achieve our goals because of what we want and not because we continue to overcome limits other people tried to set for us.
We also might feel weighed down by our own self-doubt. As I’ve told my children, their peers and many of their teammates, we shouldn’t help our competitors beat us. Believing the best about ourselves is difficult.
We also don’t, and won’t, always win. It’s easier to carry the memories of the times we failed a test or when we didn’t reach the top of the mountain on a hike. Carrying those setbacks around with us for anything other than motivation to try again or to go further than we did before makes it harder to succeed.
Now is the time to set down that baggage, to walk, jog or even run forward, unencumbered by everything that might make us doubt ourselves and our abilities and that might make it harder to achieve our goals. While all that baggage might feel familiar in our hands, it also digs into our palms, twists our fingers and slows our feet.
Even before we resolve to eat better, to exercise, to lose weight and to look our best, let’s check or even cast aside our emotional and psychological luggage. Maybe dropping that baggage in the last month of the year will make achieving and keeping our New Year’s resolutions that much easier.
From left to right, physician assistants Michelle Rosa and Katherine Malloy, Dr. David Fiorella and Dr. Jason Mathew visit Joseph Annunziata in his hospital bed. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
By Daniel Dunaief
Joseph “Bob” Annunziata, a resident of Kings Park, wants you not to be like him.
An army veteran, Annunziata urges residents and, in particular, other veterans, to pay attention to their medical needs and to take action when they find out they have a problem.
A self-described “tough guy” who grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Annunziata put off medical care for a partially blocked left carotid artery and it caused a medical crisis.
“My brother and sister vets, if you got a pain or the doctor tells you to do something, do it,” he said. “It almost cost me my life. I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.”
Joseph Annunziata at his 80th birthday party
Annunziata, 80, was driving to the supermarket on Veterans Day when his right hand became limp and he was slurring his speech. Knowing he was in trouble, he turned the car around and drove 10 minutes to the Northport VA Medical Center.
The doctors evaluated him and rushed him to Stony Brook University Hospital, which is well equipped to handle stroke-related emergencies and is the only hospital in the state named one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Stroke Care for eight years in a row.
Several doctors evaluated Annunziata, including by Dr. David Fiorella, Director of the Stony Brook Cerebrovascular Center and Co-Director of the Stony Brook Cerebrovascular and Comprehensive Stroke Center, and Jason Mathew, stroke neurologist.
“We identified that there was a severe blockage in the left side of his brain,” said Dr. Mathew. “If blood flow is not returned to this area, the patient is at risk for a larger area of stroke.”
Indeed, a larger stroke could have caused right side paralysis and could have robbed Annunziata of his ability to speak or worse.
Performing emergency surgery could protect endangered brain cells, but also presented some risk. If not removed carefully and completely, the clot in the carotid artery could travel into the brain or the stroke could expand over time due to a lack of sufficient blood flow to the left side of the brain.
Time pressure
Stony Brook doctors discussed the particulars of the case together and explained the situation to Annunziata, who could understand what they were describing and respond despite symptoms that threatened to deteriorate.
The hospital, which does between 200 and 250 interventional stroke treatments per year and handles many more strokes than that annually, has a group of health care specialists who can provide accessible information to patients who are not experts in the field and who need to make an informed decision under time pressure.
Stony Brook has become adept at “conveying this complex information in a time-sensitive way,” Dr. Fiorella said. In those cases for which surgery is the best option, each minute that the doctors don’t open up a blood vessel reduces the benefits and increases the risk of longer-term damage.
Stony Brook sees about one to two of these kinds of cases per month. As a whole, the hospital, which is a large referral center, sees numerous complex and unusual cerebrovascular cases of all types, Dr. Fiorella said.
Annunziata and the doctors decided to have the emergency surgery.
Dr. Fiorella used a balloon guiding catheter, which is a long tube with a working inner lumen that has a soft balloon on the outside of it that is designed to temporarily block flow. He deploys these occlusion balloons in most all stroke cases.
The particular way he used it in these complete carotid occlusions is unique. The balloon guiding catheter makes interventional stroke procedures more efficient, safer, and the outcomes better, according to data for thrombectomy, Dr. Fiorella said.
The occlusion balloon enabled Dr. Fiorella to control blow flow the entire time, which makes the procedure safer. The surgery took under an hour and involved a small incision in Annunziata’s right wrist.
Joseph Annunziata with his girlfriend Rosemarie Madrose
After the surgery, Annunziata was able to speak to doctors and call Rosemarie Madrose, his girlfriend of five and a half years. “He came out talking,” said Madrose. “I could understand him. I was relieved.” Four days after the emergency operation, Annunziata, who also received post operative care from Dr. Yuehjien Gu, Neurocritical Care Unit Director, left the hospital and returned to his home, where he spent the next morning preparing a welcome meal of a scrambled egg and two slices of toast.
The doctors attribute Annunziata’s quick recovery to a host of factors. Getting himself to the hospital as soon as symptoms started saved precious minutes, Dr. Fiorella said, as “time is brain.” He also advised against driving for people having stroke-like symptoms, which can include slurred speech, numbness, weakening of the arm or leg and loss of vision in one eye.
Dr. Fiorella urged people to call for help or to get a ride in an ambulance. Stony Brook has two mobile stroke unit ambulances, which are equipped with technology to assess patients while en route, saving time and alerting doctors in the hospital to patients who might need immediate attention and intervention.
These mobile units, which are available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., have helped reduce death and disability for stroke and have cut down the length of stays in the hospital.
People or family and friends who are observing someone who might be having a stroke can call 911 and indicate that the patient is having stroke-like symptoms. The emergency operator will alert the mobile stroke unit of a possible case if the unit is available and the patient is in range.
Helping a veteran
The doctors involved in Annunziata’s care were well aware of the fact that they were treating a veteran on Veterans Day.
“Oftentimes, we think about how we can give back more than just a thank you” to people like Annunziata, who “risked his life and helped his country the way he could,” said Dr. Mathew. “I’m helping him the way I can help.”
Dr. Fiorella added that he thought it was “wonderful” to “help someone who’s given so much to our country on Veterans Day.”
Army origin
Annunziata explained that he wound up in the Army through a circuitous route.“We watched all the war movies” when he was young and wanted to join the Marines, he said.
When he went to enlist in 1962, he was told there was a two and a half year wait. He and his young friends got the same reception at the Air Force, Navy and the Army. As they were leaving the Army building on Whitehall Street, he and his friends ran into a sergeant with numerous medals on his uniform. The sergeant urged them to go back up the hallway and enter the first door on the right and indicate that they wanted to expedite the draft. About a week later, Annunziata was drafted and got a 15 cent token in the mail for a train trip to Wall Street.
After basic training at Fort Dix, he was stationed in Greenland, where Annunziata operated a radar at the top of a mountain for two years. He participated in drills in which he had to catch American planes flying overhead.
Fortunately, he said, even during the height of the Cold War and just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Annunziata never spotted a Russian threat, even though the base was just 20 minutes from Russian air space.
Having gone through emergency surgery that likely saved his life, Annunziata urges residents to pay attention to any medical needs on their radar.
Dr. Fiorella was amazed at how quickly Annunziata expressed concern for his fellow veterans during his recovery.
“One of the first things he talked about was, ‘How can I use what happened to me to help other vets?’” Dr. Fiorella said.
Annunziata’s girlfriend Madrose, who is grateful that the procedure saved his life, said he “didn’t listen to me. He knew he had to do this. I kept saying, ‘When are you going to do it?’ He said, ‘I will, I will, I will.’ He learned the hard way.” She added that they both know he is “extremely lucky.”
Now, we can really get down to some important, democracy building and unifying investigations. Undoubtedly, these investigations will get to the bottom of some important political questions that people absolutely want answered.
Hunter Biden is and will be a prime target. How can he not be? If you look at some of the pictures of him that newspapers have found, he looks guilty, and that should be more than enough. Besides, who doesn’t like a few insightful, incisive and critical First Family questions?
Once they finish — assuming they can get it done in two years — with the important questions, I have ideas for investigations that I’d like to lob in as well. They range from the obvious, to the quirky to the frivolous, but, I figured I might as well make my suggestions now.
I’m going to write it here because you know it’s inevitable. Hillary Clinton. She might be a private citizen now, and she might have run for office six years ago, but she’s got to be responsible for something. Maybe she knocked the nose off the sphinx. Or maybe she tilted the Tower of Pisa. Come on, she’s got to have done something wrong.
I’d like to know why my email fills with stuff I talk about, but don’t type into my computer. Is someone listening? My wife and I might discuss a trip to Bora Bora and then, the next morning, I find an invitation to visit. Is someone listening all the time?
Jose Altuve. The Houston Astros star second baseman, whom baseball fans in other stadiums, particularly Yankee Stadium, love to hate, still seems to be operating under a cloud of suspicion. Did he cheat? Did he have a tattoo that he didn’t want anyone to see when his teammates seemed poised to tear off his jersey many years ago against the Yankees? Is it safe for purist baseball fans to root for him again? Will he be eligible for the Hall of Fame someday?
Open Water. Did you see the movie? It was incredibly popular. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but, well, I’m going to do it anyway. These two people suffer through endless torment and fear after their boat leaves them behind while they are scuba diving. It’s not a feel good movie. Injured, cold and miserable, they try to fight off sharks — guess who wins that one? Afterward, I overheard someone say, “seriously? I watched those people for two hours for that?”
Jan. 6th. There’s likely to be a committee investigating the committee investigating the riots. Fine. But wouldn’t it throw Democrats, Republicans and conspiracy theorists for a loop if another committee then investigated the committee that investigated the original committee? It’d be like seeing images several times in a combination of mirrors.
Tom Brady. Okay, I know he’s not having his usual spectacular world-beating season, but the guy is 45 and strong, muscular, athletic 20-year-olds are putting everything they have into throwing him to the ground. How is he still functioning? He’s not playing golf. Did someone replace him with a robot? Has he discovered some magical diet or fountain of youth that makes it possible to compete at such a high level when he’s at such an advanced age? I throw a ball with my son, and it takes me a week for my arm to recover. The world needs to hear his secrets.
Socks. I’m not particular about my socks. White ones that go above my ankle are fine. Most of the time, I buy socks that look like the ones I already own, which makes matching them pretty easy. And yet, somehow, I wind up with an odd sock more often than not. Where is that missing sock? Is someone stealing socks from dryers?
Asparagus. I kind of like the taste, but I’d prefer that my pee didn’t smell later. Can’t someone do something about it? It’s the only vegetable that has that effect. Let’s figure out a better-smelling asparagus.
The holiday season can be a difficult time for many people, especially for those who lost a loved one recently. Stock photo
An important gift people can give each other this holiday season is a check-in call or visit.
That’s the advice of area mental health professionals, who say that the holidays in general can be stressful and that several factors, including grieving over the loss of family or friends, fear about ongoing health concerns, and uncertainty and overall anxiety, have created stressors to mental health.
“If you know someone is having a rough time, who will be without a loved one for the holidays, you can call and say, ‘I’m here,’” said Dr. Stacy Eagle, director of Psychiatry at Port Jefferson-based St. Charles Hospital. “Doing something that simple can be really helpful.”
Indeed, area mental health professionals said the health care system in general has been straining to meet the need for patients in a host of ages to provide timely services.
Signs
Dr. Adam Gonzalez, a licensed clinical psychologist, director of Behavioral Health at Stony Brook Medicine and founding director of the Stony Brook University Mind-Body Clinical Research Center at the Renaissance School of Medicine, suggested that people can look for signs among their friends, family members and coworkers.
“Be aware of behavioral and emotional changes like social withdrawal, increased alcohol or drug use, overeating/eating more unhealthy food, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating or making decisions, difficulty with getting work done” irritability and sadness, Gonzalez explained in an email.
Broadly speaking, Eagle added that people should be aware of any change in normal functioning. An extrovert who is acting withdrawn can provide a clue about a daily struggle.
Solutions
When people notice these kinds of changes in themselves or others, doctors urged a host of responses, depending on the severity of the symptom.
People who are an imminent danger to themselves or to others can call 988, which is a suicide and crisis hotline phone number. They can also call 911 or go to an emergency room, where a psychiatrist can evaluate them and offer help.
Cari Faith Besserman, director in the Division of Community Mental Hygiene Services with the Suffolk County Department of Health, said residents can take classes such as Mental Health First Aid, which teaches laypeople to increase their awareness by recognizing signs of emotional and mental distress, how to respond safely, and educates on symptoms of illness to decrease the stigma and mystery of mental health and various stages of wellness.
Suffolk County residents also can turn to the Diagnostic Assessment and Stabilization Hub, also known as DASH, program, which provides 24/7 access to behavioral health professionals and provides somewhere to go for those experiencing a crisis. The DASH number is 631-952-3333.
For less severe but problematic or ongoing symptoms, doctors urged some restorative measures.
Eagle suggested getting proper rest, ensuring a sufficient and balanced diet and staying hydrated. Activities such as exercise, which helps increase the release of serotonin, can help reduce anxiety and improve mood.
She added that unplugging from social media, especially for adolescents and children, can improve overall mental health.
Gonzalez also urged those who are offering support to remain fully present and nonjudgmental, and listen actively when someone shares concerns or anxieties.
“Be sure to ask what they need from you,” Gonzalez urged. “For some, it may be just listening; for others, it may be advice/ feedback or helping to connect them to professional support services. It’s easy for many to slip into problem-solving mode; however, sometimes others just want to be heard and validated.”
Gonzalez added that group-based treatments are just as effective as individual therapy and encouraged patients to try skills-based groups to learn coping methods for managing stress, anxiety and depression symptoms.
Stony Brook offers a COVID-19 support group for people who have or have had COVID, especially those with long COVID symptoms. Stony Brook also offers a comprehensive mind-body treatment program called the Stress Management and Resilience Training program.
The SMART program is helpful for people who are managing co-occurring mental and physical health problems and for those who would like to enhance their overall resilience.
Overwhelming demand
On the whole, hospitals and mental health facilities are struggling to keep up with the need for help.
“Currently, the demand for psychotherapy services is overwhelming,” Gonzalez explained in an email.
Eagle added that the weeks leading up to the holidays have often been a stressful period.
This year, some groups in particular are struggling. Parents of children born in 2022 are especially concerned about respiratory syncytial virus, which is “higher than normal,” Eagle said.
Seasonal affective disorder, which occurs during the darker, colder winter months, also affects about 0.5 to 3% of the population, Eagle said.
SAD can be harder for people if they have depression or anxiety, Eagle said. “These things are definitely an issue.”
Doctors added that those who are grieving over a loss can find the holidays difficult.
“Grief can be more of an issue” around the holidays, Eagle said.
Eagle urges the continuation of traditions that families found meaningful and helpful.
Gonzalez added that people can cope with grief by keeping a picture of a person who is no longer present close by, offering a prayer in their honor, sharing positive memories, or writing them a note.
Grieving families can also consider starting new traditions that may help them move forward with their lives, Eagle suggested.
Good news
Even amid all the concerns this year, doctors said people can appreciate some good news.
“Happily, we are out of the severe hospitalizations for COVID,” Eagle said.
Communities can also celebrate resilience “as individuals and as a country,” she added.
In hospitals, visitors are able to offer comfort and spend quality time with their friends and family, which is a considerable improvement from the days when patients couldn’t have visitors.
Eagle said she is following her own advice with her friends and family.
She will try to reach out to those she knows have had a particularly bad time this year to “make sure that they are aware that someone is thinking about them,” she said.
Daniel Knopf and Josephine Aller. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University
By Daniel Dunaief
The ocean often serves as an enormous reflecting pool, showing a virtual image of migrating and water birds soaring on the wind, planes carrying people across continents, and clouds in multiple layers sporting various shades of white to grey.
Those clouds have more in common with the ocean below than just their reflection. In fact, some of the ice nucleating particles that help form the clouds come directly from the phytoplankton in the water below.
Daniel Knopf, Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at Stony Brook University, and Josephine Aller, microbial oceanographer in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, have been teaming up to study the effect of sea spray aerosols on cloud formation in the ocean for 15 years.
Recently, the duo published a paper in the journal Science Advances, in which they simulated sea spray aerosols in laboratory tanks to reflect ocean conditions. They found that organic compounds released by marine microorganisms become ice nucleating particles.
“We performed ice formation experiments in our lab using particles generated from our tanks to determine under which conditions (of temperature and relative humidity) they form ice,” Knopf explained in an email.
During specific temperature and relative humidity conditions, these sea spray aerosols, which are released when bubbles at the surface containing the materials burst or when wind carries them from the ocean into the air, initiate ice crystal formation.
Previous studies revealed that the water contains organic material from biological activity, but the researchers could not identify the specific type of nuclei.
“The current study closes this gap and identifies polysaccharides and proteinaceous matter” as the ice nucleating particles, Knopf explained.
Through work in the lab, Knopf and Aller showed that the particles produce ice crystals through two different pathways under typical atmospheric conditions. Ice can form either by water vapor onto the aerosolized particles or from liquid aerosol droplets.
From x-rays to climate models
Aller and Knopf explored the composition of individual particles using x-ray microscopy technology at the synchrotron light source at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.
After digitally marking particles, the researchers transferred the particles to the x-ray microscope to determine their shape and composition.
“This allowed us to unambiguously examine the ice nucleating SSA particles and compare their organic signature with reference spectra of organic/ biogenic matter,” Knopf wrote.
Aller added that the research provides a clear picture of the conditions necessary for freezing.
“This study not only identifies the ice nucleating agent, but also provides the first holistic parameterization to predict freezing from SSA particles,” she said in a statement. “This new parameterization includes immersion freezing, as the INP is engulfed in a liquid, usually water, and the deposition ice nucleation where ice forms on the INP without any visual water.”
The parameterization can be applied in cloud-resolving and climate models to determine the climatic impact of ice crystal containing clouds, Aller added.
This type of modeling can help with climate models of the polar regions, which is heating at a rate faster than other parts of the world.
At this point, Knopf said the Stony Brook researchers have collaborated with scientists at NASA GISS who work on climate models to improve the understanding of mixed-phase clouds.
“We will make use of the newly developed ice formation parameterization in cloud-resolving models and compare the results to observations,” Knopf wrote. “Those results, ultimately, will be useful to improve climate models.”
Competition in the clouds
As for any surprises, Knopf added that it is “astonishing how biological activity in surface waters can be related to cloud formation in the atmosphere.” Additionally, he was amazed that the organic matter that nucleated the ice was similar independent of the water source.
Spectroscopically, the ice showed the same features, which allowed the researchers to combine the various data sets.
This means that different parts of the ocean do not need local freezing parameterization, which makes modeling the impact of oceans on cloud formation easier.
While sea spray aerosols can and do act as ice nucleating particles, the Stony Brook scientists added that other airborne particles also contribute to the formation of clouds. A heterogeneous mix of particles creates a competition among them for activation. Dust and certain fly ash serve as more efficient ice nucleating particles compared to sea spray aerosols.
During periods when sufficient water vapor is in the area, the sea spray aerosols can also be activated. When these organic particles do not become a part of clouds, they form supercooled droplets or float around as interstitial aerosols and get transported to other areas, Knopf explained.
As for the impact of global warming, Knopf suggested that such increases may first change the microorganisms’ activity and breakdown of chemical species in the ocean surface waters. “How this impacts the source of sea spray aerosols and ice nucleating particles, we do not know that yet,” he said.
The particular species of planktonic communities may change, as differences in nutrient levels could select for cyanobacteria over the normal mix of algal groups. That could cause a change in the exudates produced.
Locally, Knopf and Aller are working with Chris Gobler, Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook, in Lake Agawam in Southampton, which is prone to harmful algal blooms. The Stony Brook scientists are working to understand if the toxins produced by these algae are becoming airborne in sufficient mass.
“It may imply a health-related issue when aerosolized and one is close to the source,” Knopf explained. “There won’t be toxic clouds due to dilution and aerosol mass constraints.”
Knopf and Aller hope to continue to develop these models by combining their lab work with field data.
“This is an ongoing process,” Knopf said. “The more data we acquire, the more accurate the parameterization should become.”
From left, CSHL President and CEO Bruce Stillman, CSHL Board of Trustees Chair Marilyn Simons, and 2022 Double Helix Medal recipients Albert Bourla and Jennifer A. Doudna. Photo by Sean Zanni / Patrick McMullan Company
By Daniel Dunaief
One of them helped tap into a process bacteria use to fight off viruses to develop a gene editing technique that has the potential to fight diseases and improve agriculture. The other oversaw the development of a vaccine at a record-breaking pace to combat Covid-19.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory honored both of them at its 17th annual Double Helix Medal Dinner at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC on Nov. 9.
The lab celebrated Dr. Jennifer Doudna, who won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for her co-discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system and Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Bourla, who helped spearhead the development of an RNA-based vaccine.
The black-tie optional award dinner, hosted by television journalist Lesley Stahl, raised a record $5.8 million for research at the famed lab.
“We are giving hope to people, hope for science — and that’s something that gives us a lot of pride,” Dr. Bourla said in a statement.
Dr. Doudna, who is Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology at the University of California at Berkeley, was encouraged by the transformative nature of gene editing.
“When I think about new therapeutics that are only possible using CRISPR technology, I’m thinking about ways that we can not just treat a genetic disorder chronically, but can provide a one-and-done cure,” she said in a statement.
The awards dinner has raised over $50 million since its inception. Pfizer underwrote the entire event last week.
Attendees included previous award winners Drs. Marilyn and James Simons, who founded Renaissance Technologies, actress Susan Lucci, who starred on All My Children for 41 years, Representative Tom Suozzi (D-NY3) and his wife Helene, David Boies, Chairman and Managing Partner of the law firm Boies, Schiller Flexner, and Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, photographer and widow of tennis legend Arthur Ashe, among other business and philanthropic luminaries.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory will incorporate the funds raised through the dinner into its operating budget, which supports integrated research and education in fields including neuroscience, artificial intelligence, quantitative biology, plant biology, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
The funding from the dinner helps CSHL scientists engage in high-risk, high-reward research that can lead to important discoveries, CSHL said in a statement.
“Rather than relying entirely on the grant system, [scientists] are given the freedom to further explore the future implications of their work,” CSHL added.
Philanthropy also helps CSHL expand its Meetings & Courses program. The operating budget supports community engagement and environmental stewardship on Long Island.
Senior leadership at the lab chooses the honorees each year.
This year’s dinner surpassed the $5 million raised last year, which honored baseball Hall-of-Farmer Reggie Jackson, as well as Leonard Schleifer and George Yancopoulos, the founders of Regeneron, the pharmaceutical company that provided life-saving antibody treatment for Covid-19.
Other previous honorees included actor Michael J. Fox, basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, actor and science educator Alan Alda, and newscasters Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric.
The chairs of the Double Helix medal dinner included Jamie Nicholls and O. Francis Biondi, Barbara Amonson and Vincent Della Pietra, Drs. Pamela Hurst-Della Pietra and Stephen Della Pietra, Mr. and Mrs. John Desmarais, Elizabeth McCaul and Francis Ingrassia, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Kelter, Dr. and Mrs. Tomislav Kundic, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lindsay, Ivana Stolnik-Lourie and Dr. Robert Lourie, Dr. and Mrs. Howard Morgan, and Marilyn and James Simons.
Even months after we emerged from our Covid caves, I still appreciate the wonder and joy of getting out again, of seeing people, of making plans, and of going on a date with my wife.
Recently, we went to see “Hadestown.”
We didn’t know much about it, except that it had won several awards. As soon as we sat down, we fell on the playbill, reading about the origins of the story, checking out the cast, and immersing ourselves in the experience.
I will admit, sheepishly, that we also used our TV app to watch a few minutes of the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. Our son thinks our addiction to that show is laughable and he didn’t even see the movie “Rainman,” in which Dustin Hoffman’s character is addicted to the show “The People’s Court.”
Anyway, after Jeopardy! ended, we took in the room. We studied the arrangement of the set, where it was clear the musicians would be on stage. When I was in high school, I thoroughly enjoyed playing in the pit orchestras of “West Side Story” and “The Wizard of Oz.” One of the wonders of the experience was the opportunity to dress casually, as we played in a true, recessed pit where we were heard and not seen.
As we got closer to the start of “Hadestown,” the auditorium filled with people sporting a wide range of attire, from casual to festive.
In the first few moments of the show, we were transported, as a colorful Hermes pranced around the stage, interacting with the other actors and reaching out to the audience.
The appreciative guests lapped up his over-the-top gestures and movements, as he introduced us to some of the characters and the band, who filled the stage with vitality, music and movement.
During intermission, I watched two women in the row in front of me. One was talking, while the other nodded absent-mindedly while playing solitaire. Perhaps that’s a carry over from too much time at home. Then again, who am I to complain? We watched a TV show in the moments before “Hadestown” started, so we’re also accustomed to our isolated entertainment.
To my left, two women with bright blonde hair opened a ziplock bag filled with small sugar cookies. After they each ate one, the woman holding the bag dropped a cookie on the floor. I felt it hit my shoe before it settled on the ground.
Now, I am a bit OCD with germs. Okay, fine, that’s like being a bit pregnant. I’m OCD and have been known to wash my hands so often in the winter that my skin becomes incredibly dry, cracks and bleeds.
So, what would I have done with that cookie? I would have picked it up, put it in my coat pocket, forgotten about it for about two weeks and, upon rediscovering it, would have thrown it in the garbage and, of course, washed my hands immediately afterwards.
What did she do? The woman picked it up, briefly scraped off the parts she imagined must have touched the floor and my shoe, blew on it and broke it in half. She gave her companion one half, she kept the other, and they both, gulp, ate it.
I laughed nervously and made a mental note, not that I ever need one, to wash my hands just because, well, yuck!
In the second half of “Hadestown,” the show followed a similar pattern, as one sad, longing song gave way to another.
At the critical moment of the story, the woman who had been playing solitaire in front of us objected to the tragic turn of events.“Oh no, don’t do it!” she shouted.
While I wasn’t surprised by the ending to a story filled with mournful songs and that Hermes told us was sad, I chuckled as she tried to change the script from the balcony.
Yes, it was great to be out and to appreciate the show, the music, and the other guests.
All the world, as Shakespeare suggested, is a stage, including for the appreciative members of the audience.
Dr. Chrisy Beneri, below, suggests people leave a window cracked while entertaining such as above. Stock photo above; photo of Dr. Christy Beneri from Stony Brook Medicine
The time between Halloween and Thanksgiving often involves lists.
Dr. Chrisy Beneri. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
Thanksgiving hosts make lists of people to invite, food to purchase, reminders of relatives who need to sit as far from each other as possible, and specialty items, like dairy-free, nut-free, gluten-free and sugar-free desserts.
This year, people should also consider adding healthcare steps to their holiday preparation, particularly as new COVID-19 variants and a host of respiratory viruses like the flu and respiratory syncytial virus, also known as RSV, threaten to put a damper on the holiday festivities or the days immediately after family gatherings.
Even as new COVID variants circulate in the area, cases of the flu have recently been climbing throughout the county, state and country.
As of the week ending Oct. 29, which is the most recent week for which the state and country produced data, Suffolk County reported 255 confirmed cases of the flu, which is up 86% from the previous week, according to the New York State Department of Health. Statewide, the number of cases reached 3,476 for the same week.
Dr. Christy Beneri, program director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, suggests that the “ideal time is now” to get COVID and flu vaccines. “It generally takes about two weeks for the immune system to show a response to the vaccine to provide protection,” which means that the clock is ticking to prepare immune systems for visits with friends and relatives who might be bringing unwitting viral passengers with them to the dinner table.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people get a bivalent booster — the version from Pfizer/ BioNTech or Moderna that includes protection against some of the newer omicron variants — if it has been at least two months since their last COVID-19 vaccine or since their original booster.
Beneri urges residents to get both COVID and flu vaccines, which people can receive at the same time.
The effects of these combined shots may have increased side effects of flu-like illnesses, like fever, aches and fatigue, which generally lasts for about a day.
The CDC reported that observational studies show greater disease severity in patients with influenza and COVID than in patients with COVID alone.
As for ways to protect guests in people’s homes, Beneri explained in an email that no specific house filters are effective at reducing the spread of disease.
“Good air flow is important,” she wrote. “Leaving some windows cracked and telling guests to wear an extra layer” could reduce the risk of spreading viruses.
Beneri added that area medical facilities have seen patients with more than one respiratory virus.
“Having multiple viruses can lead to more severe disease and thus [the] need for hospitalization for supportive care,” Beneri added.
Treatment options currently exist for COVID and influenza, which is not the case for other respiratory illnesses. The NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines suggested that there are no significant drug-drug interactions between the antiviral agents used to treat the flu and antivirals used to prevent or treat COVID.
While vaccinations may not completely prevent disease, they can help reduce severe disease and hospitalization, which is “especially important with the increase in other respiratory infections, such as respiratory syncytial virus,” she explained in an email.
Boosting immunity
In general, people can enhance their health by eating well, exercising and getting a good night’s sleep, Beneri said.
She also generally recommends a multivitamin.
The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel indicates that there is not enough evidence to support the use of additional supplements, such as Vitamin C, D or zinc in patients with COVID.
Beneri advised residents to review any supplement use with their doctors to avoid drug interactions and possible side effects.
At this point, the bivalent vaccine has improved effectiveness for the omicron strain based on the immune response, Beneri explained.
More data, however, is expected on the vaccine efficacy in the short and longer term with the new bivalent boosters, Beneri said.
Additionally, more data should be forthcoming on treatment options, which will also be important with anticipated new waves over the holidays and new variants emerging, she added.
Combined vaccine
Recently, Pfizer/ BioNTech said it was in phase one trials for a single vaccine that would provide immune protection against COVID and the flu.
Local doctors urged patience as the pharmaceutical company and the Food and Drug Administration review the results from these trials.
“Although there may be benefits with combination vaccines from a compliance perspective, we need to weigh that against the risk of safety and efficacy,” Dr. Sunil Dhuper, chief medical officer at Port Jefferson’s St. Charles Hospital, explained in an email.
The medical community needs to ensure that the combination is neither less immunogenic nor less effective than the singular vaccines on their own, he added.
“Safety and tolerability are other important concerns with combination vaccines,” Dhuper explained. He hopes the clinical trials will answer a host of questions related to immune response, efficacy, and reactogenicity, which refers to injection site pain, redness, swelling, fever headaches and other responses to the vaccination.
Ke Jian “Jim” Liu, who arrived at Stony Brook University in late July, plans to help build effective, interdisciplinary research teams.
Ke Jian Liu
Most recently at the University of New Mexico, Liu joins Stony Brook as a Professor in the Renaissance School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology and Associate Director of Basic Science at the Stony Brook Cancer Center.
“In my mind, Stony Brook, research wise, is outstanding,” Liu said in an interview. “The quality of the faculty is excellent.”
Liu will rely on the team building experience he honed while serving as Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Pharmacy at the University of New Mexico. He also worked for eight years at Dartmouth Medical School, where he focused on developing larger collaborations.
“I really enjoy working with people and building teams,” Liu said.
In a note announcing Liu’s arrival, Kenneth Shroyer, chair in the Department of Pathology, recognized Liu’s multidisciplinary approaches in his research. Shroyer explained that Liu has used techniques ranging from chemical to biochemical to biophysical, and from the molecular and cellular level to animal models, to answer specific biological questions.
Shroyer wrote that Liu would focus on opportunities for grant development within several programs.
At the Cancer Center, Liu said he plans to continue the effort to help Stony Brook earn National Cancer Institute designation.
To achieve that designation, Stony Brook will need to continue to provide outstanding medical care, demonstrate community engagement and highlight what makes Stony Brook different from everyone else, he said.
“It takes a village to do that,” Liu said.
He praised the efforts of current Cancer Center Director Yusuf Hannun, who recently announced his plans to step down as head of the center, triggering a nationwide search for a replacement.
Liu said an ideal candidate for that position would have clinical experience.
Player coach
With a busy research effort and lofty leadership goals, Liu explained that he’s able to tackle numerous challenges at once.
“I consider myself a player coach,” he said. “I enjoy research. I have my own research grant and am working with my students and post docs.”
Liu typically maintains a lab with five to six people at different levels. His research has two branches, cancer and stroke, that most people likely consider unrelated, but for which he has found connections.
“People always think, ‘Cancer is cancer and stroke is stroke and they are two entirely different diseases,” Liusaid. As a basic researcher, however, he looks at the cells and the molecules involved in both conditions.
“At a molecular level, a molecule doesn’t care where it is,” he said. “When a disease develops, the biological fundamental process is the same. For me, it’s interesting to look at [whether] certain processes that occur in the brain also occur in cancer.”
Liu’s cancer research focuses specifically on the molecular processes that become carcinogenic when metals like arsenic enter people’s bodies. A well-described poison in numerous murder mysteries, arsenic can contaminate drinking water, get incorporated into crops like rice, or can appear in fruit juices.
When metal enters the body, it doesn’t just cause damage everywhere. It has to find a certain molecular target with which to interact.
What Liu and researchers in his lab have discovered is that the target for arsenic is often the same pathways the body uses in zinc. A transition metal, zinc provides an important element as a part of transcription factors that are critical in biological processes.
Arsenic, however, replaces zinc, which is “one of the major mechanisms for carcinogenesis,” Liu said.
Fortunately for residents of Long Island, arsenic isn’t as prevalent as it is in the midwest and the southwest.
“Long Island doesn’t have too much arsenic in drinking water,” Liu said, although people are still exposed to it through fruit juices, rice and other products.
Arsenic also causes vascular disease issues and anemia. People who develop these other conditions in response to arsenic are also at higher risk to develop cancer. The specific types of cancers arsenic causes are lung, skin and bladder cancer.
“Arsenic is the dirty bomb” in the body as it creates multiple problems, Liu said. “Arsenic interacts with those key zinc molecules.”
Overlap between stroke and cancer
In highlighting the overlaps between the two fields of research, Liu related how the brain has one of the highest concentrations of zinc in the body.
When people have strokes, their brain cells have oxidative stress, which causes a flood of zinc into the brain tissue that also damages cells.
“We are trying to understand how zinc is released and how zinc causes damage to the brain,” Liu said.
Stroke and cancer also have molecular overlaps regarding oxygen. In a stroke, a blood clot causes a blockage of blood flow. Without oxygen, a situation called hypoxia, neurons start to die.
By contrast, a tumor grows in a hypoxic environment, using energy from sugars like glucose, rather than relying on oxygen for its growth.
Liu emphasized the importance of continuing to provide oxygen to brain regions around a clot even before trying to remove the clot or restore blood flow.
A goal for his 100th year
Originally from Beijing, China, Liu and his wife Jiao Ding enjoy traveling. Their daughter Sarah Liu is a resident at Vermont Medical Center and their son Evan Liu is a PhD student at Stanford.
An avid tennis player who plays the sport at least twice a week, Liu is looking forward to attending his first U.S. Open next year.
He and his former tennis partner in New Mexico joked that their goal is to be in the top 20 in the United States when they are 100 years old.
Liu chose the American name “Jim” because it sounds similar to the second syllable of his given name, Ke Jian.
“If people can’t pronounce your name, they shy away,” he said. He believes it’s important to “make yourself adaptable.”
Electrons, shown as red dots above, collide with an ion. Such a collision will reveal the internal structure of the quarks and gluons that are the building blocks of the proton and neutron. Image from BNL
National labs, including Brookhaven National Laboratory, received considerable additional funds as a part of the federal Inflation Reduction Act.
BNL, which will get an additional $224 million over a five-year period, will collect the additional funding from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science to support several projects designed
In a statement, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm called the additional funds for energy-related research and support, which total $1.5 billion, “one of the largest ever investments in national laboratory infrastructure” and suggested that the effort would “develop advanced energy and manufacturing technologies we need to advance the frontiers of science and tackle tomorrow’s challenges.”
At BNL, the Electron-Ion Collider, an enormous project that will start construction in 2024 and should start running experiments in the early part of the next decade, will receive $105 million.
BNL is building the EIC in partnership with the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia, which will also receive $33 million for work towards the new facility.
As its name suggests, the EIC will collide electrons and protons or heavier atomic nuclei and hopes to make numerous discoveries, including providing an understanding of how the energy from quarks and gluons provides the mass of a proton.
Additionally, the EIC will provide advances in health and medicine, national security, nuclear energy, radioisotope production and industrial uses in particle beams. Research on the technologies that will become a part of the EIC will advance the development of magnets and other particle accelerator parts. These advances could lead to energy efficient accelerators, shrinking the size and costs of future accelerators, which could attack cancer cells, design solar cells and batteries and develop drugs and medical treatments.
While the additional funds will help advance the development of the EIC, the total cost is considerably higher, at an estimated $1.7 billion to $2.8 billion.
Beamlines
Additionally, the Office of Science will provide $18.5 million to speed the creation of three new beamlines at the National Synchrotron Light Source II.
The NSLS II already has a host of beamlines that enable researchers from around the world to study the structure of batteries as they are operating, catalysts that help tap into energy sources, and biologically active molecules that could play a role in understanding basic biochemistry or that could lead to the development of drugs.
The new beamlines, which, like others at the NSLS II, have three-letter abbreviations. The ARI will provide a complete picture of the electronic structure of a sample, particularly in connection with temperature, chemical, structural and atomic variation.
ARI will help understand and control the electronic structure of next generation quantum materials.
CDI, meanwhile, will explore the condensed matter macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, including the solid and liquid phases that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. CDI is in its final stages of its design.
The SXN will provide element access from carbon to sulfur. The beamline will offer measurements of different signals, such as X-ray fluorescence and total electron yield absorption, which is important in catalysis, condensed matter physics and environmental science.
The DOE is also providing $20 million for five Nanoscale Science Research Centers. The Center for Functional Nanomaterials is leading the effort to revitalize the nanoscience infrastructure.
The funds will accelerate the acquisition, development and installation of five instruments, which will advance research in fuel cells, solar cells and other materials that are part of the country’s efforts to develop cleaner forms of energy.
A/C and Heating
BNL will receive $33 million to support an upgrade to the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe’s CERN laboratory. The upgrades will enable a high-energy particle detector to make use of increased particle collision rates.
The lab, which focuses on energy research, will also receive $14.5 million towards infrastructure improvements that will increase the efficiency in distributing electricity and heating and air conditioning in labs throughout the facility.
Finally, the lab will receive $1 million to develop instrumentation for a nuclear physics experiment that seeks to find neutrinoless double beta decay, which is led by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
BNL Lab Director Doon Gibbs described the funding as an investment in the nation’s innovation-based economy.
The funding will support “research with direct impact on the development of clean energy technologies as well as ground-breaking basic research in nuclear and high-energy physics — fields that could lay the foundation for future advances,” Gibbs said in a statement.
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