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Power of 3

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Andrew Young. Photo by Daniel Dunaief

By Daniel Dunaief

Andrew Young is in a similar place to the one he was in when he first met his wife Lynne over two decades ago: spending time on the water. 

This time, however, instead of living aboard a 72-foot sailboat in San Diego, Young is shifting back and forth from his new home in Setauket to a motor boat, fully equipped to form a floating office, in the Setauket harbor.

Above, Andrew Young demonstrates where a cylindrical device for drug delivery could be implanted. Photo by Daniel Dunaief

In the time between his stints aboard ships, Young, who is a native of Taranaki, New Zealand, has conducted research on gut hormones, making the kinds of discoveries that helped lead to diabetes treatments and weight loss treatments such as Ozempic and Wegovy.

When the couple first started dating in 2001, Young was working at a company called Amylin, which was named after a hormone.

For years, no one knew exactly what the hormone did. Numerous scientists believed amylin worked in opposition to the pancreatic hormone insulin, which controls glucose levels in the blood and, when absent, leads to diabetes.

Young’s job was to solve the riddle of amylin. Coming from the beta cells of the pancreas, which are the same cells that produce insulin and that responded to the same stimuli, he suspected it was involved in metabolic control, but “we got it totally wrong for about four years,” he said.

Young helped discover that amylin and insulin weren’t working in opposition: they were functioning on opposite ends towards the same goal.

Insulin accelerates the exit of glucose from the blood, while amylin slowed the entry of glucose into the blood. Amylin works on gastric emptying and suppresses appetite. The “clever little beta cell was doing two jobs,” Young said. 

Adding in the second hormone made it easier to control glucose in the blood, without big ups and downs in sugar levels.

Replacing amylin meant the body needed about 30 to 50 percent of the amount of insulin the body might otherwise need. People who take insulin alone to treat diabetes require more insulin than the body usually produces.

“It’s an orchestra of hormones that get the job done,” Young said.

That’s especially true for hormones produced in the digestive tract The discovery of the physiology of amylin made the scientific and pharmaceutical world aware of the importance of the gut in metabolic control. For most pharmaceutical companies, the lesson began with Glucagon-like peptide 1, or GLP-1, which has led to Wegovy and Ozempic.

Amylin and GLP-1 were both used for diabetes. Amylin analogs haven’t been approved for weight loss, but Young expects they will be. “The amylin story was kind of neat,” he said. “It focused our minds on the gut. GLP-1 was the next one of these gut hormones.”

A revelation on a poster

While pharmaceutical companies saw the potential benefit of stimulating GLP1, which triggered the release of insulin, they couldn’t create a drug that had an effect that lasted long enough to make a difference. 

The body makes GLP1 at about the same rate as it breaks it down, which means controlling blood sugar and appetite by altering GLP-1 was difficult. “You could get a decent anti-diabetic effect if you infused it continuously,” Young explained, as the half life of endogenous GLP-1 is about five minutes.

Young attended a poster session at the American Diabetes Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco, California in 1996.

Looking at a poster from Dr. John Eng, who works at the Bronx Veterans Administration Medical Center, Young thought he saw a solution in the form of a hormone from the reptilian Gila monster.

Eng demonstrated that the hormone, which he called exendin-4 and which he studied with his own money, stayed in diabetic mice for 24 hours. Young thought this might lead to the development of a diabetes drug.

As he was reading the poster, Young realized he was standing next to someone who worked at competitor Eli Lilly.

“I thought he had figured it out as well” and that they were in a race to understand exendin-4, Young added.

Young arranged for the staff at Amylin to buy what they could of this compound and to make some of it in house as well. The company quickly performed numerous experiments in a short period of time, even before Eng arrived in San Diego.

Eng gave a seminar about what he knew about the molecule. Young then stood up and talked about what Amylin had since learned about it. 

Eng was “dumbstruck, but he realized at that stage that we were the people he should partner with,” Young added.

The hormone amylin and exendin-4 had many of the same effects, including inhibiting gastric emptying. They did, however, have opposite effects on other actions. Exendin stimulated insulin secretion, while amylin inhibited it. 

Better than an injection

Young has continued to work for six companies in scientific leadership roles. Amid the financial crisis of 2008, Young went to work in North Carolina for GlaxoSmithKline, which is now called GSK.

In 2015, Young co-founded Phoundry Pharmaceuticals with five other former GSK coworkers. Phoundry attracted the attention of Intarcia Therapeutics. Using an invention by Alza Corp and licensed to Intarcia, the company developed a thin, implantable cylindrical device that could push as much as 160 micro liters of drugs out over six months.

In looking for a treatment for its drug delivery system, Intarcia chose Phoundry.

“The limited volume of such a small implanted pump required very potent medicines,” Young said. “Phoundry’s competitive advantage was the knowledge of how to engineer in such potency.”

After the purchase of Phoundry in 2015, Young became Chief Scientific Officer at Intarcia. The FDA, however, rejected the use of exendin from Intarcia. Through an extended appeals process, the FDA is planning to allow one final discussion about the delivery of exendin through Intarcia’s device on September 21st.

The current version of the device lasts for at least three and six months in the body. The same device could be used to deliver other medicines. The pumps have been engineered with a failsafe system that disables its osmotic engine in the event of malfunction, so the drug is not released.

The device could deliver drugs for many chronic conditions, such as hypertension and osteoporosis and is intended for frequent administration of the same drug.

Not only a scientist

As for his work in the early stages of understanding hormones that have led to drugs that are now widely used to treat diabetes and obesity, Young is pleased with his contribution.

“Obesity is probably the most deadly disease on the planet, given its high and increasing prevalence and the cardiovascular risk factors that spring from it,” Young explained.

Novo Nortis recently announced that treating obesity alone, without any diabetes, reduces the risk of death.

Young himself is taking one of these drugs and has lost 36 pounds over six months. 

Part of a process that has led to six approved products, he is working as a consultant for several companies, and believes he still has more to give. “I intend to keep doing it,” he said. “I’ve got at least one more” down the road.

Given the long drug development process, he hopes to help move one or more pieces ahead.

As for his oceanic surroundings, Young didn’t exactly sweep his future wife off her feet when they met. “He invited me on his boat for dinner,” Lynne recalls. “He was outside the marina and he had on this sweater that was dirty and oversized.”

Young suggested they have soup for dinner and proceeded to pull out a can of Campbell’s tomato soup.

She knew Young, however, was “probably the guy when I walked on the boat and he said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’” Other men had suggested an alcoholic drink.

Lynne, who is an attorney, also appreciated his collection of books.

The Youngs chose Setauket because they had cast a wide net, looking for a home on the water somewhere between the Canadian border and North Carolina. 

“This was it,” said Lynne, who is thrilled with the extensive art community in the area.

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Esther Tsai is one of four scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory to be selected by DOE’s Office of Science to receive significant funding through its Early Career Research Program. Photo courtesy of BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

This is part 2 of a 2-part series.

Half of this year’s crop of recipients from New York State for Early Career Awards from the Department of Energy came from Brookhaven National Laboratory.

With ideas for a range of research efforts that have the potential to enhance basic knowledge and lead to technological innovations, two of the four winners earned awards in basic energy science, while the others scored funds from high energy physics and the office of nuclear physics.

“Supporting America’s scientists and researchers early in their careers will ensure the United States remains at the forefront of scientific discovery,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. The funding provides resources to “find the answers to some of the most complex questions as they establish themselves as experts in their fields.”

The DOE chose the four BNL recipients based on peer review by outside scientific experts. All eligible researchers had to have earned their PhDs within the previous 12 years and had to conduct research within the scope of the Office of Science’s eight major program areas.

Last week, the TBR News Media  highlighted the work of Elizabeth Brost and Derong Xu. This week, we will feature the efforts of Esther Tsai and Joanna Zajac.

Esther Tsai

Esther Tsai is one of four scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory to be selected by DOE’s Office of Science to receive significant funding through its Early Career Research Program. Photo courtesy of BNL

Listening to her in-laws argue over whom Alexa, the virtual assistant, listens to more, Esther Tsai had an idea for how to help the scientists who trek to BNL for their experiments. As a member of the beamline staff at the National Synchrotron Lightsource II, Tsai knew firsthand the struggles staff and visiting scientists face during experiments.

Artificial intelligence systems, she reasoned, could help bridge the knowledge gap between different domain experts and train students and future generations of scientists, some of whom might not be familiar with the coding language of Python.

In work titled “Virtual Scientific Companion for Synchrotron Beamlines,” Tsai, who is a scientist in the Electronic Nanomaterials Group of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, is developing a virtual scientific companion called VISION. The system, which is based on a natural language based interaction, will translate English to programming language Python. 

“VISION will allow for easy, intuitive and customized operation for instruments without programming experience or deep understanding of the control system,” said Tsai.

The system could increase the efficiency of experiments, while reducing bottlenecks at the lightsource, which is a resource that is in high demand among researchers throughout the country and the world.

Staff spend about 20 percent of user-support time on training new users, setting up operation and analysis protocols and performing data interpretation, Tsai estimated. Beamline staff often have to explain how Python works to control the instrument and analyze data.

VISION, however, can assist with or perform all of those efforts, which could increase the efficiency of scientific discoveries.

After the initial feelings of shock at receiving the award and gratitude for the support she received during the award preparation, Tsai shared the news with friends and family and then went to the beamline to support users over the weekend.

As a child, Tsai loved LEGO and jigsaw puzzles and enjoyed building objects and solving problems. Science offers the most interesting “puzzles to solve and endless possibilities for new inventions.”

Tsai appreciates the support she received from her parents, who offered encouragement throughout her study and career. Her father Tang Tsai, who is a a retired professor in Taiwan, often thought about research and scribbled equations on napkins while waiting for food in restaurants. On trips, he’d bring papers to read and shared his thoughts. Tsai’s mom Grace, a professor in management in Taiwan who plans to retire soon, also supported her daughter’s work. Both parents read press releases about Tsai’s research and shared their experience in academia.

Tsai thinks it’s exciting to make the imaginary world of Star Trek and other science fiction stories a reality through human-AI interactions.

Joanna Zajac

From left, Joanna Zajac is one of four scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory to be selected by DOE’s Office of Science to receive significant funding through its Early Career Research Program. Photo courtesy of BNL

A quantum scientist in the Instrumentation Division, Joanna Zajac is developing a fundamental understanding of fast light-matter interconnects that could facilitate long distance quantum networks.

Zajac will design and build systems that use quantum dots to generate single photos in the wavelengths used for optical telecommunications.

These quantum dots could potentially generate photons that would work at telecommunication and atomic wavelengths, which could reduce the losses to almost nothing when quantum information travels through the current optical fibers network. Losses are currently around 3.5 decibels per kilometer, Zajac explained in an email.

By coupling quantum dot single photons with alkali vapors, the light-matter interconnects may operate as a basis for quantum information, making up nodes of quantum network connected by optical links.

“Within this project, we are going to develop fundamental understanding of interactions therein allowing us to develop components of long-distance quantum networks,” Zajac said in a statement. “This DOE award gives me a fantastic opportunity to explore this important topic among the vibrant scientific community in Brookhaven Lab’s Instrumentation Division and beyond.”

Zajac explained that she was excited to learn that her project had been selected for this prestigious award. “I have no doubt that we have fascinating physics to learn,” she added.

In her first year, she would like to set up her lab space to conduct these measurements. This will also include development experimental infrastructure such as microscopes and table-top optical experiments. She hopes to have some proof-of-principle experiments. 

She has served as a mentor for numerous junior scientists and calls herself “passionate” when it comes to working with students and interns.

Zajac, who received her master’s degree in physics from Southampton University and her PhD in Physics from Cardiff University, said she would like to encourage more women to enter the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, “as they are still underrepresented,” she said. “I would encourage them to study STEM subjects and ensure them that they will do just great.”

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Elizabeth Brost is one of four scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory selected by DOE’s Office of Science to receive significant funding through its Early Career Research Program. Photo courtesy of BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

This is part 1 of a 2-part series.

Half of this year’s crop of recipients from New York State for Early Career Awards from the Department of Energy came from Brookhaven National Laboratory.

With ideas for a range of research efforts that have the potential to enhance basic knowledge and lead to technological innovations, two of the four winners earned awards in basic energy science, while the others scored funds from high energy physics and the office of nuclear physics.

“Supporting America’s scientists and researchers early in their careers will ensure the United States remains at the forefront of scientific discovery,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. The funding provides resources to “find the answers to some of the most complex questions as they establish themselves as experts in their fields.”

The DOE chose the four BNL recipients based on peer review by outside scientific experts. All eligible researchers had to have earned their PhDs within the previous 12 years and had to conduct research within the scope of the Office of Science’s eight major program areas.

In a two part series, TBR News Media will highlight the work of these four researchers. This week’s Power of 3 column features Elizabeth Brost and Derong Xu. Next week, TBR will highlight the work of Joanna Zajac and Esther Tsai.

Elizabeth ‘Liza’ Brost

Elizabeth Brost is one of four scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory selected by DOE’s Office of Science to receive significant funding through its Early Career Research Program. Photo courtesy of BNL

In work titled “Shining Light on the Higgs Self-Interaction,” Brost, who is an associate scientist, is studying properties of the Higgs Boson, which was a long sought after particle that helps explain why some particles have mass. The Standard Model of Particle Physics, which predicted the existence of the Higgs Boson, also suggests that the Higgs field can interact with itself. This interaction should produce pairs of Higgs Bosons at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland, where Brost works.

A significant challenge in Brost’s work is that the production of such pairs occurs 1,000 times less frequently than the production of single Higgs Bosons, which researchers discovered to considerable fanfare in 2012 after a 48-year search.

Brost is leading the effort to use machine learning algorithms to cherry pick collision data in real time. Since these events are so rare, “it’s very important that we are able to save promising collision events,” she explained in an email.

The LHC collides protons at a rate of 40 million times per second, but the facility only keeps about 100,000 of those.

Thus far, everything Brost has seen agrees with the Standard Model of Particle Physics predictions, but “that just means we have to work harder and develop new strategies to search for new physics,” she said.

Brost earned her undergraduate degree in physics and French from Grinnell College and her PhD in physics from the University of Oregon. When she learned she’d won this early career award, she “couldn’t believe it was real for quite some time,” she wrote. “The hardest part was keeping it a secret until the official announcement.

She explained that she was only allowed to tell a few select people at BNL and close family members about the distinction, who were also sworn to secrecy. 

The award will allow her to expand the scope of the work she’s doing and to hire additional staff.

As an experienced mentor, Brost recognizes that there is “a lot of pressure to work on whatever is the newest or coolest thing in order to stand out from a crowd” at a collaboration like ATLAS [an extensive particle detector experiment at the Large Hadron Collider] which involves over 3,000 people.” She urged researchers to work on the physics they find interesting and exciting.

Derong Xu

Derong Xu is one of four scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory selected by DOE’s Office of Science to receive significant funding through its Early Career Research Program. Photo courtesy of BNL

An Assistant Physicist, Xu is working to enhance the  efficiency of the Electron-Ion Collider, a marquee tool that BNL will start building next year and is expected to be operational in the 2030’s.

The EIC will collide beams of electrons and protons or other atomic nuclei. By reducing the beam size, or packing the same number of particles into a smaller space, the EIC can increase the likelihood of these collisions.

Specifically, Xu plans to flatten the beam, which has never been used in a hadron collider. He will explore ways to reduce the interactions between beams and superconducting magnets. He will pursue a combined approach using theoretical and experimental methods, which will affect the parameters for the future EIC.

Generating flat hadron beams in existing hadron machines remains “unexplored, making our project a pioneering effort dedicated to investigating methods for maintaining beam flatness,” Xu explained in an email.

In addition to leveraging flat iron beams, Xu is also considering ways to increase the beam intensity by injecting a greater number of particles into the accelerator, which would boost the collision rate. Such an approach, however, means more electromagnetic force between the beams, requiring additional effort to maintain beam flatness.

To explore these potential approaches and determine an optimal trade-off between strategies, his project will collaborate with leading experts in accelerator physics, conduct comprehensive simulations and investigate an array of techniques.

“Through pushing the boundaries of accelerator technology and exploring diverse construction and beam creation techniques, we aspire to unlock novel scientific frontiers and achieve groundbreaking discoveries in nuclear physics,” he explained.

Receiving the award filled Xu with “immense excitement and pride.” He and his wife called their parents, who are traditional farmers, in China. When he explained to them that the award is a substantial amount of money, they advised him to “try your best and not waste the money,” he shared.

At an early age, Xu showed a strong interest in math and physics. His parents rewarded him with snacks when he got high scores. 

“That was my first equation in my life: high scores = more snacks,” he joked.

To share the subatomic world with people outside his field, Xu often makes analogies. He compares the collision of an electron beam with a proton beam to shooting a flying ping-pong ball with a gun. The ping-pong ball’s size (which, in this case, is a collection of protons) resembles the diameter of a human hair. The collisions create scattered products that provide insights into the subatomic world.

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By Daniel Dunaief

A problematic atmospheric greenhouse gases, methane comes from natural gas, agriculture, and swamps. 

John Mak

Recently, John E. Mak, a Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University worked with an international group of scientists to demonstrate a process that removes methane from the atmosphere.

A mixture of dust from the Sahara and sea spray reacts with methane to form carbon monoxide and a small amount of hydrochloric acid.

In a recent paper published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Mak, corresponding author Matthew Johnson, who is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, and others showed how a novel process removes 5 percent, plus or minus 2 or 3 percent, of the methane from the atmosphere in specific areas.

“What we are showing is that some methane in the middle of the tropical Atlantic Ocean region may be removed” through this process, Mak said from the Gordon Research Conference on Atmospheric Chemistry in Sunday River, Maine.

The research validates a mechanism Mak had proposed in the late 1990’s, when he conducted studies funded by the National Science Foundation in Barbados. “When I first made the observations, I proposed that what we were seeing was a chlorine mediated removal of methane,” Mak explained.

At that time, he didn’t have the ability to make those measurements. The technology, however, has evolved over the years and researchers can now measure chlorine radical precursors such as Cl2 and other chlorine compounds.

Indeed, Maarten van Herpen, first author on the study and a member of Acacia Impact Innovation, approached Mak with a new theory and a new mechanism that he thought could explain Mak’s results from decades earlier.

“They were excited to hear that no one had solved the problem,” said Mak.

By working together through this international team, the group was able to take new measurements and utilize advances in their understanding of atmospheric processes.

‘New, but old’

Mak had conducted his studies towards the beginning of his time at Stony Brook University in the late 1990’s as a part of one of his first federally funded projects. 

“It’s a little unusual for people to make use of observations so far in the past,” said Mak. “It opens up a new, but old avenue of research.”

Mak, who is conducting studies in other areas including a recent project in New York to investigate air quality and air chemistry mechanisms specific to the greater New York City region, believes the research on this PNAS paper takes him almost full circle back to this earlier work.

“There’s a feeling of satisfaction that good measurements are useful for a longer period of time,” he said. 

In this study, Mak helped interpret some of the data his collaborators generated.

The reactions

The process of removing methane starts with sea spray, which is aerosolized by bubbles bursting at the contact point between the ocean and the air. The chlorine comes from that sea spray, while iron comes from the continental crust.

Saharan dust can traverse the globe, but scientists are not sure of the spatial extent of this process. They believe it could be throughout the tropical Atlantic, but it could be in other dust laden ocean regions in the Indian and Pacific Oceans as well.

That process creates what is described as a reactive chlorine species, which is on the hunt for a positively charged particle, such as one of the four hydrogen atoms attached to carbon in methane.

Once the chlorine removes a hydrogen, it creates a methyl group, or CH3, and an incredibly small amount of hydrochloric acid, or HCl, at about one part per quadrillion.

The acid, in fact, is so low that it doesn’t cause any acidification of the oceans. Ocean acidification primarily comes from the absorption of carbon dioxide gas, which reacts with seawater and eventually increases the amount of positively charged hydrogen atoms, decreasing the ocean’s pH.

Meanwhile in the atmosphere, the remaining methyl group is oxidized to carbon monoxide, which eventually becomes carbon dioxide. That is also a greenhouse gas, but is not as potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere as methane.

Now that the group has explored this process, Mak explained that the next step will involve proposing a field campaign in the tropical Atlantic with state of the art instruments.

Mak believes the journal PNAS likely found the subject matter compelling on a broader scale, particularly because this process affects weather and climate.

Outside work

When he’s not working, Mak enjoys boating and fishing. A native of Southern California, Mak is a commercial pilot, who also does some flying as a part of his research studies.

As for climate change, Mak suggested that the weather extremes from this year, which include record high temperatures in the ocean near the Florida Keys and high temperatures in areas in Arizona, are a part of a pattern that will continue.

“What we have been and will continue to observe are changes to the broad equilibrium of energy balance of the Earth ocean atmosphere system,” he explained. “There’s a lot of inertia in the system. But when you change the input by changing the forcing, you upset that equilibrium.” That, he explained, could alter the weather, which is generated as a response to differences in energy from one place to another.

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Maurizio Del Poeta. File photo from SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

Maurizio Del Poeta is taking another approach to battling fungal infections that can be deadly, particularly for people who are immunocompromised.

Maurizio Del Poeta. Photo from SBU

A Distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, Del Poeta has made progress in animal models of various fungal infections in working on treatments and vaccines.

After receiving an additional $3.8 million from the National Institutes of Health for five years, Del Poeta is expanding on some findings that may lead to a greater understanding of the mechanism that makes some fungal infections problematic.

The Stony Brook Distinguished Professor is studying “what makes people susceptible to fungal infections,” he said. “It’s something I’m really passionate about.”

Del Poeta explained that researchers and medical professionals often focus on the people who get sick. Understanding those people who are not developing an infection or battling against a fungus can provide insights into ways to understand what makes one population vulnerable or susceptible and another more resistant.

Expanding such an approach outside the realm of fungal infections could also provide key insights for a range of infections in the future.

Indeed, the awareness of specific signals for other infections could help protect specific populations, beyond those who had general categories like underlying medical conditions, who might be more vulnerable amid any kind of outbreak.

“It’s possible that the study we are doing now with fungi could stimulate interest” in other areas of infectious disease, Del Poeta said.

He suggested that this was “pioneering work” in terms of fungal infections. At this point, his lab has produced “strong preliminary data.”

An important drug treatment side effect as a signal

This investigation arises out of work Del Poeta had done to understand why some people with multiple sclerosis who took a specific drug, called fingolimid, developed fungal infections during their drug treatment.

Del Poeta observed that the drug inhibits a type of immunity that involves the movement of lymphocytes from organs into the bloodstream.

Fingolimid mimics a natural lipid, called a sphingolipid. Del Poeta showed that this sphingolipid is important to contain the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans in the lung. When its level decreases, the fungus can move from the lung to the brain.

Indeed, Fingolimid mimics sphingosin-1-phosphate (S1P) and binds to several S1P receptors.

Del Poeta believes that the pathway between S1P and its receptor regulates the immunity against Cryptococcus. Blocking a specific receptor is detrimental for the host and may lead to reactivation of the fungus.

Putting a team together

Nathália Fidelis Vieira de Sá. Photo by Futura Convites studio

Del Poeta has been working with Iwao Ojima, a Distinguished Professor and the Director of the Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery in the Department of Chemistry at Stony Brook, to create compounds that energize, instead of block, the target of fingolimid.

Del Poeta has recruited two scientists to join his lab in this effort, each of whom has educational experience in nursing.

Nathália Fidelis Vieira de Sá, who is a registered nurse at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and a chemistry technician at Funec- Contagem City, will join the lab as a technician in the second week of September.

Fidelis Vieira de Sá, who currently lives in her native Brazil, is an “expert on collecting and analyzing organs for mice,” explained Del Poeta in an email.

For her part, Fidelis Vieira de Sá is thrilled to join Del Poeta’s lab at Stony Brook. “I’m very excited,” she said in an email. She is eager to get started because the research is “of such great relevance to public health” and is occurring at such a “renowned institution.”

Fidelis Vieira de Sá believes this is a public health issue that could have a positive impact on people with immunodeficiency conditions who need effective treatment so they live a better, longer life. When she was a peritoneal dialysis nurse, she had a few patients who had fungal infections.

“This is very serious and challenging, detection is difficult, and the life expectancy of these patients drops dramatically with each episode of infection,” she explained. 

Fidelis Vieira de Sá, who has never lived outside Brazil, is eager for new experiences, including visiting Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, and the One World Trade Center Memorial.

As for the work, she hopes that, in the near future, Del Poeta will “be able to explain this mechanism deeply and to develop new drugs that will act on this receptor.”

Dr. Marinaldo Pacífico Cavalcanti Neto

Dr. Marinaldo Pacífico Cavalcanti Neto, who is an Assistant Professor at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, will be arriving at Stony Brook University on August 6. Dr. Neto earned his bachelor of science in nursing and has a PhD in biochemistry from the Medical School of Ribeirão Preto at the University of São Paulo.

Del Poeta described Dr. Neto as an “expert on animal handling and genotyping,”

Dr. Neto recognizes the burden of fungal infections around the world and hoped to work with someone with Del Poeta’s credentials and experience in immunology and infection.

Understanding how cells eliminate infection, how cells might have a lower capacity to control an infection, and looking for how cells respond to treatments such as fingolimid could be a “great strategy to understand why these are so susceptible,” he said.

While Dr. Neto’s background is in immunology, he hopes to learn more about molecular biology.

Unlike Fidelis Vieira de Sá, Dr. Neto, who will live in Centereach, has worked previously in the United States. He has experience at the National Institutes of Health and at the University of California at San Diego and has been attending Del Poeta’s lab meetings from a distance for about a month.

Dr. Neto, whose interest in science increased while he watched the TV show Beakman’s World while he was growing up, is eager to work in an area where he can apply his research.

He appreciates that his work may one day “be used in the generation of protocols in a clinic.

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Timothy Glotch. Photo from SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

It’s almost easier to figure out what makes Earth unique among the planets than it is to list the ways humans are unique among Earth’s inhabitants. Earth is, after all, the only blue planet, filled with water from which humans, and so many other creatures, evolved. It is also the only planet on which seven enormous plates deep beneath the surface move. These unique features have led scientists to expect certain features that give Earth its unique geological footprint.

Not so fast.

According to a recent paper in the high-profile journal Nature in which Timothy Glotch, Professor of Geosciences at Stony Brook University, was a co-author, the moon has a vast swath of over 50 kilometers of granite in the Compton-Belkovich Volcanic complex, which is on the its far side. 

Usually formed from plate tectonics of water bearing magma, the presence of this granite, which appears in greater quantities around the Earth, is something of a planetary mystery.

“Granites are extremely rare outside of Earth,” said Glotch. “Its formation process must be so different, which makes them interesting.”

The researchers on this paper, including lead author Matt Siegler, a scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, suggest a range of possibilities for how the granite formed. Over three billion years ago, the moon, which, like the Earth, is over 4.5 billion years old, had lava that erupted to form the Compton-Belkovich Volcanic Complex, or CBVC. Researchers think most volcanic activity on the moon ended about two billion years ago.

This illustration shows the Compton-Belkovich Volcanic Complex (CBVC) on the Moon’s far side and the boxed area indicated a large granite zone, which could not be picked up by topography. Image courtesy of Matthew Siegler/Planetary Science Institute/Nature

The magma formed as a result of a melting of a small portion of the lunar mantle. Melting could have been caused by the addition of water or the movement of hot material closer to the surface. Scientists are not completely sure about the current nature of the lunar core.

As for the granite, it might have come from fractionation, in which particles separate during a transition from different phases, in this case from a hot liquid like magma to a solid.

Additionally, the presence of granite could suggest that some parts of the moon had more water than others.

“There are other geochemical arguments you could make,” Glotch said. “What we really need are to find more samples and bring them back to Earth.”

The analysis of granite on the moon came from numerous distant sources, as well as from the study of a few samples returned during the Apollo space missions. The last time people set foot on the moon was on the Apollo 17 mission, which returned to Earth on Dec. 19, 1972.

A 10-year process

The search and study of granite on the moon involved a collaboration between Glotch and Siegler, who have known each other for about 18 years. The two met when Glotch was a postdoctoral researcher and Siegler was a graduate student.

In 2010, Glotch published a paper in the journal Science in which he identified areas that have compositions that are similar to granite, or rhyolite, which is the volcanic equivalent.

Since that paper, Glotch and others have published several research studies that have further characterized granitic or rhyolitic materials, but those are “still relatively rare,” Glotch said.

Long distance monitoring

Led by Siegler and his postdoctoral researcher Jiangqing Feng, the team gathered information from several sources, including microwave data from Chinese satellites, which are sensitive to the heat flow under the surface.

The team also used the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, which is a NASA instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, that measures surface temperatures.

Part of the discovery of the silicic sites on the moon comes from the identification of the element thorium, which the Lunar Prospector Gamma Ray Spectrometer found. Similar to uranium or plutonium, thorium is radioactive and decays.

Another piece of data came from the Grail mission, which measures the lunar gravity field.

Glotch suggested that the study involved a “daisy chain of observations.” In his role, he tried to identify sites that might be rich in granite, while Siegler applied new data to these areas to learn more about the underground volcanic plumbing.

In addition to doing long distance monitoring, Glotch engages in long distance recreational activities. The Stony Brook professor is preparing for a November 11th run in Maryland that will cover 50 miles. He expects it will take him about 10 or 11 hours to complete. 

Looking at other planets

By analyzing granite on the moon, which could reveal its early history, geologists might also turn that same analysis back to the Earth.

“Can we use the results of this study to take a more nuanced view of granite formations on Earth or other bodies in our solar system?” Glotch asked. “We can learn a lot, not just about the moon, but about planetary evolution.”

NASA is planning a DAVINCI+ mission to Venus in the coming decade, while a European mission is also scheduled for Venus. Some researchers have suggested that Venusian terrains, which are referred to as Tesserae, might be granitic.

“If Venus has continent-like structures made of granite, that’s interesting, because Venus does not appear to have plate tectonics either,” Glotch said.

Closer to Earth, some upcoming missions may offer a better understanding of lunar granite. The first is a small orbiter called Lunar Trailblazer that will have sensitive remote instruments. The second is a part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which will include a small lander and rover that will land on the Gruithuisen Domes.

Conference in Italy

In the shorter term, Glotch and Siegler plan to attend the 10th Hutton Symposium in Italy.

Glotch is eager to discuss the work with researchers who are not planetary scientists to “get their take on this.”

He is excited by the recent planetary decadal survey, which highlighted several priorities, which include lunar research.

In his opinion, Glotch believes the survey includes more high priority lunary science than in previous such surveys.

Countries including India, China, Israel and Japan have a renewed national interest in the moon. South Korea currently has an orbiter at the moon.

All this attention makes the moon a “really good target for U.S. science to maintain our leadership position, as well as providing a tool for geopolitical cooperation,” Glotch added.

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Clare Flynn conducts a census count of gentoo penguins at Neko Harbour in Antarctica in January 2023.

By Daniel Dunaief

Humans may have nothing on penguins when it comes to viral marketing. Almost immediately after the Covid pandemic shut down tourism in parts of Antarctica, some gentoo penguins likely altered their choice of nesting sites.

Clare Flynn with her award- winning poster at the Pacific Seabird Group annual meeting in Feb. 2023. Photo by William Kennerly

As if the penguins got an avian email alert indicating that tourists eager to send a post card from the only post office in Antarctica weren’t coming, these flightless birds quickly divvied up desirable real estate, which, for a gentoo penguin, means bare rock on which they make nests out of pebbles.

“Antarctica is seen as a mostly pristine place where humans have very little impact,” said Clare Flynn, a PhD student in the lab of Heather Lynch, the Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences Endowed Chair for Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University.

Flynn used a combination of ground counts from researchers and drone footage to tally the nests during the Covid years. Based on these numbers, she concluded that tourism has been “depressing the population sizes at Port Lockroy” and nearby Jougla Point.

The study suggests that even limited human visits to remote locations can alter decisions by wildlife, affecting the kind of reproductive choices that could, over time and with greater numbers of people coming, affect population sizes.

Pomona College Biology Professor Nina Karnovsky, who is an undergraduate thesis advisor and mentor for Flynn but didn’t participate in this research, suggested that this kind of analysis highlights the need for greater awareness of human influence.

“It shows that people even visiting the colony can have impacts,” Karnovsky said. “Tourism is a double-edged sword. You want people to experience Antarctica and see how precious life there is.” At the same time, researchers don’t want any such visits to have negative side effects.

Nest numbers

The number of penguin nests in Port Lockroy surged to 978 in the 2021/ 2022 breeding season. That is considerably higher than the 535 nesting pairs in the 2018/2019 season, according to data compiled and analyzed by Flynn. What’s more, when the post office returned to normal operations, bringing back tourists in 2022 and 2023, the nest number at Port Lockroy returned to its earlier levels, at 529.

The overall number of nesting gentoo penguins didn’t change dramatically in a cluster of gentoo penguin colonies around Wiencke Island during Covid, as many of these birds likely shifted their breeding locations from nearby sites that don’t have as much human activity, such as Damoy Point.

“It’s shocking how quickly [the changed nesting sites] happened,” Flynn said, occurring over the course of two years, not generations. “Tourism is just ramping up when the penguins are choosing nesting sites.” The shifting nest sites accounted for most of the increase in Port Lockroy and Jougla Point. Some of the gentoo penguins who may have skipped a breeding season, however, also might have decided to give it a go amid the pandemic closure.

Post office attraction

Flynn and Lynch have a few theories about what caused these nesting patterns.

Flynn suggested the nesting sites at Damoy Point and Dorian Beacon, where the number of nesting colonies declined during the lockdown, may have been close to carrying capacity, which means that prospective penguin parents found the equivalent of No Vacancy signs when they searched for places to build their nest.

Sites near the post office were not at carrying capacity prior to the pandemic. From visual inspection of the drone images, these sites had available bare rock, which is a limiting factor for gentoo penguins.

Flynn believes that pedestrian traffic may have dissuaded penguins from creating nests.

Human disturbance

Boat traffic may also be dissuading gentoo penguins from nesting. While there is a limit to the number of people who can land at any given time, people often cruise around the area in zodiacs, which increases the noise and could create a physical barrier for swimming penguins.

Last month, Lynch brought Flynn’s analysis of nesting numbers during the pandemic to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Finland. Policy makers are considering implementing a no-wake zone in Port Lockroy harbor as a first step to reduce disturbance.

While the number of nests typically varies by year at these sites, the dramatic increases and decreases lie outside that normal range, Flynn said. She called the numbers “eye popping,” as Port Lockroy had the largest population size ever recorded in 2021/ 2022 and Jougla Point saw the largest population size in 2021/2022 in over 20 years. Damoy Point and Dorian Beacon, by contrast, had huge drops.

Understanding the effects of tourism is becoming increasingly important, particularly as the appetite for travel to this area increases.

While gentoo penguins are doing well overall, an increase in the kind of tourism that exists at Port Lockroy could affect their breeding success.

“We need to understand how increasing levels of tourism affect these species so that the effects in conjunction with climate change effects don’t cause a disaster” for several penguin species, Flynn added.

Rewarding pivot

Flynn hadn’t intended to study the effects of Covid on the gentoo penguin. Instead, she was using drone images to identify whether penguins nested in the same place from one year to the next.

While Flynn was annotating images from 2018 through 2021, Lynch noticed the changes at Port Lockroy during those years. After Flynn took a deeper dive into the numbers, she made a new poster just one week before presenting her results at the Pacific Seabird Group annual meeting in February.

The “exhausting” effort, as Flynn put it, paid off, as she won runner up honors for best PhD poster at the conference. She has since sent the results out to Biological Conservation for publication.

Ecology spark

Flynn grew up near Baltimore and attended Pomona College, where she anticipated exploring her interest in math. She switched her focus to ecology. An ecology and evolution class she took with Karnovsky cemented her decision and brought her into the world of seabirds.

Karnovsky recalled how Flynn “loved collecting data,” which, in Southern California is “not a walk in the park, literally.” Flynn had to contend with cactus and poison ivy on an owl project.

Karnovsky believes her former student could “go on and do great things in this field.”

At one point about five years ago, Karnovsky told Flynn she might “go to Antarctica one day to study penguins,” Flynn recalled. At the time, Flynn thought the idea sounded “crazy.”

Karnovsky’s suggestion about Flynn’s future was less crazy than it was prescient.

When she’s not following her research calling, Flynn enjoys following recipes. She makes baked goods and is particularly fond of a blueberry muffin recipe she found in Bon Appétit magazine. Instead of putting in too many blueberry, which sink in the muffin, she makes a blueberry compote and sprinkles lemon zest sugar on top.

As for her future, Flynn hasn’t decided on a post PhD plan. This could include becoming a professor or pursuing a data science career.

“I could see her becoming a really wonderful professor because she also sees mentoring as really important,” Karnovsky said.

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Sam Kleeman. Photo by Caryn Koza/CSHL
From left, Sam Kleeman, Assistant Professor Tobias Janowitz, Miriam Ferrer Gonzalez and Emma Davidson. Photo by Caryn Koza/CSHL
Sam Kleeman at Lake Tahoe
Sam Kleeman in front of a sequoia grove at Yosemite.

By Daniel Dunaief

This is part 2 of a two-part series.

Cancers not only compromise human health, but they can also suppress the body’s immune response. A little studied small protein called cystatin C, which is secreted by numerous cells, may render the immune system less effective in its response to tumors.

Sam Kleeman, a PhD student in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Assistant Professor Tobias Janowitz’s lab, recently published results in the journal Cell Genomics that demonstrate a link between elevated levels of this protease inhibitor, the suppression of the immune system, and the development of cancer.

Kleeman was able to demonstrate a potential role “Cystatin C might play in damping down the immune response to tumors,” he said.

Cystatin C is a known cysteine protease inhibitor, but the biological and organ-level relevance of this has not been characterized in detail. This protein could be one of many mechanisms by which glucocorticoids can reduce the effectiveness of the immune system.

Cystatin C could drive the progression of the disease, which could explain why Kleeman has found evidence that higher levels coordinate with worse outcomes.

Starting with the data

Pursuing an interest in data- driven research, Kleeman, who has a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from New College at the University of Oxford, searched the UK Biobank, which provides health data for numerous people in the United Kingdom. 

In this Biobank, Kleeman, who joined Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in August of 2020, found that cystatin C was the best prognostic indicator of cancer deaths.

“I was a little surprised by this,” Kleeman said as he had heard of cystatin C as a marker of kidney function, but was not aware of any association with cancer mortality. Some studies had found evidence for this previously, but those were in small cohorts and were poorly understood, he explained.

A healthy kidney clears most proteins quickly, pumping it out into urine. A kidney that’s not functioning optimally, however, allows it to accumulate.

In his research, Kleeman removed cystatin C selectively in cancer cells, causing the tumors to grow more slowly. The main changes in the architecture of the tumor was that it reduced the frequency of macrophages with expression of a protein called Trem2. While the exact mechanism is not known, it’s likely that immune control of the tumor increases without cystatin C.

Kleeman also demonstrated a similar effect on the connection between levels of Covid-19 and mortality in a paper published in iScience.

The biological mechanism explaining the correlation is nuanced. Patients with higher levels of glucocorticoids can be associated with poor outcomes. It is not a simple relationship, he said, which makes causality difficult to assess.

Kleeman believes cystatin C secretion in response to glucocorticoids has context dependency. Not all cells posses inducible cystatin C secretion.

The research primarily found that only macrophages and cancer cells can secrete cystatin C in response to glucocorticoids.

He describes a “two hit” model, by which glucocorticoids plus an inflammatory stimulus recruit macrophages. The model applies to all inflammatory stores, but is co-opted in the case of cancer.

At this point, drugs aren’t available to inhibit or reduce cystatin C. Instead, Kleeman suggested that a viable research target route might involve creating a specific antibody.

Some researchers have created so-called knockout mice, which don’t have this protein. These mice can survive without it, although eliminating all cystatin C creates other problems.

Kleeman speculated that the protein could play a role in preventing significant immune reaction against sperm.

Indeed, this protein is secreted at high levels in the testes. Males without it have lower sperm function and production.

Kleeman hopes this work acts as a starting point to understand the mechanism better by which glucocorticoids modify immune response to cancer, and to investigate cystatin C as a possible therapeutic target.

Long standing partnership

As an undergraduate, Kleeman took a class with Janowitz, which kicked off a mentorship that now spans two continents.

Kleeman appreciates the comfort level Janowitz has in working on higher-risk, higher-reward topics or on ideas that haven’t already attracted considerable attention from other scientists.

“There’s a tendency in science towards group think,” Kleeman said. In the history of medicine and science, many widely accepted theories turn out to be wrong. “Patients undoubtedly benefit from a diversity of thought in science and medicine,” he explained.

When he completes his PhD, Kleeman said it would be a “dream to have a dual appointment” in which he could conduct research and work in the clinic with patients. To get there, he knows he needs to establish his research profile that includes a genuine track record of achievement while demonstrating that he can function as a reliable and effective clinician.

Kleeman’s thesis research lies outside the field of cystatin C, which started out as a curiosity and developed into the recent publication. He wanted to “understand what UK Biobank could teach us about cancer patients.” With Janowitz and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Hiro Furukawa, Kleeman is working to understand how a specific type of cancer could cause an auto-immune disease.

A resident of Forest Hills, Kleeman lives about 45 minutes from the lab. Outside of work, he enjoys visiting national parks. He has visited 10 so far, including Yosemite National Park, Zion and Rocky Mountain National Park. 

Professionally, Kleeman feels it is a privilege to be a PhD student. He appreciates that he can explore his interests without too many restrictions and is eager to make the most of the opportunity.

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From left, Sam Kleeman, Assistant Professor Tobias Janowitz, Miriam Ferrer Gonzalez and Emma Davidson. Photo by Caryn Koza/CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

This part one of a two part series.

It’s a bit like shaking corn kernels over an open flame. At first, the kernels rustle around in the bag, making noise as they heat up, preparing for the metamorphosis.

That’s what can happen in any of the many laboratories scattered throughout Long Island, as researchers pursue their projects with support, funding and guidance from lab leaders or, in the science vernacular, principal investigators.

Sometimes, as happened recently at the benches of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Assistant Professor Tobias Janowitz, several projects can pop at around the same time, producing compelling results, helping advance the careers of developing scientists and leading to published papers.

PhD graduate Miriam Ferrer Gonzalez and MD/ PhD student Sam Kleeman recently published separate studies.

In an email, Janowitz suggested the work for these papers is “time consuming and requires a lot of energy.” He called the acceptance of the papers “rewarding.” 

In a two-part series, Times Beacon Record News Media will describe the research from each student. This week, the focus is on Ferrer Gonzalez. Check back next week for a profile of the work of Kleeman.

Miriam Ferrer Gonzalez

Miriam Ferrer Gonzalez. Photo by Caryn Koza/CSHL

Miriam Ferrer Gonzalez was stuck. She had two results, but couldn’t seem to figure out how to connect them. First, in a mouse model of the ketogenic diet — heavy on fats, without including carbohydrates —cancer tumors shrunk. That was the good news.

The bad news, which was even more pronounced than the good, was that this diet was not only starving the tumors, but was triggering an earlier onset of cachexia, in which bodies weaken and waste away. The cachexia overpowered the mice, causing them to die sooner than if they had a normal diet.

Ferrer, a student in residence from Spain who was conducting her research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory while earning her PhD at the University of Cambridge in the UK, thought the two discoveries were paradoxically uncoupled. A lower tumor burden, she reasoned, should have been beneficial.

In presenting and discussing her findings internally to the lab group, Ferrer received the kind of feedback that helped her hone in on the potential explanation.

“Finding out the mechanism by which a ketogenic diet was detrimental for both the body and the cancer was the key to explaining this uncoupling,” Ferrer explained.

The adrenal glands of mice fed a ketogenic diet were not producing the necessary amount of the hormone corticosterone to sustain survival. She validated this broken pathway when she discovered higher levels of corticosterone precursors that didn’t become functional hormones.

To test this hypothesis, she gave mice dexamethasone, which boosted their corticosterone levels. These mice had slower growing tumors and longer lives.

Ferrer recently published her paper in the journal Cell Metabolism.

To date, the literature on the ketogenic diet and cancer has been “confusing,” she said, with studies that show positive and negative effects.

“In our study, we go deeper to explain the mechanism rather than only talking about glucose-dependency of cancer cells and the use of nutritional interventions that deprive the tumor of glucose,” said Ferrer. She believed those factors are contributing to slower tumor growth, but are not solely responsible.

Thus far, there have been case studies with the ketogenic diet shrinking tumors in patients with cancer and, in particular, with glioblastoma, but no one has conducted a conclusive clinical trial on the ketogenic diet.

Researchers have reported on the beneficial effects of this diet on epilepsy and other neurological diseases, but cancer results have been inconclusive.  For the experiments in Janowitz’s lab, Ferrer and technician Emma Davidson conducted research on mouse models.

Ferrer, who is the first author on the paper, has been working with this system for about four years. Davidson, who graduated from the College of Wooster in Ohio last year and is applying to MD and MD/PhD programs, contributed to this effort for about a year.

Next steps

From left, Emma Davidson, Assistant Professor Tobias Janowitz, Sam Kleeman and Miriam Ferrer Gonzalez. Photo by Caryn Koza/CSHL

Now that she earned her PhD, Ferrer is thinking about the next steps in her career and is considering different institutions across the country. Specifically, she’s interested in eating behavior, energy homeostasis, food intake and other metabolic parameters in conditions of stress. She would also like to focus on how hormonal cycles in women affect their eating behavior.

Originally from a small city in Spain called Lleida, which is in the western part of Catalonia, Ferrer appreciated the opportunity to learn through courses and conferences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Until she leaves the lab in the next few months, Ferrer plans to work with Davidson to prepare her to take over the project for the next year.

The follow up experiments will include pharmacologically inducing ferroptosis of cancer cells in mice fed a ketogenic diet. They hope to demonstrate that early induction of ferroptosis, or a type of programmed cell death, prevents tumor growth and prevents the tumor-induced reprogramming of the rest of the body that causes cachexia.

These experiments will involve working with mice that have smaller and earlier tumors than the ones in the published paper. In addition, they will combine a ketogenic diet, dexamethasone and a ferroptosis inducing drug, which they didn’t use in the earlier experiments.

Janowitz has partnered with Ferrer since 2018, when she conducted her master’s research at the University of Cambridge. As the most senior person in Janowitz’s lab, Ferrer has helped train many of the people who have worked in his lab. She has found mentoring rewarding and appreciates the opportunity to invest in people like Davidson.

Ferrer, who is planning a wedding in Spain in September, is a fitness and wellness fan and has taken nutrition courses. She does weight lifting and running.

Ferrer’s parents don’t have advanced educational degrees and they supported their three children in their efforts to earn their degrees.

“I wanted to be the best student for my parents,” said Ferrer, who is the middle child. She “wanted to make my parents proud.

The hand off

Emma Davidson and Miriam Gonzalez Ferrer examine an adrenal gland sample section from a cachectic mouse. Photo by Caryn Koza/CSHL

For her part, Davidson is looking forward to addressing ways to implement further treatment methods with a ketogenic diet and supplemental glucocorticoids to shrink tumors and prevent cachexia. 

Davidson appreciated how dependable Ferrer was during her time in the lab. Just as importantly, she admired how Ferrer provided a “safe area to fail.”

At one point, Davidson had taken all the cells she was planning to use to inject in mice. Ferrer reminded her to keep some in stock.

“Open lines of communication have been very beneficial to avoid more consequential failures,” Davidson said, ”as this mistake would have been.”

Davidson developed an interest in science when she took a high school class called Principles in Biological Science and Human Body Systems. When she was learning about the cardiovascular system, her grandfather had a heart attack. In speaking with doctors, Davidson acted as a family translator, using the language she had studied to understand what doctors were describing.

Like Ferrer, Davidson lives an active life. Davidson is preparing for the Jones Beach Ironman Triathlon in September, in which she’ll swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles and run a half marathon. She plans to train a few hours during weekdays and even more on weekends for a competition she expects could take about six hours to complete.

Davidson started training for these events with her father Mark, an independent technology and operations consultant and owner of Exoro Consulting Group.

Longer term, Davidson is interested in medicine and research. After she completes her education, she will try to balance between research and clinical work.

 

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Above, a photo of Turkana taken from a single engine plane shows the Koobi Fora spit and Lake Turkana alongside a time map. Photo from Bob Raynolds

By Daniel Dunaief

In a wide-ranging interview, Louise Leakey, Director of Public Education and Outreach for the Turkana Basin Institute and a Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University shared her thoughts on numerous topics in the field of paleontology.

Louise Leakey at the Richard Leakey Memorial Conference on June 5. Photo by John Griffin/SBU

Leakey, who earned her PhD at the University College London, suggested that the process of finding fossils hasn’t changed that much, although other options beyond scouring a landscape for fragments of the world’s former occupants may be forthcoming.

“It may very well change if we can implement machine learning with high resolution imagery, using drones,” she said. “That’s one of the things we’re looking at the moment.”

What’s really changed, however, is the accuracy field scientists have in marking where, and, importantly, when new discoveries originated, she said.

Geologists like Bob Raynolds, Research Associate at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, have created time maps that indicate the approximate age of sediments around a fossil in some select areas of the Turkana Basin.

These maps “can be uploaded onto an iPad app for use in the field that shows you in real time where you are on the geological map,” Leakey explained. “This is a game changer for field work in the basin.”

A time map created by Bob Raynolds in collaboration with Geologic Data Systems, a Littleton, Colorado company.

The maps represent the work of many people, Raynolds explained.  Originally, teams of Master’s students used air photographs, tracing paper and ink to make a map. These students spent many weeks walking systematically on the ground and tracing the patterns on the photos.

The rugged and isolated nature of the ground in Northern Kenya makes the work done on foot difficult, Raynolds explained.

The original maps, which were made in the 1970’s, took months to make and were presented as paper copies in unpublished Master’s theses. After numerous enhancements, Raynolds, working with companies including Geologic Data Systems in Littleton, Colorado, created time maps.

The internal GPS on an iPhone enables a blue dot to indicate a person’s location on the map.

“I have worked on the maps to make a new set of derived products that are maps of the age of the rocks,” said Raynolds who created these time maps earlier this year. “The resolution of the time maps is 100,000 years” which is an “astonishingly detailed resolution for us who are accustomed to million year packages of time.”

The maps cover the entire Turkana Basin at various scales, Raynolds added.

More broadly, Bernard Wood, University Professor of Human Origins in the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleontology at George Washington University and the first speaker at a recent Stony Brook University conference to honor Richard Leakey, explained that dating fossils has become increasingly accurate.

The first dates of fossils in the KBS Tuff, which is an ash layer in the Koobi Fora Formation east of Lake Turkana, was estimated within 260,000 years of a specific date. Using improved methods, a study published this year has reduced that range to 600 years.

Publishing pace

In the meantime, the pace of publishing has slowed considerably.

“There’s so much more material” that can serve as a frame of reference for new discoveries, Leakey said. “The rate of publication is frustratingly slow for some of these specimens.” This contrasts dramatically with the experience of Leakey’s father Richard.

When the elder Leakey submitted his letters or paper to the prestigious journal Nature, the late editor John Maddox never sent them out for review. “[Maddox] explained that he couldn’t see the point, because they concerned fossils so recently discovered” that few had seen them, Wood explained in his presentation.

Louise Leakey also differed from Richard in earning her bachelor’s degree and PhD, while her father dropped out of high school and never received any additional formal education.

Wood suggested that, next to marrying Meave, the elder Leakey described leaving school as one of the best decisions he’d ever made.

For his daughter, though, Leakey “encouraged me to go and do that,” Louise Leakey said. The education helped “in terms of being able to be [principal investigator] on grant applications,” she said.

Leakey suggested it was a “real privilege to be able to spend time” earning her PhD. She also found that the educational experience gave her the opportunity to “stand on my own two feet” in her research.

Like her father, Louise Leakey is concerned about conservation and declining biodiversity. When she was younger, she saw areas that were teeming with wildlife. On a recent three-hour drive, she only saw a golden jackal and a dik-dik, which is a type of small antelope, compared with the much wider variety of creatures she would have seen decades ago, such as Grévy’s zebra, Burchell zebra, lesser kudu, ostriches, warthogs, topi, gerenuk, oryx and, possibly lions and cheetah. 

She attributes this decline to hunting as some have exterminated these species as result of competition for grazing areas and hunting the animals for meat. Record droughts are also threatening their survival.

Leakey is working with the next generation to get “kids to care about nature” so they can “think about what they’re doing and the real impact it has.”

In addition to preserving biodiversity, Leakey remains passionate about studying the past, which could help the current and future generations tackle climate change. “We might be able to learn lessons” from those who survived during such challenging conditions, she said.

Leakey is able to maintain her involvement and commitment to numerous efforts by working with talented collaborators.

“If you don’t have teams to really hold it together, you can’t do any of it,” she said.

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