Stony Brook University

SBU graduate student and grand niece of world renowned anthropologist Richard Leakey, Acacia Leakey, draws a sketch of huts in the village of Ambodiaviavy, Madagascar as the children look on. Photo from Mickie Nagel

By Daniel Dunaief

 

Mickie Nagel recently returned from the island nation of Madagascar, and she’s filled with ideas, inspiration, observations and opportunities. One of the three founders of a new nongovernmental organization called BeLocal, the Laurel Hollow resident spent several weeks with Stony Brook University graduate students Leila Esmailzada and Acacia Leakey taking videos and gathering information about life in Madagascar.

The goal of the new organization is to share this footage and insight with undergraduate engineers at SBU, who might come up with innovations that could enhance the quality of life for the Malagasy people.

In one village, a man showed her a three-inch lump on his shoulder, which he got by dragging a long stick with bunches of bananas that weigh over 100 pounds along a clay footpath out of the forest. People also carry rice that weighs over 150 pounds on their heads, while many others haul buckets of water from rivers and streams to their homes while walking barefoot.

In addition to transportation, Nagel also found that villagers around Centre ValBio, a Stony Brook research station, had basic food and water needs. Over 17 years ago, another group had installed four water pumps in a village to provide access to water. Only one pump now works.

SBU graduate student Leila Esmailzada helps villagers in Ambodiaviavy, Madagascar, clean rice. The job is usually delegated to the children who pound the rice for 30 minutes. Photo by Mickie Nagel

As for food, some villagers in Madagascar spend hours preparing rice, including beating off the husks and drying the rice. They store this hard-earned food in huts that are often infiltrated with rats, who consume their rice and leave their feces, which spreads disease.

Traveling with Esmailzada and Leakey, Nagel not only helped document life in these villages but also searched for information about available resources to drive engineering innovations, while Leakey gathered information about an invasive species of guava.

“Ideally, if any projects require wood, then they should incorporate guava sticks into their design, as opposed to planks from forest trees,” explained Leakey in an email sent from Madagascar. The graduate student, who recently earned her bachelor’s degree at Stony Brook, will be recording the average thickness of the stems, the average length of a straight piece and the load capacity of the branches. Leakey plans to return from the African continent in the beginning of August.

Leakey also visited metalworkers to explore the local capacity. The raw materials come from scrap metal dealers, who often get them from old car parts.

Nagel started BeLocal with her husband Jeff Nagel and a classmate of his from their days as undergraduates at Carnegie Mellon University, Eric Bergerson. Indeed, BeLocal fulfills a long-standing goal of Jeff Nagel’s. Before freshman year in college, Nagel told Bergerson that he wanted to do something that had a positive impact on the world.

While the founders have contributed through their work, their jobs and their families, they found that partnering with Stony Brook University and Distinguished Professor Patricia Wright in Madagascar presented a chance to have a meaningful impact on life on the island nation.

Nagel, whose background is in marketing, visited Madagascar over two years ago, where she traveled for over a hundred hours on a bus through the country. “You just see people living below the poverty line and you see how that plays out in normal day-to-day activities,” she said. “You see a young mom carrying a child on her back and one on her front, with heavy produce on her head and you just think, ‘Wow, there has to be an easier way for some of this.’”

Mickie Nagel, far right, on an earlier trip to Central ValBio with her daughters Gabrielle, far left, and Lauren, center. when they first visited Centre ValBio. Photo by Heidi Hutner

When Nagel returned from her initial trip to Madagascar with her daughters Gabrielle, 18, and Lauren, 17, she and her husband thought people around the world would likely want to help but that not everyone could afford to travel that far.

Nagel recalls Bergerson, who is the director of research at the social data intelligence company Tickertags, telling her that they “don’t have to travel there. You can videotape the daily challenges and crowd source” innovations.

That’s exactly what Leakey and Esmailzada did for the last few weeks. Leakey said she is looking forward to working with senior design students as they go through their projects at Stony Brook and is eager to see how they understand the situation “through the footage and pictures we collect.”

The BeLocal approach isn’t limited to Madagascar, the BeLocal founders suggested. Indeed, given the distance to an island famous for its lemurs, animated movies and an Imax film that features primates with personality, BeLocal could have started in a Central American country like Belize.

Mickie Nagel, however, urged them to start at a location where they would immediately have the trust of local residents. That, she suggested, came from the over quarter of a century of work from Wright, an award-winning scientist who has not only helped preserve Ranomafana [National Park in Madagascar] but has also helped bring health care and education to the villages around the CVB research station. Wright and the Malagasy people have a “mutual respect for each other,” Nagel said.

“People have been exceptionally warm and welcoming,” Leakey said. Getting people accustomed to the presence of cameras hasn’t been straightforward, as people sometimes stop what they are doing, but the guides have helped make the villagers more comfortable.

Jeff Nagel, who works at a private equity firm in New York City, explained that Madagascar is the first step for BeLocal. This effort “can be expanded to other countries or other areas,” Nagel said. “It doesn’t have to be engineers and universities,” but can be instituted by creative people everywhere.

At this point, BeLocal is not looking for any additional funding but might consider expanding the effort at this time next year. Nagel said this fall, they will look for professional engineers to advise on projects. “We would like people who are interested in participating or just keeping up with developments to come and register on our website, www.BeLocalgrp.com,” she suggested.

The site, which the group is upgrading, is up and running. Bergerson explained that they have a “lot of infrastructure to build on” to create the crowd sourcing platform.

Jeff Nagel suggested that this effort is designed to use technology constructively. “Technology’s job, first and foremost, is to help humanity,” he said. “This is a chance to use it in a way that matters to people.”

Staff members of WUSB-FM Radio gather in the Media Suite in the Student Activity Center at Stony Brook University for a photo. Image courtesy of WUSB

By Norman Prusslin

Long Island radio listeners scanning the FM dial 40 years ago this coming Tuesday were surprised to hear musical stirrings on the 90.1 frequency that had previously offered static or sounds of distant stations. It was on Monday, June 27, 1977, at 5:30 p.m. that the Stony Brook University radio station joined the community of Long Island radio stations. I had the honor of coordinating the team that brought the station to the air that day and then went on to serve as the station’s general manager for 28 years.

Norman Prusslin

Looking back on that first day of broadcasting, it is fascinating to think about how much the media landscape has changed over the past 40 years.  In 1977, FM radio audience listening was just about ready to overtake the decades-old primacy of AM radio. Cable television on Long Island was in its formative years … CNN and MTV were still three and four years away, respectively. Music-oriented radio stations played vinyl on turntables while public service announcements aired on tape cartridges, and long-form public affairs programming was recorded on cassette and reel-to-reel audiotape.

How times have changed!

Through the compact disc and personal computer revolutions of the early 1980s to the web, streaming and digital download innovations of the 1990s to today’s multiple music distribution systems, WUSB has been at the forefront of marrying new technology with public service mission and responsibility.

The station was put to the test and earned its community service stripes eight months after sign on. Longtime North Shore residents will remember the crippling ice and snowstorms of February 1978. The Stony Brook campus was closed for a week. This was a time before wide cellphone use and way before the internet brought information to us, at a moment’s notice, anytime and anywhere.

WUSB was the main outlet in our area for getting critical safety information out to the community. Students and community volunteers slept in the studio to make sure the station provided a 24-hour service.

It was a crash course in local, person-to-person community radio programming. A lesson plan that has been used by the hundreds of student, staff, faculty, alumni and community volunteers who have sat in the on-air chair for 40 years.

Students covered the Shoreham nuclear power plant protests of the late 1970s live from the site. A radio play, “Shadow Over Long Island,” followed the template of “War of the Worlds” in focusing attention on the issue of nuclear power on Long Island while at the same time giving students a history lesson in producing “old time radio drama.”

WUSB received national attention (Time magazine and NBC News) when student staff produced and hosted the 1984 Alternative Presidential Convention on campus. While the two major party candidates, incumbent President Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale did not attend, over 30 “legally qualified candidates” did providing the campus and local community with a day-long “teach in” of debate, conversation and organizing.

In the music industry, the late 1970s have been recognized as the time when the influence of college radio stations to introduce new and developing genres to radio listeners took hold. In the years before music video, satellite radio, Facebook, YouTube, iTunes, Pandora and Spotify, college radio was THE broadcast outpost for new music.

WUSB was the Long Island radio home for artists of all musical stripes. The music of major label and independent artists from the worlds of rock, folk, blues, classical, hip-hop, dance, traditional and more was being heard, often for the first time, by Long Islanders over 90.1 FM.

I am perhaps most proud of the role WUSB has had in developing an active local music scene and community. From hosting the first Long Island Contemporary Music Conference in the early 1980s to developing collaborative partnerships with area nonprofit music and arts organizations and concert clubs and venues of all sizes, WUSB’s status as a key player in the Long Island music community has brought recognition and honors to the university. It is therefore no surprise that the first meetings that led to the creation of the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2003 were held on campus.

This coming week, we celebrate 40 years of 24 hours/day noncommercial radio programming created by a volunteer staff of students, faculty, alumni and community members varied in background and political persuasion and perspective. It’s a time to recognize volunteers coming together for the common mission and purpose of presenting intelligent and thought-provoking dialogue, music from all corners of the globe and campus-focused programming via live sports coverage, academic colloquia and event announcements and coverage.

Now is no time to rest on past laurels. Earlier this year, the station moved into new studios in the West Side Dining Complex and added a second broadcast signal at 107.3 FM to better increase service coverage to North Shore communities.  On June 27, 1977, at 5:30 p.m., founding members of the WUSB station staff coined the expression “….the experiment continues.”

40 years on, it still does!

Norman Prusslin is director of the media arts minor at Stony Brook University. He is WUSB-FM’s founding general manager serving in that position until 2006 and continues his association with the station as its faculty adviser.

Dr. Jennifer Arnold leads the Parade of Survivors. Photo by Cindy Swanson

By Heidi Sutton

On Sunday, June 4, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in various locations across the country for National Cancer Survivors Day, a celebration of life for anyone who has been touched by cancer. Locally, the Stony Brook Cancer Center hosted its 13th annual event, made possible by sponsorship from the Stony Brook School of Medicine and Stony Brook University.

The weather cooperated as attendees participated in a variety of outdoor activities, such as the popular dunk-a-doc, bedpan golf, chemo bag toss and face painting, as well as musical entertainment. The day culminated with the Parade of Survivors to the tune of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”

Dr. Yusuf Hannun

“There is really no activity that I look forward to more every year than what we are doing here today, to celebrate you and to celebrate survivorship,” said Dr. Yusuf Hannun, director of the Stony Brook Cancer Center, to a crowd of survivors, doctors, nurses, family members and friends. “Looking around … I am really humbled to see how this event has been growing exponentially, from very modest beginnings of a handful of dedicated volunteers and determined survivors, to today with over 1,300 [attendees], 300 of them survivors,” he said.

Hannun also took the opportunity to speak about the new 245,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art Medical and Research Translation (MART) building, which served as the backdrop to the event and is scheduled to open by the end of this year. The director stated the new facility “will allow us to serve twice as many patients and their families … and allow us to continue to push back against cancer at all times. We are very excited to move into that building.”

The keynote speaker of the day was Dr. Jennifer Arnold, who is featured on TLC’s docudrama, “The Little Couple” along with her husband, Bill, who is originally from Port Jefferson Station, and their beautiful children, Will and Zoey. The show has served as an invaluable way to break down barriers and educate the public about people with disabilities.

Dr. Jennifer Arnold

Standing at just 3 feet and 2 inches, Arnold was born with a rare type of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia, Strudwick type and has undergone over 30 surgeries in her lifetime. In 2013 she was diagnosed with stage 3 choriocarcinoma, a rare cancer that developed after a non-viable pregnancy. She graciously chose to share her fight with viewers of her show.

Now a three-year cancer survivor, Arnold shared her journey and personal lessons learned at Sunday’s event with a dynamic, motivational and inspirational presentation titled Surviving with Grace and received several standing ovations.

“Although I had a lot of life lessons [growing up], nothing taught me more than going through cancer,” said Arnold. “Sometimes life throws a wrench into the middle of your world and you have to be ready for that because life is short, no pun intended.”

“Going through chemotherapy changes you a lot, physically, emotionally, mentally…,” she said. After chemo, “I didn’t go back to normal, but I did go back to life. Truly it takes a village to go through your treatment and survivorship. It’s okay to accept that help.”

Arnold continued, “This is a wonderful life that we have and I am so blessed to be alive and to be able to share my story and I know that many of you in the audience feel the same way. … Whether it’s the fact that you’ve undergone treatment for cancer or whether you’ve had other obstacles in life, I hope that you too can overcome those obstacles and that you can survive with grace.”

Gabor Balazsi in his lab. Photo by Aleksandrs Nasonovs

By Daniel Dunaief

It started with a bang. When he was young and living with his parents, Gabor Balazsi’s curiosity sometimes got the better of him, at the expense of his parents’ house.

The future Henry Laufer associate professor of physical and quantitative biology at Stony Brook University was holding bare wires in his native home in Transylvania when he plugged in an appliance. The current surged through his body, preventing him from releasing the wires. Fortunately, his mother came in and “unplugged me.”

These days, Balazsi, is much more focused on the kinds of behavior that turns the instructions for a cell into something more dangerous, like cancer or a drug-resistant strain of a disease.

Balazsi recently received a $1.8 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how gene networks change, often to the detriment of human health, as is the case when they are active in cancer or when they are resisting treatment. The grant is called Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award.

“Cancer cells often don’t look the same in a matter of months and drug-resistant microbes may look the same in a matter of days,” Balazsi said. He would like to know “what causes them to change and how can we prevent them from changing to their advantage and our disadvantage?”

In a way, Balazsi is trying to figure out a code that is akin to the popular 1970s game Simon in which a player has to repeat a growing number of flashing lights and sounds. With each turn, the game increases the number of flashing lights and sounds, going from a single red, to red, green, yellow and green until the player can no longer recall the entire code.

He is looking for a similar key to a sequence of events that transforms a cell, except that in the cancer, there are millions of interacting lights, many of which are invisible. The cancer biologist tries to reconstruct the sequence in which some of these lights turned on by observing visible lights that are currently on.

He is exploring the “pattern that leads to the outcome” through changes of networks in yeast cells, he said. He is also hoping to explore pathogenic fungi. The pattern, he said, will change depending on the circumstances, which include the environment and initial mutations.

Scientists who have collaborated with Balazsi suggested his understanding of several scientific disciplines enables him to conduct innovative research.

“He bridges two fields, biology and biophysics, allowing him not only to describe biological processes but also to model them and make predictions that can then be tested,” Marsha Rosner, the Charles B. Huggins professor at the University of Chicago, wrote in an email.

While Balazsi doesn’t treat patients, he is focused on understanding and controlling the processes that lead a cell or group of cells to change from a uniform function and task to a heterogeneous one, where the cells may follow a different path using a previously inactive network of genes.

By understanding what causes these changes, he hopes to find ways to slow their progress or prevent the kind of deviations that lead to combinations that are destructive to humans, such as when the cellular machinery copies itself uncontrollably.

Balazsi and Rosner collaborated on one paper and are continuing to work together. “Our work demonstrates one mechanism by which cells move from a homogeneous population to a more complex population that contains cells that promote cancer,” Rosner explained. “This mechanism is not based on mutations in genes, but rather on changes in the way that genes interact with each other in cells.”

On a fundamental level, Balazsi explained that researchers have developed considerable understanding, but still not enough, of what happens in normal conditions. He is seeking to discover the logic cells use to survive under stressful conditions.

Balazsi would like to determine if there is “anything we can do to decrease the tendency of cells to deviate from normality,” he said.

Balazsi welcomes this new funding, which will give him the freedom to pursue research questions at a basic level. Instead of supporting a single project, this financial support contributes to multiple projects.

The next step in funding his lab will be to approach the National Cancer Institute. Without much experience in applying for cancer grants, Balazsi plans to attend a think tank workshop in June in Seattle. Attendance at this meeting, which is hosted by Sage Bionetworks and the NCI, required an application and selection of participants.

To some degree, Balazsi may be able to relate to the heterogeneity that he hopes to study in cells. A physicist by training, Balazsi explained that he “wandered into biology.” He would like to steer away from major trends that mobilize many researchers. If many people are working on something, he does not want to be enriching big crowds but would prefer to try new things and test new ideas.

A resident of East Setauket, Balazsi lives with his wife Erika and their daughter Julianna, who is 6. Julianna is already doing some experiments at home and is exploring the yard.

When Balazsi was young, his parents tried to encourage him to become a doctor, which didn’t work because he didn’t like blood or hospitals as a child. In addition to his unexpected electric shock, Balazsi also explored how ethanol burns while flowing, which caused some additional damage to his house. “My parents,” he recalled, “weren’t happy.”

As for his work, Balazsi would like his work with these first steps, in understanding cellular processes, will have a translational element for people some time down the road.

“Whatever we do, hopefully, they can be implemented in actual cancer cells that are coming from patients one day,” he said, or they could have some relevance for people who are attempting to fight off “pathogenic microbes.”

By Yusuf A. Hannun, M.D. 

Dr. Yusuf Hannun

Because of major advances in cancer prevention, early detection and treatment, many patients with cancer are enjoying longer lives and maintaining their quality of life, as the number of cancer survivors grows.

National Cancer Survivors Day®, an annual worldwide celebration of life, is held each year on the first Sunday in June. Anyone living with a history of cancer — from the moment of diagnosis through the remainder of life — is a cancer survivor, according to the National Cancer Survivors Day Foundation. In the United States alone, there are more than 14.5 million people living with a history of cancer.

Stony Brook University Cancer Center will host its 13th Annual Cancer Survivors Day this  Sunday, June 4, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Cancer Center, located on the Stony Brook Medicine campus.

The event is a celebration for those who have survived cancer and serves as an inspiration for those who have been recently diagnosed. In addition, this event is a gathering of support for families and friends. Attendees will also have the opportunity to meet and mingle with Stony Brook Medicine physicians, nurses and support staff.

The day features inspirational speaker Jennifer Arnold, MD, MSc, FAPP, who will share her story of perseverance, resilience and strength to bring hope to others facing obstacles and difficulties. Dr. Arnold, a three-year cancer survivor, stars in TLC’s docu-drama “The Little Couple” along with her husband, Bill, and their children, Will and Zoey.

All cancer survivors are invited, whether they were treated at Stony Brook or not. In addition to Dr. Arnold’s talk, attendees can enjoy a variety of outdoor activities, such as dunk-a-doc, bedpan golf, chemo bag toss and face painting, as well as musical entertainment and light refreshments. They can also participate in the very moving Parade of Survivors. This event is free but registration is required. To register, visit cancer.stonybrookmedicine.edu/survivors2017 or call 631-444-4000.

National Cancer Survivors Day is just one of many ways Stony Brook reaches out to the community. The Cancer Center has created several initiatives and programs to help make life easier for patients with cancer, including support groups, cancer prevention screenings and the School Intervention and Re-Entry Program for pediatric patients.

As a leading provider of cancer services in Suffolk County, the Cancer Center is on the forefront of research, discovery and cancer care. In the new Kavita and Lalit Bahl Center for Metabolomics and Imaging, for instance, we are receiving international recognition for our pioneering studies in metabolism and cancer. It’s changing what is known about the role metabolism plays in cancer and brings us closer than ever before to understanding how to prevent and treat it.

And next year, Stony Brook Cancer Center will relocate to a state-of-the-art Medical and Research Translation (MART) building that will focus on cancer research and care. This 240,000-square-foot facility will allow scientists and physicians to work side by side to advance clinical cancer research and improve treatment options.

Propelled by these advances, we continue to bring comprehensive cancer resources to you in your community. Our ambitious drive to transform cancer care and research is just one more reason for hope and celebration.

Dr. Yusuf A. Hannun is the Director of Stony Brook University’s Cancer Center, 
Vice Dean for Cancer Medicine and 
Joel Strum Kenny Professor in Cancer Research

Fan Ye. Photo from SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

Fan Ye has a vision for the future filled with high service and efficiency that doesn’t involve butlers or personal attendants. The assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Stony Brook University is focused on creating smart environments in which window blinds open as people pull into their driveways, lights turn off in unoccupied rooms and the building guides a new student turn by turn through complex floors and hallways from entrance to the registrar’s office.

“The physical environment would be like a caring mother,” said Ye. It would sense and figure out people’s needs and “take care of the occupants inside the building.”

In Ye’s vision, which he estimates is about one year to decades away from a reality, objects that rely on people to turn them on or off, reposition them or alter their settings would have chips embedded in them, working together to create an environment that anticipates and learns in response to the need around it.

“With sensors, [a smart environment] can sense both physical conditions and human activities and adjust the environment in manners that create/improve comfort, safety, convenience” and the productivity of the occupant, he explained in an email.

Ye recently received a $450,000 award over the next five years from the National Science Foundation for early-career faculty for his study of smart environments. The prestigious award is the highest honor given by the government to scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.

Initially, Ye is developing and testing a security system with the Stony Brook University Police Department and the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology that grants specific access to buildings or facilities depending on the specifications of an administrator.

Many of the buildings on campus have electric locks, which someone can open with a badge where there’s a badge reader. A badge, however “isn’t that flexible,” Ye said. If an administrator would like to grant someone one-time access to open a door that doesn’t provide ongoing access, that is difficult to do with a badge system.

“What’s lacking in this closed proprietary system is flexible access control, which can determine who has what access based on context factors,” he said. Ye, his team, the police department and the CEWIT are building a system that can enable greater flexibility that allows someone to open an office door for five minutes during a specific hour. “If any of these context factors is not satisfied, they don’t have access,” he said.

Ultimately, he would like to construct a system using modern mobile technology, like smartphones, instead of physical badges. The system would include embedded security that employs modern cryptography so a hacker or attacker can’t trick the system.

By using software and hardware security, Ye is hoping to develop a system that prevents the most common attacks at a reasonable cost, which he hopes would prevent someone from gaining access.

Ye is building real systems and testing them. The cost-benefit of these systems depends on the object. A motor to open and close a window would cost money to manufacture, install and operate. As with any technological innovation, he said, “the question comes down to, How do you invest versus how much do you get in return?”

Looking at the historical trend for computation resources, Ye said computing and storage costs are falling at an exponential rate, while the price for radio and sensing is also falling rapidly, although not at the same pace.

“I believe this trend will continue, especially for a lot of these objects that need small embedded systems” that can be manufactured at a scale with low cost, he continued. The process of turning the environment into an efficient, high-service system isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Consumers might decide to focus on the air-conditioning or heat use in their homes.

Other researchers are developing ways to harness the vibrational energy of movement or sound, which, conceivably, could power some of these electronics without requiring the delivery and consumption of more energy.

Ye recognizes that these parts can and will break down and require repair, just as dishwashers sometimes stop working and iPhones can lose a list of contacts. So many small electronic parts in a smart environment could seem like an invitation to malfunctions.

He likens the repair process to cloud computing, which allows small to medium-sized companies to rent computing resources from larger companies. “A smart environment, especially for public buildings like a university or office, could potentially run in a similar model,” he said. Individuals might rely on IT support from dedicated personnel who, like a superintendent in a building, could be responsible for a host of smart products.

A native of Hubei Province in China, Ye, who now lives in Setauket, loves to hike in national parks. His favorite is Canyonlands in Utah. Ye had worked at IBM for about 10 years before joining Stony Brook almost three years ago. While he was there, Ye worked on numerous projects, including distributed stream processing, cloud-based queueing and wide-area dependable messaging. “I learned tremendously at IBM,” he said.

Ye is “”well known and respected in the mobile and wireless computing research community,” Hui Lei, an IBM distinguished engineer, wrote in an email. “He conducted pioneering work on scalable message delivery, robust coverage and security in wireless sensor networks, which are well received and highly cited and closely related to the smart environment work he is doing now.”

Lei suggested that Ye’s experience and accomplishments provide him with a solid track record and he is “confident that [Ye] will be able to come up with innovative solutions in this area.”

The temperature was high May 19 but that didn’t melt the enthusiasm of the nearly 7,000 students at Stony Brook University as they anticipated the moment they could turn their tassels and throw their graduation caps in the air.

The milestone event was chock-full of memorable moments including honorary degree recipients, Michael J. Fox — actor and advocate for a cure for Parkinson’s disease — and Jonathan Oringer — Shutterstock founder and a Stony Brook alumnus — clad in traditional caps and gowns, joining the students. Fox, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991, received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree for his acting career as well as establishing the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. The university honored Oringer with a Doctor of Science degree for creating Shutterstock, the first worldwide subscription-based service for acquiring images, as well as his other contributions to the tech industry.

The first degrees awarded were to Oringer and Fox. Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. introduced Oringer, a 1996 graduate of the university, as one who has “personified technologic innovation.”

As Fox approached the podium to deliver his speech, someone yelled, “Marty McFly.” The actor cleverly responded with a line from his 1985 movie, “Back to the Future.”

“You’re just too darn loud,” he said.

The actor said before that day he didn’t hold a degree from college or high school. He said he respects the university for its dedication to the sciences and its research.

Described by Stanley as a “fierce warrior in the fight to cure Parkinson’s disease,” Fox said he’s optimistic about the future.

“When I look out at the sea of red, I am filled with hope for you represent endless possibilities,” Fox said. “Among you may be the first human to walk on Mars, the engineer who will revolutionize the world’s energy technology, the next great investigative journalist who exposes political corruption, or the scientist who discovers a cure for Parkinson’s.”

U.S. Sen. and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D), also addressed the graduates and their families. Schumer advised the graduates to always take risks in life even when feeling uncertainty. He said to always “go for it.”

“The key is not to fear the unknown,” Schumer said. “Embrace it, relish it, soak up every possibility it has to offer.”

Among the nearly 7,000 graduates, ranging in age from 19 to 65 years old, in attendance, 42 states and 71 countries were represented. The degrees awarded included 4,292 bachelor’s, 1,999 master’s and 449 doctoral degrees.

From left, Christopher Gobler with his research team Andrew Griffith, Theresa Hattenrath-Lehmann and Yoonja Kang. Photo from SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

Christopher Gobler searches the waters around Long Island for signs of trouble, which can appear starting in April. This year, he found it, in Shinnecock Bay. Monitoring for a toxin carried by algae called Alexandrium, Gobler recently discovered levels that were three times the allowable limit from the Food and Drug Administration. His finding, along with measurements from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation of toxins in shellfish in the bay, have caused the recent closure of shellfishing in the bay for the fourth time in seven years.

While Gobler, a marine science professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, watches carefully for the appearance of red tides from these algae locally, he recently completed a much broader study on the spread of these toxins.

Gobler led a team that explored the effect of ocean warming on two types of algae, Alexandrium and Dinophysis. Since 1982, as the oceans have heated up, these algae have become increasingly common, particularly in the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans, according to a study Gobler and his colleagues recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. When they become concentrated in shellfish, these algae can lead to diarrhea, paralysis and even death if people consume enough of them.

Over the course of the study, algae have begun to form “denser populations that are making shellfish toxic,” Gobler said. Temperature is one of many factors that can affect the survival, growth and range of organisms like the algae that can accumulate toxins and create human illness. “As temperatures get higher, they are becoming closer to the ideal for some species and out of the ideal for other species,” Gobler said.

The strongest effect of changing temperatures are at higher latitudes, which were, up until recently, prohibitively cold for these types of algae. The biggest changes over the course of the study came in the Bay of Fundy in Canada, in Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland and Alaska. The toxic algal blooms increased in frequency between 40 and 60 degrees north latitude, according to the study. These are places where toxic algae lived but weren’t as prevalent, but the warming trend has created a more hospitable environment, Gobler said.

Raphael Kudela, a professor of ocean sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz who wasn’t involved in this research, explained that other papers have suggested a similar link between temperature and the movement of these algae. “We’ve seen the expansion of ciguatera fish poisoning, as the temperature range has moved poleward for those algae,” Kudela wrote in an email. NOAA biological oceanographer Stephanie Moore has documented an expanded window of opportunity for paralytic shellfish poisoning linked to changes in temperature, Kudela said. “While we can point to specific events, and it makes intuitive sense, the Gobler paper actually documented these trends using a long time series, which hasn’t been done before,” Kudela continued.

R. Wayne Litaker, a supervisory ecologist at NOAA’s National Ocean Service, collaborated with Gobler on the project. He said small differences in temperature are significant for the growth rate of these toxic algae. Extending this to other organisms, Litaker explained that fish are also extending their ranges amid a rise in global temperatures. “There’s been a general movement of temperate species toward the poles,” Litaker said. He’s seen tropical fish, such as butterfly fish, off the docks of North Carolina that he hadn’t seen that far north before.

Gobler and his colleagues estimate that the need to close shellfish beds, the increase in fish kills, and the health care damage to people has exceeded a billion dollars since 1982. The largest problem for people in areas like Alaska is their lack of experience with red tides.

“Communities are being exposed to these blooms where they had not been in the past,” Gobler said. “[The blooms] can be most dangerous when they take a community by surprise.” Gobler said this happened in Alaska during the study. In the last decade, shellfish toxins that are 1,000 times more potent than cyanide caused illnesses and were suspected in two deaths in Haines, Alaska.

Litaker said he gave a talk several years ago at a conference. Gobler approached him and asked if they could work together. “One of the wonderful things about these meetings is that you see things that trigger possibilities and whole new projects are born,” Litaker said.

Litaker described Gobler as a “major player in the field” who has done “fantastic work over the years.” Litaker said he was “quite impressed with what he’s done.” Litaker explained that the climate is changing and urged fisheries and shellfish experts to prepare to respond throughout the country. “As we get warmer and more run off of nutrients, toxic cyanobacteria [algal blooms] are causing problems in all 50 states,” Litaker said.

Kudela suggested that the “new records every year for the last several years … will undoubtedly continue to impact the range, duration and toxicity of blooms.”

Locally, Gobler continues to monitor dozens of sites on Long Island, where he suggested that Alexandrium could become less prevalent with warming, while Dinophysis could become more common. Temperature and other factors favorable for algae growth have led to red tides in the past.

In oceans across the world, Kudela said the next logical step would be to explore the interaction of temperature and nutrients. “We know both are changing, and they are likely to have additive or synergistic effects, but we haven’t done the same careful study as the Gobler paper looking at how the trends are interacting,” he explained.

File photo

By Samuel L. Stanley, Jr.

Samuel L. Stanley Jr.

In recognition of his dedication to the cancer fight, Stony Brook University proudly honored the 47th Vice President of the United States Joseph R. Biden Jr. at the Stars of Stony Brook Gala — our annual fundraising event — on Wednesday, April 19.

Hosted by the Stony Brook Foundation, the gala generates funds for student financial aid and a select academic area of excellence. This year, the university raised $6,946,000 in gifts and pledges, including $2,051,000 for scholarships and $4,895,000 to support the Stony Brook University Cancer Center. Since 2000, the event has raised more than $50 million.

As vice president, Joe Biden led the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force. Its mission: to double the rate of progress in preventing the disease that leads to more than 8 million deaths worldwide every year. The intention, said Biden in his remarks, was to infuse the cancer research culture with “the urgency of now.”

At Stony Brook, we share Joe Biden’s determination, sense of urgency and his fundamental confidence in our ability to make a difference in the fight against cancer. The Stony Brook Cancer Center brings together the brightest minds, enhancing purposeful collaboration, and creating strategic partnerships to share information and accelerate research.

Our researchers are receiving worldwide attention for a pioneering study of the genesis and behavior of cancer cells at the molecular level with the goal of one day helping to detect, treat and eventually eliminate the disease for good.

Through continual research and discovery, Stony Brook Cancer Center is on the forefront of cancer care. In the new Kavita and Lalit Bahl Center for Metabolomics and Imaging, for instance, Dr. Yusuf Hannun and Dr. Lina Obeid are receiving international recognition for their pioneering studies in the relationship between cancer and lipids, naturally occurring molecules in the body such as fats. Their work is changing what is known about the role lipids play in cancer and brings us closer to understanding how to prevent and treat the disease.

Next year, the Stony Brook Cancer Center will relocate from its current location on the Stony Brook Medicine campus to the new 254,000-square-foot Medical and Research Translation (MART) building, designed to enable scientists and physicians to work side by side to advance cancer research and imaging diagnostics.

We’re thrilled that for one big night, we shined a white-hot light on the cancer issue and worked to raise awareness and money that will no doubt play a continuing role in bringing an end to this disease.

Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr. is president of Stony Brook University.

Patricia Wright speaks at the Earth Optimism Summit in April. Photo by Ronda Ann Gregorio

By Daniel Dunaief

Determined to share success stories instead of doom and gloom, Nancy Knowlton, the Sant Chair of Marine Science at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, decided to change the tone of the conservation dialog.

Knowlton organized the first Earth Optimism Summit around the most recent Earth Day this April. She searched for speakers who could share their progress and blueprints for success. That included Patricia Wright, a Stony Brook University distinguished professor who has developed an impressive legacy during her 25 years in Madagascar.

Nancy Knowlton, organizer of the first Earth Optimism Summit in April. Photo by Ronda Ann Gregorio

In Madagascar, the 10th poorest country on Earth, optimism has been growing, perhaps even more rapidly than the 1,000 endemic trees that have been making a comeback in the island nation off the southeast coast of Africa. The growth of those trees has encouraged the return of animals that had retreated from an area thinned out by selective logging.

“This year, the rare and furtive bird, the scaly ground roller, came back and nested,” Wright reported. The “black and white ruffed lemur gave the area the thumbs up and reestablished territories and reproduced.”

The critically endangered golden bamboo lemur also doubled the size of its population. “The forest took 25 years to recover, but it can recover,” Wright said in her speech. Dedicated to the study of lemurs, Wright in 1991 helped create Ranomafana National Park, which is the third largest park in Madagascar. She served as a plenary speaker for a gathering that drew over 1,400 people to Washington. Scientists and policymakers held sister summits in nine other countries at the same time.

“You can’t possibly make progress in conservation if you only talk about the problems,” said Knowlton, a co-host of the summit. Knowlton knew Wright from serving on the Committee for Research and Exploration, where the two interacted six times a year. When she was putting together the list of speakers, Knowlton approached the 2014 winner of the Indianapolis Zoo Prize to see if she could share a positive message in conservation.

When Wright accepted, Knowlton was “thrilled, not only because she’s a good storyteller, but because she’s also done incredibly important work in Madagascar.” Indeed, Wright said national parks have greatly expanded from only two in the 1980s. “Now with the work of many dedicated environmentalists, including the enlightened policy of the U.S. government through USAID, we have 18 National Parks and a National Park Service to manage and protect them,” she told the session.

Restoring trees to the area also offers economic opportunity, Wright said. Under the endemic trees, farmers can grow crops like vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon and wild pepper, she said. “All these products can be marketed for high prices. We will take back that land and make it productive again, doubling or tripling its value,” Wright continued.

A scientist featured in the 2014 film “Island of Lemurs: Madagascar,” Wright has engaged in a wide range of efforts on behalf of the Malagasy. Last year, she negotiated with a mayor on the island to pick up trash in exchange for the purchase of several wheelbarrows. She also helped encourage the renovation of 35 schools in communities around Ranomafana, where students learn critical thinking and molecular biology. This, Wright said, is occurring in a country where three out of five students don’t remain in school past fifth grade. “More children in this region are graduating from high school and over a handful have received university degrees,” she explained.

A health team also walks to 50 nearby villages, carrying medicines and basic health lessons. SBU brought drones last year, which can fly medicines as far as 40 miles away. Drones could monitor the outbreak of any unknown and potentially dangerous disease and can offer health care for people who live in ares that are inaccessible by road.

The financial support of the National Science Foundation helped create Centre ValBio, a field station and campus in the middle of the rainforest. The research station has modern facilities and equipment to conduct genetics and disease analyses. “We provide tools and training and even fiber-optic cable internet, the fastest in the region,” Wright said. They are expanding the research facilities this year.

Through research efforts, Wright and other scientists have also discovered two new species of lemurs and found two others that were considered extinct. Restoring the national forest not only brought back animals that had retreated into the inner part of the forest, but it also encouraged the growth of ecotourism.

In 1991, there was only one tourist hotel and now there are 32 hotels, providing facilities for the 30,000 tourists. “That can start to change an economy,” Wright suggested. “Cottage industries have developed like the woman’s weaving group and the basket weavers and blacksmiths who all make a good living from selling to tourists and researchers.”

Wright attributes these positive steps to a dedication to working with residents in the area. “We have been successful by training local residents and university students, by listening to what the communities want, rather than what we think is best,” she said.

Knowlton suggested that “you can’t helicopter conservation into a particular place. It’s got to be built from the ground up. She’s done it in Madagascar.” While these are positive steps, Wright declared this is just the beginning. “There are endless possibilities of scientific knowledge and research,” she said. “They all matter and impact our daily lives.”

As for the Earth Optimism Summit, Knowlton said this is just the beginning as well, originally thinking of organizing a second summit in 2020, but may hold the next one sooner. “We’re identifying what’s working and putting a spotlight on it,” Knowlton said. “The feedback has been extraordinarily, unbelievably positive. We’ve come to realize that people are demanding” another conference.

She appreciated Wright’s contribution to April’s conference.“By sharing her successes, Pat Wright brings home the message that if she can do it, so can we all,” Knowlton said. “The summit succeeded because Wright and over 240 other speakers made it obvious, through the successes that they shared, that solving the environmental problems we face is not out of reach.”