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Daniel Dunaief

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Dennis Plenker Photo by Bob Giglione, 2020/ CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

If the job is too easy, Dennis Plenker isn’t interested.

He’s found the right place, as the research investigator in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center Director Dave Tuveson’s lab is tackling pancreatic cancer, one of the more intractable forms of cancer.

Plenker joined Tuveson’s lab in 2017 and is the technical manager of a new organoid facility.

Organoids offer hope for a type of cancer that often carries a poor prognosis. Researchers can use them to find better and more effective treatments or to develop molecular signatures that can be used as a biomarker towards a specific treatment.

Scientists can take cells from an organoid, put them in miniature dishes and treat them with a range of drugs to see how they respond.

The drugs that work on the organoids offer potential promise for patients. When some of these treatments don’t work, doctors and researchers can continue to search for other medical solutions without running the risk of making patients ill from potentially unnecessary side effects.

“Challenges are important and there is a sweet spot to step out of my comfort zone,” Plenker explained in an email.

Dennis Plenker Photo by Bob Giglione, 2020/ CSHL

In an email, Tuveson described Plenker as a “pioneer” who “likes seemingly impossible challenges and we are all counting on him to make breakthroughs.”

Specifically, Tuveson would like Plenker to develop a one-week organoid test, where tissue is processed into organoids and tested in this time frame.

Organoids present a cutting edge way to take the modern approach to personalized medicine into the realm of cancer treatments designed to offer specific guidance to doctors and researchers about the likely effectiveness of remedies before patients try them.

Plenker and others in Tuveson’s lab have trained researchers from more than 50 institutions worldwide on how to produce and use organoids.

“It’s complicated compared to conventional tissue culture,” said Plenker, who indicated that considerably more experience, resource and time is involved in organoid work. “We put a lot of effort into training people.”

Tuveson explained that the current focus with organoids is on cancer, but that they may be useful for other conditions including neurological and infectious diseases.

The way organoids are created, scientists such as Plenker receive a biopsy or a surgical specimen. These researchers digest the cells with enzymes into singular cells or clumps of single cells and are embedded. Once inside the matrix, they form organoids.

When they “have enough cells, we can break these down and put them into multi-well plates,” Plenker explained. In these plates, the scientists test different concentrations and types of drugs for the same patient.

It’s a version of trial and error, deploying a range of potential medical solutions against cells to see what weakens or kills cells.

“If you do that exercise 100 times, you can see how many times compound A scores vs. C, E and F. You get a sense of what the options are versus what is not working,” Plenker said.

While scientists like Plenker and Tuveson use targeted drugs to weaken, cripple or kill cancer, they recognize that cancer cells themselves represent something of a molecular moving target.

“There is a very dynamic shift that can happen between these subtypes” of cancer, Plenker said. “That can happen during treatment. If you start with what’s considered a good prognosis, you can end up with a higher fraction of basal cancer cells” which are more problematic and have a worse prognosis. “We and others have shown that you have a mixture of cell types in your tumor all the time.”

Part of what Plenker hopes to discover as the director of the organoid center is the best combination of ingredients to foster the growth of these versatile and useful out-of-body cancer models.

The gel that helps the cells grow is something Plenker can buy that is an extracellular matrix rich matter that is of murine, or rodent, origin. He hopes to develop a better understanding of some of these proprietary products so he can modify protocols to boost the efficiency of the experiments.

Plenker is “trying to innovate the organoids, and so he may need to adjust conditions and that would include inventing his own recipes,” Tuveson explained.

The facility, which received support from the Lustgarten Foundation, will engage in future clinical trials.

The type of treatments for pancreatic cancer patients typically fall into two arenas. In the first, a patient who is doing well would get an aggressive dose of chemotherapy. In the second, a patient who is already sick would get a milder dose. Determining which regimen is based on the current diagnostic techniques.

Plenker and his wife Juliane Dassler-Plenker, who works as a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Mikala Egeblad at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, live in Huntington. The pair met in Germany and moved to the United States together.

Plenker calls himself a “foodie” and appreciates the hard work that goes into creating specific dishes.

In his career, Plenker always “wanted to help people.” He has appreciated the latest technology and has disassembled and put back together devices to understand how they work.

Prior to the pandemic, Plenker had gone on short trips to Germany to visit with friends and relatives. He is grateful for that time, especially now that he is much more limited in where he can go. He appreciates his landlord and a second American family which helps the couple feel welcomed and grateful.

In 2017, Plenker recalls attending a talk Tuveson gave in Washington, D.C. in which he invited anyone in the audience who wanted to improve a test to come and talk to him after the presentation.

“I was the only one in that regard who talked to him” after that lecture, Plenker said.

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By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

My wife wanted to get out of the house and move beyond the daily walk in our neighborhood for her birthday. We decided to take our teenage children to the zoo.

Back when our son and daughter were younger, a trip to the zoo was a cause for celebration, as they got to see animals from all over the world, watch various shows, spend about four seconds reading an interesting fact about their favorite creature, and continue to hop, skip and jump from one exhibit to the next.

These days, their thumbs do most of the hopping, skipping and jumping. Given the importance of birthdays in our house and the willingness to do whatever the birthday celebrant desires, our teenagers gamely climbed into the car.

As with most zoos this year, we had to preregister for tickets. Indeed, the Bronx Zoo requires visitors to use a date-specific ticket.

The experience of entering the zoo was remarkably quick and smooth, saving us the customary wait.

Zoos require guests to remain socially distanced and to wear masks. All but about eight of the other visitors we saw wore masks.

Most of the time, other guests also maintained social distancing, taking their turns to the glass to look at gorillas and apes, who didn’t seem at all curious about the appearance of people whose lips and noses disappeared behind masks.

While we circumnavigated the walking trail, all four of us reveled in the appearance of numerous animals, including an enormous bison and a swaying elephant.

It seemed slightly unfair to the ostrich, who is over nine feet tall and is the largest bird in the world, to share a pen with the 20-foot giraffe, which dwarfs a bird that also has the largest eye of any bird in the world.

Something about seeing all these animals, including a lemur resting in a tree, an arctic fox and a pair of lions, restored a sense of normalcy in an abnormal year. It was also comforting to hear the excitement from other people who all expressed similar sentiments in several languages when the giraffe started to run.

On our first trip out around the zoo, we stopped at three bear exhibits in which the celebrated occupants were either not there or hidden. Once we had circled the zoo and headed back towards the car, my wife played her birthday privilege, urging us to take one more look at the black bear, the grizzly bear, and the polar bear.

The first two bears remained out of view on our way back to the car. Standing alone along the railing at almost exactly 4 p.m., which was closing time, we saw the polar bear slowly emerge, then retreat, then emerge from a darkened den. We suspected he might have a keen sense of time and know when it as safe to come out and avoid  larger crowds.

He or she (we didn’t read anything about the bear’s gender) played with a toy that looked like the top of a garbage can and then reached up to a ledge to pull down a bone with some meat on it. After giving us an eight-minute private show, the polar bear took his bone and, as if on cue, exited stage right.

While the zoo might not be at the top of your list or top of mind, particularly during the winter, it offers a pleasant chance to get away from our own 2020 pens. The Bronx Zoo has a know before you go page, which you can see by searching Know Before You Go — Bronx Zoo, with details about visiting this year.

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Stock Photo

People aren’t just testing positive for COVID-19 during the second wave; they are also entering the hospital and, in some cases, dying.

Suffolk County has reported over 1,000 positive tests in recent days, as area hospitals have seen an increase in patients needing treatment for their COVID symptoms.

Hospitalizations are now at 394 people, with 67 residents in the intensive care unit. Gregson Pigott, Commissioner in the County Department of Health, said about 2/3 of the people admitted to the hospital were over 64.

The number of deaths has also been climbing over the last six weeks. During the entire month of November, 35 people died. In just the first week of December, COVID has contributed to the deaths of 34 people.

Those numbers are up from six in October, 15 in September and five in August.

“We are not even halfway through this month [and the number of deaths] are more than August, September and October combined,” County Executive Steve Bellone (D) said on a conference call with reporters. These figures are a “stark reminder of the danger this virus poses.”

Bellone urged residents to continue to wear masks and remain socially distanced.

Even as the first night of Hannukah, during which some families gather together to celebrate the Festival of Lights, Bellone urged caution amid small gatherings.

The Suffolk County Health Department is monitoring 13 clusters from Thanksgiving or family gatherings, some of which were below the 10-person limit.

A small gathering in East Islip involved five people, who have all tested positive for COVID-19. Another get-together in Manorville resulted in six out of nine people contracting the virus, while another in Southampton triggered seven out of 10 with the virus.

“None of these gatherings violated the state’s limit,” Bellone said. “That doesn’t mean the virus won’t spread.”

Testing

Bellone said the county is continuing to expand its testing, which “remains one of our most valuable tools.”

After testing over 2,000 students in Hampton Bays, Riverhead and East Hampton, the county started testing in East Islip on Thursday.

The county is also launching a new testing initiative for first responders. Members of fire, rescue and emergency services and emergency medical service providers will have access to rapid testing at six sites throughout the county. That testing will occur on weekends and will start this Saturday.

The county will also make testing available to county law enforcement and partner agencies.

SCPD Limits

The Suffolk County Police Department has reinstated policies to limit contact for officers. While precincts remain open, the SCPD is encouraging residents to limit visits. The SCPD is also providing limited public access to the lobby at police headquarters in Yaphank.

Residents can file police reports online at www.suffolkpd.org or by phone at (631) 852-COPS.

Crimes residents can report online include harassing communications, lost property, crmiinal mischief, non-criminal property damage, minor motor vehicle crashes, identity theft and some larcenies.

The Pistol Licensing Section will be open for purchase orders and pistol license renewals only.

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PSEG trucks remove a downed tree in Mount Sinai Aug. 7. For several days, cars had to swerve around the tree that split the intersection of North Country Road and Crystal Brook Hollow Road. Photo by Kyle Barr

LIPA filed a $70 million lawsuit against PSEG-Long Island in State Supreme Court in Mineola against the New Jersey-based power company for breach of contract in response to Tropical Storm Isaias, which hit Aug. 4 and knocked out power for some Long Islanders for over eight days.

The Department of Public Service recommended a lawsuit to the LIPA Board of Trustees.

“Utility companies are beholden to ratepayers, and when that service is inadequate — or as in this case, a complete failure — those utilities need to be held accountable,” Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) said in a statement. PSEG “failed to hold up their end. It’s inexcusable, and we’re going to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

The complaint, filed by attorneys at the law firm Rivkin Radler, alleges breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, based on PSEG’s “failure to prepare for and manage restoration effort during and following Tropical Storm Isaias. LIPA also brings this action for specific performance to compel PSEG LI to comply with its obligations” under the operations service agreement.

The suit also alleges “corporate mismanagement, misfeasance, incompetence, and indifference, rising well beyond the level of simple negligence.”

Immediate Fix Demanded
State Sen. James Gaughran (D-Northport), an outspoken critic of LIPA and PSEG LI’s response to the storm, welcomed the legal action.

“It’s about time LIPA start acting to protect the best interests of Long Island ratepayers,” Gaughran said in a statement. Gaughran urged LIPA to make sure the $70 million is paid by PSEG shareholders and not ratepayers.

“An independent receiver should be appointed to refund this $70 million to hardworking Long Islanders and not dumped into the blackhole of LIPA’s budget,” Gaughran added.

In a statement, LIPA CEO Tom Falcone said PSEG LI must “immediately fix these failed information technology systems and abide by its contract” as LIPA continues to review its legal, contractual and termination options.

“PSEG Long Island has collected nearly half a billion dollars from Long Island customers over the past seven years while failing to meet its basic obligations,” Falcone added.

John Rhodes, Special Counsel for statewide ratepayer protection for the New York State Department of Public Service, asked if LIPA should “find a new service provider?”

In a statement, PSEG Long Island said it was “hard at work addressing recommendations in LIPA’s 30- and 90-day reports. We believe that the current public-private partnership is the best option for Long Island customers and we have remained committed to being the service provider of choice for LIPA.”

PSEG LI is “aware that this lawsuit has been filed and we are reviewing it.”

Lawsuit Claims

In the lawsuit, LIPA describes PSEG LI as demonstrating willful, bad faith and grossly negligent failures.

One of a litany of complaints during and after the storm was the inability for customers to connect with PSEG and to receive a reliable estimate of the time to restore power.

Ratepayers were “left without critical information as adequate telephone lines were overwhelmed with calls and an Outage Management System, selected by PSEG LI as able to withstand a major storm and paid for by LIPA, failed.”

About a million customer calls and 300,000 text messages did not reach PSEG LI, according to the suit.

Calls to outage and billing lines “became overloaded and failed,” the suit alleges, with 75% of customer calls to PSEG LI’s Outage Line not going through on the first day of the storm.

PSEG LI “did not properly monitor whether the calls on the Outage Line were connecting. Calls were dropped without PSEG LI’s knowledge,” according to the suit.

LIPA asserted that PSEG should have known about the inadequacy of the voice telephony system.

PSEG did not perform sufficient tests to determine whether the system would function during a major storm event before or in the 100 days after Isaias, the suit further claimed.

The problems with the telecommunications system predated the storm, as the suit indicated that the “OMS did not crash due to Isaias. It was already failing.”

PSEG LI “must develop a comprehensive integrated set of business continuity plans for every critical IT and communication system on Long Island, plus all repair and recovery activities,” according to the suit.

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Arkarup Banerjee. Photo from CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

Arkarup Banerjee is coming back home to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. This time, instead of working on the olfactory system, the way he did in Associate Professor Dinu Florin Albeanu’s lab from 2010 to 2016, he is studying vocalizations in the Alston’s singing mouse, a Central American rodent.

Banerjee rejoined Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in November after almost four years of post-doctoral work at NYU Langone Medical Center. He hopes to use the study of the way these mice react to songs and the way they formulate them to understand how signals from the brain lead to vocalizations.

Singing Mouse

“The reason I decided to come back to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is not just because I did my PhD here,” said Banerjee, who is an assistant professor. “Neuroscience [at the lab] is amazing. I have fantastic colleagues. I expect to have lots of collaborations.” CSHL is one of his “top choices” in part because of the ability to interact with other researchers and to attend meetings and courses, he said.

To hear Albeanu tell it, CSHL’s colleagues appreciate the skill and determination Banerjee, whom Albeanu described as a “rare catch,” brings to the site.

“There was pretty much unanimous excitement about his vision for his research,” Albeanu said. “Pretty much everyone was in agreement that [hiring Banerjee] is a must.”

Fundamentally, Banerjee is interested in understanding how the brain computes information. In his new lab at CSHL, he wanted to study the natural behaviors that animals produce without having to teach them anything.

“That’s why my fascination arose in singing mice,” he said. “Nobody has to train them to vocalize.” He hopes to understand the neural circuits in the context of a natural behavior.

In the longer term, Banerjee is interested in contributing to the field of human communication. While numerous other creatures, such as birds, interact with each other vocally, singing from trees as they establish territorial dominance and soliciting mates through their songs, mice, which have cerebral cortexes, have brain architecture that is more similar to humans.

The Alston’s singing mice, which is found in the cloud forests of Costa Rica and Panama, is also different from numerous other species of mice. Many rodents produce vocalizations in the ultrasonic range. These animals can hear calls that are outside the range of human capacity to pick up such sounds.

The singing mice Banerjee is studying produces a stereotyped song that is audible to people. “These mice seem to specialize in this behavior,” he said. In neuroscience, scientists seek animals that are specialists with the hope that understanding that species will reveal how they work, he said.

Audible communications are important for male mice in attracting mates and in guarding their locations against other males. These lower-frequency sounds travel across greater distances.

Specifically, Banerjee would like to know the anatomical differences between the brains of typical rodents and the singing mice. He plans to probe “what kind of changes does it require for a new behavior to emerge during evolution.”

The songs have some value to the males who sing them. Females prefer males who sing more notes per unit time in a 10-second period.

In his experiments, Banerjee has demonstrated that the conventional view about one of the differences between humans and other vocalizing animals may not be accurate. Scientists had previously believed that other animals didn’t use their cortex to produce songs. Banerjee, however, showed that the motor cortex was important for vocal behaviors. Specifically, animals with temporarily inactivated cortexes could not participate in vocal interactions.

As a long term goal, Banerjee is also interested in the genetic sequence that makes the development of any anatomical or behavioral feature different in these singing mice. By using the gene editing tool CRISPR, which CSHL scientists employ regularly, Banerjee hopes to find specific genetic regions that lead to these unique behaviors.

Arkarup Banerjee with Honggoo Chae, a post-doctoral fellow at CSHL, from a Society of Neuroscience Meeting in 2018.

An extension of this research could apply to people with various communication challenges. Through studies of mice with different genetic sequences, Banerjee and other researchers can try to find genes that are necessary for more typical vocalizations. By figuring out the genetic differences, the CSHL scientist may one day discover what researchers could do to minimize these differences.

A resident of Mineola, Banerjee lives with his wife Sanchari Ghosh, who works at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory press for the preprint service bioRxiv. The couple, who met in India, spend considerable time discussing their shared interest in neuroscience. Banerjee said his wife is a “much better writer” than he and has helped edit his manuscripts.

Banerjee is passionate about teaching and hopes he has a chance to educate more students once the pandemic recedes. Outside the lab, Banerjee shares an important quality with the mice he studies: he sings. He trained as a vocalist when he was growing up in India, and listens to a range of music.

Albeanu, who was teaching a course in Bangalore, India in 2009 when he met Banerjee, said it is a “pleasure to listen to [Banerjee] singing.”

Albeanu recalls how Banerjee stood out for many reasons when he first met him, including developing a way to modify a microscope.

As for his work, Banerjee hopes to understand behaviors like vocalizations from numerous perspectives. “We can seek explanations for all of these levels,” he said.

A neuroscientist by training, Banerjee would like to determine the connection between neural circuitry and the behavior it produces. “The understanding would be incomplete if I didn’t understand why this behavior is being generated.”

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Stock photo

Journalism is under attack.

It’s a sentiment shared by Laura Lindenfeld, the dean of the School of Journalism at Stony Brook University after years of. Efforts to undermine the press “remind me why journalism is so critical to democracy,” she said. “We have our work cut out for us.”

SBU J-School Dean Laura Lindenfeld took over in March after serving as interim dean for several months. Previous dean Howard Schneider officially left the position at the end of 2018 to focus on bringing SBU’s news litearcy course to public schools. Photo from SBU

Lindenfeld, who came into the position in March this year after serving as interim dean, said she is encouraged by what she sees at the journalism school, where she lauded students for their engagement, motivation and passion.

“That gives me an incredible sense of hope about our ability to overcome,” she said.

Data from Gallup shows that, as of September this year, trust in media is higher than it was in 2016, but not by a sizable amount. In that survey, 40% said they trust the media a great deal or fair amount. 33% trust the media “none at all.” The difference is most expressed when looking at political party, with only 10% of republicans trusting the media to any real degree, while 73% of Democrats share more trust.

Meanwhile, the journalism school has taken several steps to prepare its students for a challenging world.

In addition to providing the same kind of ethical training other schools offer, Stony Brook is immersing them in a digital program in which they can tell factually based, compelling stories. The school is also urging students to become part of local communities.

Professors encourage students to “listen beneath the surface” and to hear stories and gather information “they might not have heard otherwise.”

Lindenfeld is a strong believer in the school’s DEI program, which stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

“We need to be thinking about how important difference is” and how important it is to “listen beyond what we think we are saying,” Lindenfeld said.

Additionally, the journalism program at Stony Brook is inextricably intertwined with the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, which the dean used to head up. Named after the famed TV and movie actor who brought an improv-driven effort to Stony Brook to encourage researchers to share their work and their passion for science with the public, the center also serves as a resource for journalism students.

While students at the journalism school aren’t all training to become science journalists, they do have a “unique opportunity to understand and think beyond what they imagined” to appreciate what audiences might be feeling. Journalism students “get a dose of improv” in their education.

The school is planning a new class that will start this spring that teaches data and statistics through storytelling, combining the kinds of data that inform economic, demographic, and epidemiological information with an underlying narrative that engages the readers, driving them through the story. Elizabeth Bojsza and Julia Hathaway of the Alan Alda Center are teaching the class.

The journalism school has long promoted its news literacy class, which guides students to discern between fact and fiction and addresses how to understand thoughtful, effective, ethical journalistic practices. The class is made available to non-journalism students as well.

This spring, the school is also offering a class for graduate students in which scientists engage with journalists. Stony Brook invites journalists to attend, where they practice interviews and get to redo them, enabling them to ask questions in a compelling way. Taught by journalism professor, Pablo Calvi, the class is titled Engaging with Journalists.

Lindenfeld said she believes “great story telling will prevail” in journalism. She also believes that people will pay for editorial products they value.

The journalism school also provides its students with an education in business. A year ago, the school hired Sree Sreenivasan, who is the Marshall R. Loeb Visiting professor of Digital Innovation and Audience Engagement. He will help students understand how to build a digital audience.

Lindenfeld would also like to see the school add other degree programs. The university is a “knowledge production machine” and has the opportunity to create programs in communication and mass communication that draw on some of the journalistic principles.

As for the nuts and bolts of writing, including grammar, word choice and punctuation, The J-school dean said she is committed to great writing.

“Rules are there for the sake of clarity, flow and engagement,” she said.

Passionate about food culture, Lindenfeld looks at the recipe of the day in the New York Times. She has observed how the cost of ingredients has decreased during the pandemic.

Not to mention, people are experiencing a resurgence in home cooking.

“I do fear for restaurant culture,” Lindenfeld said.

Lindenfeld urges students to listen and hear people from a wide variety of backgrounds, including to those whose ideas or ideologies might conflict with their own.

“Hearing involves a willingness to be changed by the other,” Lindenfeld said. She urges students to respect those with whom they are speaking “with dignity.”

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Photo courtesy of Pixabay

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

My five-year-old neighbor Jack keeps me and his parents on our toes, and for that, I am grateful.

In this strange and challenging year, Jack offers a refreshing, clear-eyed and honest assessment of everything he sees. He speaks directly, asks questions and expects people to treat him the way his kind, caring and supportive parents do.

During the spring, at the start of longer walks around the neighborhood with my dog, I started the pattern of wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts during cooler weather. After all, with nowhere else to go, I didn’t feel compelled to put on a collared shirt, to change my outerwear or to put on my dress shoes. Speaking of which, I don’t think I’ve even looked for my shoes in months. The search for those shoes, and the black socks at the bottom of a drawer somewhere, will be a welcome return to a more normal routine some day.

Anyway, back in the first stages of an endless homebound existence, Jack saw me one morning, greeted my dog , who is 30 pounds heavier than he, and asked me one of the many five-year-old questions that he shares.

“Why are you wearing the same clothes as yesterday?” he asked, as if I were somehow on a walk of shame after an evening that stretched into morning in a college dorm.

“Oh, honey, he’s just wearing the same sweatshirt as yesterday. You do that, too,” his mother gently offered.

Then again, Jack was right. I was wearing the same sweatshirt and sweatpants.

Later, when a nephew who tested negative for the virus came to visit and took a walk with me, Jack listened to his mother chat with us. As we were walking away, Jack watched my nephew and me head to my house.

“Dan,” he shouted, “Don’t forget about six feet.”

Again, Jack was right. Comfortable as I was, even outside with my nephew, Jack learned the rules and was encouraging me to follow them.

Recently, Jack delved into the minefield of politics. Without any hesitation, he asked my wife and daughter about their votes for the presidential election.

His mother, once again, tried to provide a filter, suggesting that such a conversation might not be necessary or comfortable.

Our daughter, who has had extensive experience babysitting children of all ages, had no trouble answering the question in a way that wouldn’t upset Jack, regardless of his or, more likely, his parents’ thoughts on the subject.

Cliche as it seems, it occurred to me, listening to my wife recount this conversation, that Jack, and the need to meet his earnestness and honesty, offered a reminder about public discourse.

Five-year-olds may not know everything, but they know when an adult is being condescending or is belittling them. They need the same kind of honesty they give.

At the same time, they need answers that don’t insult them. Even if they, or their parents, have different views, they need to know that others respect them.

Therein, it occurred to me, lies the lesson. We don’t need to avoid conversations with each other about topics on which we disagree. We are guaranteed the freedom to disagree with everyone, from our siblings, to our parents, to the president.

We also might do well to think of others who are speaking to us as Jack. We don’t need to picture others as five-year-olds. We can, and will, engage in more satisfying discourse if we follow some of the same principles when speaking with anyone. With so many challenges ahead, we will accomplish more together, and respectfully, than if we take each other down.

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Suffolk County officials said we are certainly in the midst of the pandemic's second wave. Stock photo

Responding to numerous 911 calls on Monday, Nov. 30, just after midnight, the Suffolk County Police Department arrived at 51 Hawkins Lane in Brookhaven to find an estimated 300 to 400 people arriving for a party.

Police said it took about four hours to break up a gathering that was just getting started. The owner of the 5,000 square foot property, which is listed on Air BNB for $399 per night, was one of the people who called the police.

SCPD Chief Stuart Cameron said the people who rented the house who officials believe came from New Jersey would face civil fines of up to $15,000 and criminal charges that include criminal nuisance in the second degree and section 12-B of the public health law, which are the sections the police have been using for COVID-19-related enforcement.

The “prompt response” by the police and the “effective dispersion of the crowd” enabled the police to avert a “potential supers spreader event,” Cameron said on a call with the media run by County Executive Steve Bellone (D).

“We have gotten significant cooperation from the homeowner,” Bellone said on the conference call. “When they found that the home was being used for this purpose, they did report that. We will be holding accountable the people who did hold this party.”

Bellone cautioned anyone who might consider coming in to Suffolk County from out of town that they will not be allowed to skirt COVID-19 public health rules.

“Renting a home and thinking you will be able to get away with that … that’s not going to happen,” Bellone said. “We’ve worked too hard to allow selfish and reckless individuals to set back our efforts to continue to protect people’s health.”

Bellone thanked the SCPD for their efforts.

Bellone urged people to continue to follow public health guidelines, particularly as the holidays approach. He said there was hope on the horizon with a vaccine and that there is an “end in sight. We need to do the best we can to follow the guidance so we can contain this second wave.”

Across the county, Chief Cameron described the number of 911 calls over Thanksgiving as a “handful,” which was below his expectations. In the cases when the police did arrive at a home, they didn’t notice “any gross deviations,” which the police chief described as a “testament to the people of Suffolk County.”

A Tough Beginning

As for the number of positive tests, the trend continues to provide warning signs to area officials about the return of the spread of a virus the county had originally beat back earlier this year.

Positive tests for COVID-19 stood at 5.2% as of Dec. 1, with 609 new cases in the previous day. The county hasn’t had a rate above five percent since May 17.

Hospitalizations now stand at 248, which is the highest since June 3.

“Those numbers are alarming to say the least,” Bellone said. “There’s no doubt we are in that second wave we talked about for so long.”

The county and state will now incorporate hospital capacity into cluster zone designations in determining yellow, orange and red levels.

As of the beginning of this month, 28% of hospital beds were available, with 32% of intensive care unit beds available.

Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) has indicated that hospitals in the state need to prepare for surges by identifying doctors and nurses, preparing field hospitals and planning for “all the things we did in the spring,” Bellone said.

Bellone reinforced a message about schools he’s been sharing for several weeks, even as positive cases continue to increase. The county executive said Suffolk is not seeing the spread happening in schools in any significant level.

“Keeping our schools open is critical for students, families and for our continued economic recovery,” Bellone said.

Bellone reminded residents that the majority of new cases seem to be coming from small gatherings, where family and friends who feel safer with each other are congregating, often without masks and, at times, within six feet of each other.

“It is critically important that people limit those gatherings,” Bellone said.

The county continues to rely on contact tracing to try to limit the spread of the virus. On the first of November, the county had 30 people in place who were contact tracing, reflecting the smaller number of positive tests. Now, the county has over 200 contact tracers, who are reaching out to positive cases to connect with those who might have been exposed to the virus.

In the last two weeks, the county had 7,948 confirmed cases. Contact tracers reached 6,114 people, with 3,801 of those providing contacts, which represents less than half the total.

Dr. Shahida Iftikhar, deputy commissioner for the Department of Health, said the number of people who didn’t provide contacts included those who weren’t within six feet for 10 minutes or more of other people.

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Tobias Janowitz. Photo from CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

The body’s savior in its battle against disease, immune cells respond to a collection of signals which tell them to dial up or down their patrolling efforts.

Scientists and doctors are constantly trying to determine what combination of beneficial or detrimental signals can lead to different outcomes.

Recently, Assistant Professor Tobias Janowitz and Professor Douglas Fearon of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, working with Duncan Jodrell at the University of Cambridge Cancer Research Institute, used an inhibitor developed and tested for the treatment of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, in patients with colorectal and pancreatic cancer for a week.

Douglas Fearon. Photo from CSHL

The study was done on 24 patients and is a phase 0 effort, in which scientists and doctors test the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of the treatment.

In the study, which was published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the researchers showed that the treatment got into the blood, that the patients tolerated it, and that it enabled immune treatments to reach the tumors.

While this is an encouraging step, Janowitz cautioned that any such studies are far from a potentially viable treatment for either type of cancer. Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration requires a lengthy and rigorous scientific process for any possible therapy, in part because numerous promising efforts haven’t led to viable therapies for a host of reasons.

Still, this study offers a promising beginning for a potential approach to treating various forms of cancer.

Janowitz said patients “tolerated the treatment by and large very well,” and that “no new toxicities were observed compared to the ones that were known.” Some people developed slight disturbances in their sleep, which were immediately resolved after they discontinued using the treatment.

The history of the possible treatment for HIV showed similar side effects years ago. “We anticipated it would have a favorable toxicity profile,” said Janowitz.

The link between this early candidate for HIV treatment and cancer came from an analysis of the receptor that is expressed on immune cells, called CXCR4.

This receptor is targeted by the drug plerixafor. Most of the work linking the inhibited receptor to potential cancer treatment came from Fearon’s lab, Janowitz explained.

Fearon found that blocking the receptor enabled immune cells to migrate to cancer in a mouse study. Along with Janowitz and CSHL Cancer Director David Tuveson, he published a paper on the preclinical study in a mouse model in PNAS in 2013.

This inhibitor also has been used to release stem cells from bone marrow that can be used in a hematological context for treatment and transplantation. During their cancer study, the scientists found these stem cells circulating in the blood. It’s unclear from this first study how the combination of cancer therapy and releasing stem cells from bone marrow affects patients.

“We are not able to say that that has a relevancy to the cancer patient,” Janowitz said.

While some drug treatments work for a period of time until a cancer returns, immunotherapy may have a longer term benefit than chemotherapeutics, as some studies suggest.

“By giving this drug, our hope is that we enable an influx of immune cells into the tumor and have an across the board integrated immune response,” Janowitz said.

Down the road, Janowitz said the group hopes that this treatment will be a part of a combination of treatments that treat cancer.

By enabling immune cells to access cancer where the mutation rate is lower, these treatments could provide a sustained treatment.

The researchers chose pancreatic and colorectal cancer because those cancers don’t respond to current immunotherapy. “It’s really important to uncover why that is,” said Janowitz. The scientists had evidence from pre-clinical models that the pathway and the biochemistry that this drug activates can be effective.

In his lab, Janowitz performed some of the mechanistic work to understand why this drug might function. A medical doctor who is awaiting his license to practice in New York, Janowitz was also involved in the trial management group and in analyzing the multiplicity of data that came together.

The researchers in this study came from fields including bioinformatics, clinical medicine, pharmacology, and immunology. Fearon explained in an email that Jodrell wrote the grant to Stand Up to Cancer, or SU2C, in 2014 to obtain funding for the trial. Jodrell oversaw the clinical trial and Fearon directed the evaluation of the immunology findings.

Janowitz had a “major role in putting together the clinical data for the write-up,” and Daniele Biasci, a computational biologist at Cambridge, developed the analysis of the transcriptional data of the tumor biopsies, said Fearon.

As for the next stages in this work, physicians at Johns Hopkins Medicine International and Dana Farber Cancer Institute will soon start a phase 2 trial that is already registered and that combines this inhibitor with anti-PD-1.

Fearon said his continued pre-clinical research has shown that this immune suppressive pathway may be relevant to multiple human carcinomas, and has identified new potential targets for more effective immunotherapy.

Janowitz, meanwhile, will explore the systemic immune competence of the body as he continues to take a top down, broad-based approach to cancer.

He would like to know the degree to which the body can mount an effective immune response, while also exploring the factors that diminish that ability.

Separately, with three young children at home, Janowitz and his wife Clary, who is a radiation oncologist, have been balancing between their busy careers and the demands of parenting during the pandemic. Their extended families are both in Europe.

“We can’t visit them and they can’t visit us,” he said adding that he appreciated the way CSHL has offered day care to young children on campus.

As for this study, Janowitz said he’s encouraged by the early results.

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A sign of the times outside Smithtown Town Hall. Photo courtesy of Smithtown Library

Even before some family gatherings provide a potential breeding ground for the coronavirus, Suffolk County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 at rates not seen since the worst of the first wave, in April.

In the last day, 501 people have tested positive for the coronavirus which is the highest number since April. That represents a 4 percent positive test rate, which is also the highest figure since May 18.

“It is unclear if we are plateauing or whether [these numbers] will continue to go up,” County Executive Steve Bellone (D) said on a conference call with reporters. He is concerned about “where we may go after the Thanksgiving holidays.”

Indeed, Dr. Shahida Iftikhar, Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Health, said the numbers were likely climbing as a result of smaller gatherings, which is what triggered an increase after the Halloween weekend.

Long Island surpassed 1,000 cases on Tuesday, according to officials. More communities on Long Island are close to being named so-called yellow zones by the state, which might mean more restrictions and the potential rolling back of the phased reopening seen earlier this year.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said during his Wednesday livestream the virus is being spread mainly by bars and restaurants that sell alcohol, gyms and small gatherings. New restrictions have been placed on all three earlier this month. Cuomo also said places like Monroe County, whose officials said cases were mainly due to small gatherings and not places like gyms, were outliers, and stressed people limit gatherings on Thanksgiving.

“I give thanks for the intelligence of New Yorkers, but we have to stay safe, we have to keep the infection rate down through the thanksgiving holiday,” he said. ““Don’t be a turkey, wear a mask this Thanksgiving.”

Despite the move away from contact tracing in other regions with widespread community spread, Suffolk County continues to use contact tracers to call people who have received positive tests and to warn anyone they might have infected.

For those residents who have received a negative COVID test and plan to gather with family and friends, Dr. Gregson Pigott, Commissioner in the County Department of Health, cautioned that people can have a negative test and still transmit the virus after they are exposed.

There is a lot of “asymptomatic spread,” Pigott warned.

To limit the spread of the virus, Bellone urged people to follow state guidelines, limiting gatherings to 10 people, washing their hands, wearing face coverings where possible and keeping a distance of at least six feet, particularly from vulnerable members of the population.

In anticipation of gatherings, the Suffolk County Police Department has added patrols and will perform compliance checks with bars and restaurants to ensure that these businesses are adhering to the state requirements that they shut down indoor food and beverage service after 10 p.m.

The SCPD will not go from house to house counting cars, but they will respond to any reports of private residences that exceed the 10-person limit.

New York State has designated Riverhead and Hampton Bays as yellow zones. Bellone encouraged residents living within these zones to get tested. Residents can find testing sites at the web site suffolkcountyny.gov.

Cuomo said New York, among other states, has started adding field hospitals again, much like what was seen during the first wave of the pandemic. The first field hospital has been set up in Staten Island, though more be on the way.

Free testing sites, supported by New York State, are opening Monday at the Northwell Health Dolan Family Healthy Center in Huntington and on Tuesday at Sun River Health in Patchogue.

As the Board of Elections continues to count votes, Bellone said one of the people who worked for the elections tested positive. The county has tested 111 people who worked in the building, with eight people testing positive and 37 quarantined because of close contact.

On the positive side, Suffolk County’s testing in schools in Riverhead and Hampton Bays has demonstrated a low rate of infection. In Riverhead, 12 out of 524 people tested positive, while Hampton Bays had four positive tests out of 417 people tested.

“While we continue to monitor the rise in cases, we are not currently seeing community spread happening in our schools,” Bellone said. “As long as students and faculty are kept safe, schools should remain open.”

Additional reporting by Kyle Barr

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