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Assistant Professor Michael Lukey and postdoctoral researcher Yijian 'Evan' Qiu. Photo courtesy of Michael Lukey lab

By Daniel Dunaief

Cancer is a dangerous and wily adversary. Just when researchers think they have come up with a plan to defeat a deadly disease that takes many forms and that attacks different organs, cancer can figure out a way to persist.

Researchers have known that breast cancer uses the amino acid glutamine to power its high energy needs. To their disappointment, when they’ve blocked glutamine or reduced its availability, cancer somehow carries on.

An adaptable foe, cancer has figured out how to find an alternative metabolic pathway that can use the same energy or carbon source when its level gets low.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Assistant Professor Michael Lukey and postdoctoral researcher Yijian “Evan” Qiu have discovered how a form of breast cancer has a back up plan, enabling it to survive despite glutamine deprivation.

“Analysis of tumor samples has revealed that glutamine is often depleted within the tumor microenvironment, so we were interested in understanding how seemingly ‘glutamine addicted’ cancer cells adapt to this challenge,” Lukey explained..

In research published last week in the journal Nature Metabolism, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory researchers discovered and quieted a type of breast cancer’s alternate energy source.

This form of breast cancer typically uses glutamine, which is one of the most common amino acids, to power its disease-driven machinery. When Qiu and Lukey blocked the formation of alpha-ketoglutarate, which is a metabolite normally derived from glutamine and then glutamate, they significantly repressed the growth of tumors in animal models of the disease.

Cancer cells turn on this alternative pathway that can catalyze glutamate into alpha-ketoglutarate.

“Cancer is always evolving and adapting,” said Qiu. “We need to stay ahead as scientists.”

The results of this research suggest a possible approach to treating cancer, depriving the disease of ingredients it needs to feed the kind of runaway growth that threatens human health. Limiting key ingredients could come from applying specific inhibitors, extracellular enzymes or antimetabolites.

Their work could have implications and applications in other forms of cancer.

The time between observing a promising result in the lab and a new therapy typically takes years. In this case, however, treatments that use inhibitors of glutamine have been well-tolerated in animals and humans. Qiu also did not observe any side effects in animal models in his study, which could potentially accelerate the process of creating a new therapy.

To be sure, developing treatments that cut off cancer’s primary and back up energy supply may not be sufficient, as cancer may have other metabolic moves up its figurative sleeves.

“Cancer cells typically exhibit metabolic flexibility, such that they can adapt to a variety of metabolic stresses,” said Lukey. “It remains to be seen if they can ultimately adapt to long-term blockade of the axis that we identified, but so far we have not seen this happen.”

A search for the back up plan

Qiu and Lukey speculated at the beginning of Qiu’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory experience in August of 2020 that cancer cells likely had another energy option.

“The fact that cancer cells that should be dependent on glutamine adapted in glutamine-free media in weeks made me believe that the cancer cells must have such a plan B,” Qiu explained.

To figure out why glutamine inhibitors weren’t shrinking tumors in animal models or humans, Qiu removed glutamine from cancer cells, causing over 99.9 percent of the cells to die. A few, however, survived and started proliferating in weeks.

Qiu used RNA-seq analysis to compare the parental and adaptive cells and found that the cells that are glutamine independent upregulated a serine synthesis pathway. These adaptive cells used PSAT1, or phosphoserine aminotransferase 1, to produce alpha-ketoglutarate.

As for human patients, the scientists don’t know what kind of stress is activating a Plan B for metabolism, which they are currently exploring.

A ‘passion’ for the field

Lukey and Qiu submitted the paper for publication about a year ago. After conducting additional experiments to verify their findings, including confirming that some of the metabolite entered the cell, these researchers received word that Nature Metabolism would publish the research.

Lukey appreciated Qiu’s passion for science and suggested his postdoctoral researcher combines his technical proficiency with good ideas to generate promising results.

Lukey suggested that researchers in the field have developed a growing consensus that effective strategies to target tumor metabolism will likely involve combination therapies that disrupt a critical metabolic pathway in cancer cells and simultaneously block the adaptive response to that intervention.

From China to Buffalo to LI

Born in Yiyang, Hunan province in China, Qiu moved several times during his childhood, to Sanya, Hainan and Changsha, Hunan.

Qiu knew he wanted to be a scientist when he was young. He enjoyed watching ants, observing the types of food they carried with them. He earned his PhD from Clemson University in South Carolina, where he built his knowledge about metabolism-related research and benefited from the guidance of his mentor James Morris.

Qiu and his wife Peipei Wu, who is a postdoctoral researcher in Chris Hammell’s lab and focuses on epigenetic gene regulation in skin stem cell development, live in Oyster Bay.

The scientific couple don’t have much overlap in their work, but they do get “lots of inspiration from each other, during our discussion outside of work,” said Qiu.

Qiu enjoys fishing and caught and ate a catfish from the Hudson River. He appreciates drawing scenery, animals and a range of other visuals, including cartoon characters. He designed T-shirts for his department during his PhD.

As for his research, Qiu hopes the metabolism finding may lead to new treatments for cancer. He also suggested that this approach may help with other cancers.

“What I have found in my study can be applied for many other cancer types that are also dependent on glutamine, such as lung and kidney cancer,” he said. He also can not rule out “the possibility that the treatment may help reduce metastasis.”

An important topic for follow up studies, Lukey suggested, is to address how the metabolic interventions Qiu used might affect immune cells and the anticancer immune response.

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Collegno, tomb 143. Iron 'multiple' belt elements with silver and brass inlay. Photo by Caterina Giostra

Stony Brook Ecology & Evolution professor and an international team complete DNA analysis that provides insight to how communities formed after the collapse of the Roman Empire

A new study of ancient DNA by a team of international researchers and co-led by Krishna R. Veeramah, PhD, of Stony Brook University, provides insight into the development and social structures of European rural communities following the fall of the Roman Empire. The findings, published in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), suggest that early medieval elites, or those of higher social status, were initially made up of multiple families with distinct genetic ancestries. However, over time these families intermarried and also the local communities integrated genetically diverse newcomers from a variety of different social and cultural backgrounds.

Collegno, tomb no. 150. End element of belt for weapon suspension in iron with silver and brass inlay. Photo by Caterina Giostra

The research team combined paleogenomic, archaeological, and isotopic data to shed light on the community that used a cemetery in Collegno, Italy, as a burial site during the 6th to 8th centuries CE. Researchers sequenced and analyzed the genomes of 28 individuals from the cemetery and incorporated data from 24 previously published genomes. They also studied individuals’ patterns of social mobility, burial patterns, and diet.

“When the Roman Empire collapsed, we did not really know much about how new communities formed, yet many of these communities would go on to be the basis for modern European countries,” explains Veeramah, an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolution in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Director of The Veeramah Lab, which is dedicated the study of evolutionary genomics. “Our study reveals that these elites were genetically surprisingly diverse, and in the process of creating new European communities in the medieval era, families with diverse genetic ancestry would come together to form ruling groups.”

“In 2018, our team published a paper that demonstrated genomic and cultural similarities between Collegno and Szólád, a village in modern Hungary that showed a significant correspondence between individuals with a northern European ancestry in both,” adds Patrick Geary, PhD, of the Institute for Advanced Study.  “Our new study follows the transformation of this Italian community over a century, and shows how new groups moved into and merged with the existing inhabitants.”

The researchers discovered that the Collegno community was initially established by and organized around a network of closely related individuals, likely from several elite families. But over time, they evolved into a single extended lineage spanning at least five generations.

Veeramah and colleagues believe individuals from this lineage had a higher ranking in society based on their richer diets and heavily detailed, and likely more expensively made items they were buried with, such as weapons and elaborate belts [see attached photos].

The findings also show that while the Collegno community was initially established by these elite families, a majority that came from northern Europe, the community later incorporated individuals from other origins and genetic backgrounds into it, including surrounding locals.

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Benjamin Luft. Photo courtesy of SBU

They bother us, particularly in the summer, but they don’t need us.

The 23 species of Borrelia bacteria, which cause Lyme disease, have been around for millions of years, dating back to when the continents were all linked together like pieces of a puzzle in Pangea. The bacteria likely infected early mammals in those days.

In a recent paper in the journal mBIO, researchers from over 12 institutions put together the genetic sequence of these bacteria, which include 47 strains.

The scope of the work “was enormous and we were lucky” to have so many dedicated investigators, said Ben Luft, Edmund D. Pellegrino Professor of Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, including lead senior author Weigang Qiu, Professor of Biology at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

The work, which took about a decade to complete, could provide a valuable resource to researchers and doctors today and in the future. The genetic information could lead to advances in diagnostics, treatment and prevention of Lyme disease.

Scientist could use the database to compare the genomes of different species and variations that cause different symptoms to help diagnose the likely severity of an infection as well as to search for specific pathways that lead to the virulence of an infection.

Some infections can lead to fever, headaches, fatigue and a skin rash. Starting with the bite of an intermediate host such as a tick, these infections, when left untreated, can lead to problems in the joints, heart, and nervous system.

The number of new cases of Lyme disease each year has been climbing, reaching close to 500,000 per year in the United States.

Researchers added that creating a genetic catalog of the different bacterial species can also help current and future scientists and doctors manage new threats from strains of bacteria that move into new areas amid climate change.

These species haven’t interacted with each other in the past, but climate change may create opportunities for bacteria to create recombinant genes, presenting new threats to human health.

“You may start seeing things that you didn’t see before,” said Luft. “We don’t know what’s going to happen” amid climate change. “There might be new forms” of Lyme disease.

The challenge with Lyme is not necessarily what happens in 2024, but how it might change in 20 years, when organisms develop a new pathogenicity.

Lyme on four continents

An international team of researchers sequenced the genomes of many species of Borrelia, the cause of Lyme disease. By comparing these genomes, the researchers reconstructed the evolutionary history of Lyme disease bacteria. The map shows many of the global regions where the team sequenced a species. Borrelia burgdorferi, the most common cause of disease, is indicated in red. Other species are indicated by different colors. Image created by Saymon Akther

In addition to generating a database of the Lyme disease bacterial genome, the researchers wanted to develop an understanding of its phylogenetic history.

“The goal really was to show how genetically diverse Borelia is throughout the world,” said Luft.

The researchers gathered genetic data from this bacteria, which was sampled in Europe, Asia, and North and South America.

By collecting the genetic information in each of these locations, the scientists were able to recreate the history of a bacteria that’s lasted considerably longer than many other organisms that have since become extinct.

“The genetic make up (genes and plasmids) hasn’t changed very much since the last common ancestor on Pangea (otherwise we would see different sets of genes and plasmids from different continents),” explained Qiu.

An extensive collaboration

Qiu and Luft were grateful for all the work scientists around the world did to contribute to this study.

On Long Island, Lyme disease is transmitted mainly by the bite of an infected deer tick, also is known as the black-legged tick.

The team of Claire Fraser and Emmanuel Mongodin at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Richard G. Morgan of New England Biolabs helped use next generation sequencing to determine the bacterial genome.

Indeed, Fraser was the first to map the complete genetic code of a free-living organisms. She worked with the Haemophilus influenza, which causes respiratory infections and meningitis in infants and young children, according to the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Qiu, who earned his Phd from Stony Brook in 1999, suggested that the effort required regular, ongoing work. He supervised Dr. Saymon Akther for her thesis work, which was the basis of the paper. He also performed additional evolutionary analysis.

“For the past two years, we have been having weekly meetings on zoom,” said Qiu. “It’s a big relief” that the researchers published the study and shared the information with the scientific community.

Qiu credited Luft with being a consistent coordinator of the sequencing effort and diversity study for over 20 years.

The next steps

At this point, Luft and his colleagues are eager to share the information with the broader scientific community.

The researchers hope experts in artificial intelligence, bioinformatics and computer programming can use the data to understand more about the genome and develop potential therapeutic targets.

Luft is eager to see “how smart people take advantage of a decade’s worth of work that has been very carefully done, to move it all forward,” he said. “We have certain ideas that we are doing” to fill in the gaps.

Qiu has some existing grants he’s using to work on diagnostics and vaccine development.

Qiu, along with chemistry-department colleague Brian Zeglis, and Lyme diagnostic/ vaccine researcher Maria Gomes-Solecki, has a joint NIH/ NIAID grant to develop a novel PET-based technology to detect Lyme pathogens in vivo. They have also proposed a new Lyme vaccine design strategy.

Additional sequencing of the variable plasmid, which is not a part of the chromosomal DNA but can replicate independently, would continue to help determine what genetic codes contribute to the level of virulence for each strain or species.

“That’s like the last mile for the communication network,” said Qiu. The challenges include annotating the genomes, providing comparative analysis and using informatics development to share the genome variability with the research community.

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Jian Li

Stony Brook University Assistant Professor Jian Li, from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics and the Department of Computer Science, was recently awarded a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Early CAREER award for his project, “CAREER: Structured Learning and Optimization for Efficient Management in the Wireless Edge Cloud: Theory and Algorithms.”

“This project aims to bridge the gap between prevailing graph-based job services and wireless edge cloud designs via advocating structured learning and optimization solutions with provable performance guarantees,” said Professor Li. “The results will enhance the performance of wireless edge networks for distributed computing loads. At the same time this project develops fundamental theories that pertain to the area of machine learning, specially to reinforcement learning and distributed learning.”

According to the National Science Foundation, NSF CAREER Awards support early-career faculty with the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

“These awards are extremely competitive and are selectively given to the nation’s most promising researchers. We are very proud of Jian,” said Professor Joe Mitchell, chair of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics. “Professor Li’s project seeks to improve our fundamental understanding in areas of reinforcement learning, optimization, and scheduling, with potential broader impacts in the performance and responsiveness of edge and cloud computing, which is a core technology we all rely upon, especially for the ever-expanding suite of AI tools that have become an integral part of our daily lives.”

Li earned his doctorate in computer engineering from Texas A&M University in 2016 and his bachelor of engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2012. He was a postdoc with the College of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst from 2017 to 2019 and an assistant professor at Binghamton University before joining Stony Brook in 2023.

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From left, Xianghui Xiao, Yang Yang, and Qun Liu Photo by David Rahner/BNL
From left, Yang Yang, Qun Liu and Xianghui Xiao. Photo by David Rahner/BNL
From left, Qun Liu, Yang Yang, and Xianghui Xiao. Photo by David Rahner/BNL
From left, Xianghui Xiao, Qun Liu and Yang Yang. Photo by David Rahner/BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

Superman’s x-ray and heat vision illustrate an important problem.  On the one hand, the x-ray vision comes in handy if Superman is looking outside, say, at a bank and can see thieves dressed like the Hamburgler as they try to steal from a vault. On the other hand, Superman has heat vision, which he uses in battles to blow up concrete blocks or tear open a hole in a wall.

But, aside from a few realities getting in the way, the struggle scientists using x-rays to see inside cells contend with tracks with these two abilities.

Researchers would ideally like to use x-rays to see the inner workings of a cell. X-rays can and do act like Superman’s heat vision, causing damage or destroying the cells they are trying to study.

Recently, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory, however, figured out how to protect and preserve cells, providing an opportunity to study them without causing damage.

Not only that, but, to extend the fictional metaphor, they used the equivalent of Wonder Twin Powers, combining the structural three-dimensional picture one beamline at the National Synchrotron Lightsource II can produce with the two-dimensional chemical image from another.

After three years of hard work, researchers including Qun Liu, structural biologist; Yang Yang, associate physicist; and Xianghui Xiao, FXI lead beamline scientist, were able to use both beamlines to create a multimodal picture of a cell on different scales and with different information.

“Each beamline can create a full picture, but providing only partial information (structure or chemicals),” Liu said. “The correlative imaging for the same cell using two different beamlines provides a more comprehensive” image.

The key to this proof of concept, Liu explained, was in developing a multi-step process to study the cells.

“The novelty is how we prepared the samples,” said Liu. “We can take the sample from one beamline, move it to a second one, and can collect data from the same orientation. Before this, it was not easy” to put together that kind of information.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications Biology, the scientists detailed the cell preparation technique and showcased the results.

The potential application of this technique extends in numerous directions, from finding the way new pathogens attack cells, to understanding the location and site of action of pharmacological agents, to understanding the progression of disease, among other applications.

“Our technique combines both X-ray fluorescence and X-ray nano-tomography so we can study the entire cell for both the elements and the structure correlatively,” Yang explained.

Supported by the Department of Energy Biopreparedness Initiative, the scientists are doing basic research and developing techniques and protocols and procedures in preparation for the next pandemic. They have 10 projects covering different pathogens and aspects. Liu is the principal investigator leading one of them. 

To be sure, at this point, the technique for preserving and studying cells with these beamlines is in an early stage and is not available to labs, doctors, or hospitals on a routine basis to test biological samples.

Nonetheless, the approach at BNL offers an important potential direction for clinical and fundamental benefits. Clinically, it can help with disease diagnosis, while it can also be used to study stresses of cells and tissues under metal deficiency or toxicity. Many cancers include a malfunction in the homeostasis, including zinc, copper and iron.

Fixing and re-fixing

The process of preparing the samples required three steps.

The researchers started with a chemical fixation with paraformaldehyde to preserve the structure of the cell. They then used a robot that rapidly froze the sample by plunging it into liquid ethane and then transferring it to liquid nitrogen.

They freeze-dried the cells to turn the water into ice that is not crystallized. As a part of that process, they left the cells in a controlled vacuum to turn the ice slowly into gas. Removing water is key because the liquid would otherwise be too mobile for x-rays to measure anything reliably. After absorbing the x-rays, the liquid would heat up and further deform the cells.

The preparation work takes one to two days.

“If you fail in any of the steps, you have to start all over again,” said Yang.

Zihan Lin, who is a postdoctoral researcher in Liu’s lab and the first author on the paper, spent more than a year polishing and preparing the technique.

“We believe the cells were preserved [near] their close-to-native status,” said Yang.

They used an X-ray computed tomography (XCT) beamline, which provides a three-dimensional view of the structure of the cell. They also placed the samples in an X-ray fluorescence beamline (XRF), which provided a two-dimensional view of the same cells.

In the XRF beamline, scientists can find where trace elements are located inside a cell.

Liu is collaborating with researchers at other labs to understand the molecular interactions between sorghum, an important grain crop, and the fungus Colletotrichum sublineola, which can damage the leaves of the plant.

The DOE funded project is a collaboration between BNL and three other national laboratories.

Liu is grateful for the help and support he and the team received from the staff working at both beamlines, as well as from the biology department, NSLS-II, BNL, and DOE. The imaging may help create bioenergy crops with more biomass and less disease-caused yield loss, he suggested.

Future work

Current and ongoing work is focused on the potential physiological states of the cell, addressing questions such as why metals are going to specific areas.

Yang is the science lead for a team developing the Quantitative Cellular Tomography beamline at the NSLS-II. Within five years, this beamline will provide nanoscale resolution of frozen cells without requiring chemical fixation.

This beamline, which will have a light epi-fluorescence microscope, will add more detail about sub-cellular structure and will not require frozen cells to have chemical fixation.

While the proof of concept approach with these beamlines is still relatively new, Yang said she has received feedback from scientists interested in its potential.

“We have quite a few people from biology departments that are interested in this technique” to study biomass related structures, she said.

A future research direction could also involve seeing living cells. The resolution would be compromised, as the X-rays would induce changes that make it hard to separate biological processes from artifacts.

“This could be a very good research direction,” Liu added.

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Hiro Furukawa Photo courtesy of CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

Following a relentless drive to succeed, scientists have a great deal in common with athletes.

In addition to putting in long hours and dedicating considerable energy to improving their results, these talented professionals also enjoy moments of success — large and small — as opportunities to appreciate the victories and then build to greater challenges.

And so it is for Hiro Furukawa, a Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Hiro Furukawa. Photo courtesy of JMSA

Working with a team of scientists including at Emory University, Furukawa recently published a paper in the prestigious journal Nature in which he demonstrated the long-sought structural process that leads to the opening of an important channel in the brain, called the NMDAR receptor.

When this cellular channel doesn’t function correctly, it can lead to numerous diseases, including Alzheimer’s and depression. Understanding the structural details of this channel could, at some point in future research, lead to breakthrough treatments.

“Each moment of discovery is exciting and priceless,” Furukawa explained. “When I finally see what I have sought for many years — in this case, the mechanism of NMDAR channel opening — it fills me with immense euphoria, followed by a sense of satisfaction.”

That sounds like the kind of mountaintop moment that star athletes whose achievements people applaud share once they’ve reached a long-desire milestone, like, perhaps, winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

The thirst for more for Furukawa, as it is for those with a passion for success in other fields beyond science and athletics, is unquenchable and unrelenting.

“This feeling is fleeting,” he added. “Within a few hours, a flurry of new questions arising from the discovery begins to occupy my mind.”

Indeed, Furukawa suggested that he expects that many other scientists share this experience.

Forming a winning team

Furukawa and Stephen Traynelis, Professor and Director in the Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, started to work together on a series of modulators for the NMDAR protein about eight years ago.

Hiro Furukawa. Photo courtesy of JMSA

This particular protein binds to the neurotransmitter glutamate and to glycine, which is another compound. Once bound to both, the channel, as if responding to the correct combination in a garage door, opens, creating electrical signals that contribute to brain functions.

To study the way the binding of these molecules opened the channel, the researchers needed to figure out how to keep the receptor in the open position.

That’s where a combination of work in the labs of Traynelis and Dennis Liotta, also a Professor at Emory, came in. Liotta’s lab made over 400 analogs that Traynelis ran in his lab.

Liotta created a compound called EU-1622-A, which is now known as EU-1622-240, that upregulates NMDAR activity, Furukawa explained.

“We used cryo-EM [electron microscopy] to capture the NMDAR structure with the compound, validated its conformation through electrophysiology and elucidated the activation mechanism,” he said.

Incorporating EU-1622-240 along with glycine and glutamate into the GluN1-2B NMDAR sample, which is a specific subtype and is the easiest to work with, enabled a visualization of the open channel.

Furukawa described the compound Traynelis created at Emory as the “key factor in capturing the open channel conformation.”

Determining the structure of a functioning protein can provide clues about how to alter those that may be contributing to the onset or progression of a disease.

To be sure, Furukawa recognizes the work as one step in what’s likely to involve an extensive research journey.

“We still have a long way to go, but we’ve made progress,” Furukawa said. “In this study, a compound bound to NMDAR gave us a clue on how to control the frequency of ion channel openings. Both hyperactive and hypoactive functions of NMDAR ion channels have been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, so being able to regulate NMDAR activity would be significant.”

Furukawa can’t say for sure if this compound could alleviate the symptoms of certain diseases, but it serves as a new series of potentially clinically relevant options to test.

The researchers are developing a method to purify NMDAR proteins from animal tissues. Once they accomplish that task, they should be able to isolate NMDAR from Alzheimer’s brains to compare them to a normally functioning protein.

Furukawa suggested that it’s probable that specific NMDAR conformations are stabilized to different extents in various diseases compared to normal brains.

The researchers have not yet presented this work at meetings. First author Tsung-Han Chou, who is a postdoctoral fellow in Furukawa’s lab, plans to present the work at upcoming conferences, such as the Biophysical Society Meeting.

The review process for the research proceeded quickly, as the team submitted the paper in February of this year. 

Next steps

As for what’s next, Furukawa suggested that the team planned to solidify their findings.

“We must determine if the channel opening mechanism applies to other types of NMDARs,” he said. “Although we observed that EU1622-A compound binds to NMDAR, its structure was not sufficient resolved.”

To facilitate the re-design of EU1622-240, the scientists will need to improve the cryo-EM map resolution.

Traynelis, meanwhile, said that he and Liotta are synthesizing new modulators in this class and related classes and are working on mechanisms of action for this series at all NMDA receptors as well as actions in neuronal systems.

“We have a robust synthetic program with our collaborator [Liotta], whose laboratory is synthesizing many new modulators in this class and related classes,” Traynelis explained.

Traynelis added that his goal is to “develop new medicines to address unmet clinical needs. We want to find new and effective therapeutic treatments that help patients.”

The Emory professor is excited about the “potential development of positive NMDA receptor allosteric modulators that could enhance NMDA receptor function.”

Broader perspective

Furukawa, who lives in Cold Spring Harbor and whose sons Ryoma, 16 and Rin, 13, attend senior and junior high school, respectively, was interested in international politics and economics when he attended Tufts University as an undergraduate.

These non-science topics provide additional perspective that enrich his life.

“I remain very interested in understanding history and the reasons behind current events in Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S.,” he said. “This endeavor is far more challenging than decoding NMDAR structures and functions.”

As for his collaborations, Furukawa suggested that the findings from this research inspire him to continue to search for more answers and greater scientific achievements.

“We will continue to unravel these mysteries in future studies,” Furukawa said. “The best is yet to come.”

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Imoigele Aisiku. Courtesy Imoigele Aisiku

By Daniel Dunaief

Stony Brook University named physician-scientist Dr. Imoigele “Imo” Aisiku as chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine, starting Aug. 15.

A national leader who has dedicated his career to critical care and neurocritical care in emergency medicine, Aisiku worked for more than a decade at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Aisiku, who was born in Nigeria and raised in Brooklyn and Auburn, Massachusetts, found several factors appealing about the Stony Brook role.

“My immediate family is predominantly in the Northeast” stretching from New York to Richmond, Virginia,” he said. Additionally, he suggested that numerous aspects of the role were “right in my area of expertise.”

His experience at Brigham and Women’s Hospital involved integrating systems, and he recognizes the opportunity to deploy that skill set at Stony Brook, where he will help integrate the emergency department at different hospitals.

He also has considerable experience in critical care, which is a strength at SBU.

“There are some natural synergies that you couldn’t script” he added, including strong clinical interest in stroke, telehealth, critical care and a desire to develop a systems integration model

Indeed, before he came to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Aisiku worked at the University of Texas at Houston. UT Houston/Memorial Hermann was one of the earliest to be named a JCAHO Comprehensive Stroke Center.

Aisiku was the medical director of their neurosurgery intensive care unit, which had one of the first mobile stroke units in the country. The unit was a collaboration between EMS, neurology, the stroke division, EM and the ICU.

A mobile stroke unit can provide critical and timely diagnostics and care for people having a stroke, which can not only save lives but can also lead to a dramatic improvement in the outcome after a stroke event for patients.

Stony Brook currently has two mobile stroke units and is working on adding a third.

“I hope to leverage what is the strength of Stony Brook with my experiences” and strengthen any weaknesses in a bidirectional manner, said Aisiku, who will report to Peter Igarashi, dean of the Renaissance School of Medicine.

For his part, Igarashi was eager to welcome the new addition to the emergency department.

“We are thrilled that Dr. Aisiku will lead Stony Brook’s remarkable team of emergency physicians,” Igarashi said in a statement. “As a pioneering physician-scientist in neurocritical care, and as an emergency medicine scholar and researcher, Dr. Aisiku will help advance our capacity to save lives and care for critically ill patients in the years to come.”

Evolutionary change

The new emergency department chair is hoping to learn more about Stony Brook’s strengths and weaknesses before implementing any changes.

“I hope to make a change and a difference,” Aisiku explained in an email. “I believe it is prudent to aim for evolutionary change and, if there is an opportunity, for positive revolutionary change.”

His goal is to see the department grow from a regional strength to a national and even an international strength.

He plans to develop partnerships with other chairs and departments and hopes to enhance programmatic and faculty development.

Aisiku also hopes to develop opportunities for faculty at Stony Brook, including in areas that involve research. He would like to see the department earn more National Institutes of Health and federal funding.

DEI experience

An accomplished physician, researcher and administrator, Aisiku also has considerable experience building and encouraging opportunities for underrepresented groups in medicine.

Aisiku was the founder and director of the Offices of IDEaS, which stands for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Social Justice, in Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he credits a team of faculty administrative staff and supportive chair for the success of that effort.

Aisiku “played a crucial role in the development of the office of IDEaS,” Jayelani Hall, administrative manager for Emergency Medicine and the Office of IDEaS at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, explained in an email. Aisiku’s vision for creating an inclusive environment and commitment to equity and diversity were “instrumental in shaping the initiatives and programs that define IDEaS today.”

IDEaS has launched several initiatives, such as the Profile in Diversity Series and the SPAK Grant program, which provides funding to projects that advance diversity, equity and inclusion.

The office established scholarship programs to support underrepresented students pursuing careers in medicine and health care, Hall added.

The president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital named Aisiku endowed Distinguished Chair in Health Equity and Diversity.

The broader Stony Brook area extending to New York City “draws diverse and international people to the region,” Aisiku explained. “While I acknowledge that [DEI] is an area of controversy in our country, I believe continuing to strive for diversity has a significant role for the development of our youth all the way to impacting our patients.”

In speaking with the leadership of the hospital and medical school, Aisiku believes his diversity goals are “aligned in these efforts” as he looks forward to developing strategies that will lead to diverse students, residents and faculty.

In addition to providing opportunities to students in the health care field, a more diverse population of caregivers enhances the patient experience, Aisiku contends.

A diverse health care force provides greater opportunity for patient choice and advocacy, he added.

Aisiku, who has master’s degrees in business administration from Goizueta School of Business and a master’s in clinical research from Rollings School of Public Health at Emory University, would like to partner with the business school and the school of public health, among others, to build diversity, which may broaden and enhance his efforts in this area.

People who have worked with Aisiku appreciate his commitment and openness to those around him.

Aisiku is “known for his compassion and dedication both as a physician and as a leader,” Hall wrote. “He consistently goes above and beyond to ensure that his patients receive the best care possible and his commitment to equity in health care is evident in all his endeavors.”

Hall suggested that the Stony Brook community is fortunate to have Aisiku in this role.

“Given his track record, I fully expect him to engage deeply with students, faculty and community members, fostering connections and driving positive change,” Hall explained.

From left to right, Robert Samuel Decosta Higgins, Jayelani Hall, Imoigele Aisiku, Ron Walls and Mike VanRooyen, at a ceremony for Aisiku. Photo courtesy Imoigele Aisiku

Telehealth experience

Over a decade ago, Aisiku started iDoc Telehealth Solutions, a telemedicine company dedicated to critical and neurocritical care and tele-stroke services, with the goal of providing this type of care to people in areas that didn’t have enough clinicians with that experience.

Since then, he has become co-CEO of a public company called VSEE Health.

He expects to pass the torch on to other executives. His commitment is to the university as his obligation to the company is for about four more months.

To be sure, he wants to ensure there are no conflicts of interest in his roles at Stony Brook and in the decision about how and in what ways the university can continue to build telehealth capacity.

“If there is an opportunity to enhance an area, with full disclosure, there can be pathways to achieve things that improve the patient experience while separating ‘church’ and ‘state’ so to speak,” he explained in an email.

Morana Lasic, interim chief diversity & inclusion officer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, suggested that Aisiku has served as a personal and institutional resource for a wide range of people.

Aisiku “works with those who are yet to enter the medical field and need mentorship, just as he does with institution presidents,” Lasic explained in an email. “He empowers those on his team and pays special attention to those who are often forgotten in mentorship (such as young administrative staff.)”

Lasic added that Aisiku was generous with his time and has reached out to her with emails and new thoughts and ideas at any time of day.

“Just like the rest of his life, his sleeping schedule is unique and his own, and he wears an Oura ring (which tracks sleep patterns) just to confuse it,” Lasic said.

In his research, Aisiku has focused on three areas: traumatic brain injury, subarachnoid hemorrhages and acute respiratory distress syndrome/sepsis.

Aisiku is living with his wife Diana, who is a nurse, and their 4 1/2-year-old son Myles in Westbury. They are in the process of searching for a home.

Outside of work, Aisiku has a black belt in the martial art of Jeet Kune Do, enjoys working out and played Division 3 tennis and basketball, at Worcester State University. He is also a motorcycle enthusiast.

As for his likely contribution to the Stony Brook community, Lasic, who has been at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for 25 years, suggested that she anticipated he would continue on an impressive journey.

Aisiku is “one of the most innovative leaders in academic medicine I have seen in a long time,” she wrote. “He is a true role model in his ability to connect with those around him.”

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Brookhaven Lab Senior Physicist Mary Bishai, who has been awarded a 2024 Department of Energy Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellowship, examines a board of microelectronics designed to operate in a cryogenic neutrino detector at 87 Kelvin (-303 degrees Fahrenheit). Photo by Kevin Coughlin/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Physicist Mary Bishai of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has been named a 2024 DOE Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellow. The honor recognizes her “enduring contributions at the intensity frontier of high energy physics in unraveling fundamental properties of neutrinos, extraordinary leadership and service to the particle physics community, and deep commitment to broadening participation through mentoring next generation scientists.”

As described in a DOE Office of Science press release issued on Aug. 13, the Distinguished Scientist Fellows program was established to develop, sustain, and promote scientific and academic excellence in Office of Science research through collaborations between universities and national laboratories. Bishai, one of four scientists being honored this year, will receive the award — which consists of $1 million in direct funding for her research — at a ceremony on January 14, 2025, where she will also deliver an online lecture and field questions about her career [registration link: https://science-doe.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_p3QlS3XkRrS9leRYcscytw#/registration].

“It is an honor to recognize the outstanding research of these awardees,” said Harriet Kung, acting director of the DOE Office of Science. “They are advancing science solutions for the nation and taking on some of our biggest challenges in bioenergy, materials science, physics, and computing. I look forward to their continued success and impactful results, especially as they continue to move forward in their careers, inspiring a new generation of scientists ready to tackle the big questions and challenges of the future.”

Bishai has made understanding the properties of elementary particles her life’s work, and she has spent the last two decades at Brookhaven working to understand the properties of the elusive neutrino . Her leadership on neutrino experiments led her to be elected co-spokesperson  of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in January 2023. DUNE is a 1,400-person project with scientists from more than 30 countries and 200 institutions. This experiment will shoot neutrinos over a thousand kilometers from DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Illinois through Earth’s crust to detectors deep within the Sanford Underground Research Facility(SURF) in South Dakota to see how these enigmatic entities change as they travel.

“This fellowship is a great honor,” she said. After spending her early career working at Purdue University and studying charm quarks at the CLEO experiment at Cornell University, Bishai transitioned to work at DOE laboratories. She reflected, “I have spent a rewarding career involved in leading particle physics experiments at the national labs, including 20 years at Brookhaven.”

Bishai is excited for DUNE’s possible insight into several fundamental questions in physics. Chief among those is why our universe is made of matter, or as she put it, “why we are here.” DUNE will allow scientists to look for differences between how neutrinos and their antimatter opposites, antineutrinos, behave. Finding a difference could help explain why the early universe — which should have contained the two in equal, mutually annihilating amounts — somehow favored the existence and persistence of matter. Observations by terrestrial detectors like DUNE of the energy and time distributions of neutrinos emitted by the Sun or during the explosion of a nearby supernova will also provide a clearer picture of how stars work.

Bishai’s outlook and enthusiasm extend beyond the science to the scientists themselves. “The most fun of all,” she said, has been guiding the next generation of researchers. “As a mentor, I am making sure that my students are integrated, making sure they understand what they’re doing, and I’m trying to talk about careers a lot,” she shared.

Detection detective

Brookhaven scientists have been at the forefront of neutrino research for decades, developing complex detector technologies, including giant liquid argon-filled detectors and the cold microelectronics that read out their signals. Bishai’s work builds on that legacy.

“Brookhaven is where the first successful neutrino beam from an accelerator was produced as part of a Nobel Prize-winning experiment that established that neutrinos have ‘flavors,’ or different types. This was followed by Ray Davis’ groundbreaking Nobel Prize-winning experiment to detect solar neutrinos using a massive detector underground in the former Homestake Gold Mine in South Dakota. That experiment produced the first hint that neutrinos oscillate, or change, between different flavors. DUNE is the latest generation, using accelerator-produced neutrinos to further study neutrino flavor oscillations to learn more about our universe,” Bishai said.

Part of the challenge with all these experiments is that neutrinos have extraordinarily little mass, no charge at all, and interact with matter only rarely. So how exactly do scientists measure a chargeless particle that can fly through walls with ease while shapeshifting among three known flavors? The key is in detecting “fingerprints” neutrinos leave in the argon bath.

As in many of the earlier experiments, DUNE’s detectors will be deep underground to filter out other types of particle interactions. When incoming neutrinos enter the chilly, 87 Kelvin (-303 degrees Fahrenheit) pool of liquid argon, they’ll very occasionally interact with one of the argon atoms. Those interactions kick various charged particles out of the argon nuclei. Next, the charged particles set off a cascade of ionization, knocking electrons off more atoms in the argon bath. The interactions of the initial neutrino and the secondary charged particles with argon also generate flashes of light.

Scientists match the flashes of light, which travel almost instantaneously through the detector, with the later arrival of electrons freed by ionization as they strike electrodes on the sides of the detector.

“Because you know how fast it takes for the charge to go, and you know when the interaction happened from the flash of light, you can figure out exactly where the interaction took place inside the detector, and you can use computers to reconstruct the tracks,” Bishai said.

Then, it’s about fitting the puzzle pieces together. Since each neutrino produces different types of tracks, these tracks can be analyzed to pinpoint the flavor of the neutrino that created each track.

Keeping it inclusive — for data and people

Bishai has been recognized for being a relentless champion for the science of neutrinos and the scientific program of the DUNE experiment, starting from her role as project scientist when the DUNE collaboration was first formed in 2015 and subsequently as a leader of various physics working groups in the collaboration.

Throughout her career, and as DUNE co-spokesperson, she has worked consistently to bring others into the field.

As an example, she has mentored more than 20 young scientists, mostly through the DOE-funded Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program at Brookhaven Lab and students who visited Brookhaven while participating in the African School of Physics. Bishai recalled how she worked with students to test hundreds of DUNE’s cold microelectronic chips by dipping them in liquid nitrogen that’s nearly as cold as the liquid argon will be.

“I learn more when I teach because I have to dig deep into the science myself, dig deep into the technical issues, to be able to then translate it into simpler concepts,” she said.

Bishai believes that giving students a chance to participate in DUNE — not just her own students but those of many scientists connected with the project — will help produce a workforce adept at “organizing large, collaborative, multidisciplinary efforts across the world.”

The cornerstone of a project this size is indeed making everyone feel welcome and ensuring that collaborators around the globe have access to the scientific data. “DUNE is moving to a very distributed approach in terms of analyzing and accessing data internationally,” she said.

Bishai is also working to cultivate an inclusive team atmosphere. As DUNE co-spokesperson, she helped launch a DUNE inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility group that is gathering demographic information and programs activities to increase representation.

Another initiative was instituting an orientation session at certain DUNE collaboration meetings. “Anybody who wants to come can learn about how collaboration decisions are made and how to join in the decision-making process,” Bishai said.

She has additionally prioritized increased involvement of early career staff, including members of the Young DUNE group, on DUNE committees and decision-making bodies. Bishai tries to make herself available to all collaboration members through both formal Q&A sessions and informal messaging platforms and email.

“Being co-spokesperson of the DUNE collaboration, you are elected to serve all collaborators regardless of seniority,” she said. “You have to lead by building consensus among a group of equals.”

Bishai earned her Bachelor of Arts in physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1991. She received her Master of Science and Ph.D., both in physics, from Purdue University in 1993 and 1999, respectively. She was a research associate at DOE’s Fermilab in 1998 until she joined Brookhaven as an assistant physicist in 2004. She rose through the ranks and has been a senior physicist since 2015. Bishai has played many roles in laying the foundation for a U.S.-based long-baseline neutrino experiment and became DUNE Collaboration co-spokesperson in 2023. In 2014, she was named Woman of the Year in Science by the Town of Brookhaven, and in 2015, she was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

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The SCY-QNet facility envisioned across Stony Brook, Columbia, Yale and BNL. The end nodes will have atomic-based Quantum Internet Processing Units (QPUs) and Quantum Frequency Converters (QFCs). The intermediate nodes will deploy Entanglement Sources (ESs), Quantum Memory Banks (QMBs), and Entanglement Swapping Stations to facilitate the generation of long-distance entanglement via quantum repeaters. Image design courtesy of L. Castillo-Veneros, Stony Brook University.

The National Science Foundation launches its first 5 pilot projects under NQVL

Stony Brook University is leading a new project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to advance Quantum Information Science and Technology (QIST) in the United States. The project is one the first five under the NSF’s National Quantum Virtual Laboratory (NQVL) program. Each project receives $1 million in funding. The Stony Brook-led project is in collaboration with Columbia University, Yale University, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).

Global research with quantum computing and quantum networks is taking place with the goal of developing a quantum internet, a network of quantum computers, sensors, and communication devices that will create, process and transmit quantum states and entanglement. The emerging technology is expected to not only enhance society’s wider internet system but also provide certain services and securities that the current internet cannot provide.

Titled “Wide-Area Quantum Network to Demonstrate Quantum Advantage (SCY-QNet),” the project involves a process to build a long-distance 10-node quantum network to demonstrate quantum advantage through quantum communication and distributed quantum processing, which would enable secure and privacy-preserving long-distance communications systems.

“This project has the potential to boost the scaling of quantum computing systems via quantum networks, forming a first version of the Quantum Internet,” says Eden Figueroa, PhD, Principal Investigator, and Presidential Innovation Endowed Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University, and Director of the Center for Distributed Quantum Processing. Figueroa also holds a joint appointment with BNL.

“To realize this ambitious vision, we have assembled a team of the leading quantum physicists, electrical engineers, and computer scientists in the region,” adds Figueroa.

“We are thrilled to have received this inaugural award from the National Science Foundation alongside our partner universities,” says Nina Maung, Senior Associate VP for Research Development and Partnerships at Stony Brook University. “It represents the considerable efforts each institution has dedicated to re-envisioning the future of quantum information science research, bond by a shared sense of the importance of collaborative scientific discovery for societal advancement.”

Figueroa and colleagues say that the project will not only advance science and the internet but also cultivate a quantum-ready workforce.

For more details and perspective about the project and its collaborators, see this SBU news story. For more about the NSF’s NQVL program and all five pilot projects, see this link in the NSF newsroom. For more details on the grant for the Stony Brook-led research team, see this NSF awards page.

 

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Student falling asleep at his desk. Courtesy MetroCreative Connection

By Daniel Dunaief

Imagine a typical school classroom filled with adults, listening as intently as they can to a detailed lecture about the finer points of tax law or multivariable calculus.

The adults in the room who weren’t particularly interested in the topic might struggle to concentrate, and several of them might try — perhaps unsuccessfully — to stay awake.

Now, bring a group of 8-year-olds into the same room, with the same instructor, and the same material. The likelihood that any of those younger students would fall asleep in their chair is far lower.

One reason for that difference is that the younger set, consistently, gets more sleep, while the older generation, from high school students on up the chain, typically, are not as well-rested.

“We think it’s normal, if you’re bored, to fall asleep, but it’s not,” said Dr. Steven Feinsilver, director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Northwell Lenox Hill Hospital. “Falling asleep in a lecture that doesn’t interest you means that you either have a sleep [problem] or, more likely, are sleep deprived.”

Indeed, the percentage of the population that is sleep deprived is estimated at around 50% or more, a staggering number, which means that at least half the population needs more restorative sleep.

With the start of another academic year just under a month away, sleep experts are urging students to start shifting back to their respective school sleep schedule in the coming weeks.

These sleep experts suggest that students who may sleep until 9 a.m. or later during the summer, but will soon get up for school at, say, 6 a.m., are experiencing a type of jet lag people often feel when they travel across the Atlantic.

Sleep experts say that changing an adolescent’s schedule to an earlier waking routine, a week or more before school starts, can ease that school-year transition, while others recommend shifting up wake-up time, by an hour earlier per day during the September lead-up.

“If you know you’re going to have to be waking up at 6 a.m. for the first day of high school, you should be starting to wake up within that hour, within three days or so, before that so your body gets used to it,” said Lauren Hale, professor of preventive medicine and sleep behavior expert at Stony Brook Medicine.

Routines, including getting enough sleep, are important in preparing for the mental effort required to meet daily learning challenges.

“Our brains like a consistent schedule,” said Brendan Duffy, director of Sleep Services at Catholic Health, which includes Port Jefferson-based St. Charles Hospital and Smithtown-based St. Catherine of Siena. “It’s important to get up at the same time,” even on weekends.

Teenagers need more sleep

The academic age group that needs the most sleep is the one that is often getting the least.

High schools often start just after 7 a.m., in part because after-school activities such as athletic practices and events, as well as other extra-curricular activities, take up the hours between the end of school and the onset of darkness.

“Between 15 and 25, everybody’s clock tends to run slow,” Feinsilver said.

The school districts that have pushed high school start times back have seen their test scores go up, added Feinsilver.

He acknowledged that it’s challenging for parents who are managing their own work schedules to balance their children’s academic hours. Parents and schools can and should try to compromise, he urged.

Benefits on the athletic field

Boy chases a soccer ball. Pixabay photo

A return to school also means the restarting of athletic programs, some of which begin before the first day of the new academic calendar.

Student-athletes are pushing their minds and bodies, as they juggle demanding academic requirements with training and competition.

Sleeping the estimated optimum of seven to nine hours per night not only helps improve an athlete’s competitive skills but also helps prevent physical problems.

Sleeping enough is a “way to avoid injuries,” said Duffy, who has been talking to students in a range of ages all the way through college.

Duffy added that professional teams are also encouraging athletes to budget for the sleep their minds and bodies need.

Additionally, he suggests sleep is a form of prehab, as sufficient rest can prevent injuries that would require rehabilitation.

Duffy has spoken with several area teams about the importance of sleep, including the Stony Brook women’s soccer team.

“For 90% of the players, this is the first time” they hear about the importance of sleep athletically, said Tobias Bischof, the head coach of SBU women’s soccer team. “My players are 18-to-22 years old and it’s not on their radar yet how important sleep is.”

He describes sleep as “probably the greatest recovery tool we have” and believes it’s “super important for injury prevention.”

As a coach, Bischof has started journaling his sleep patterns and believes he and others can be better coaches with enough rest.

He suggested that coaches are under tremendous pressure and sleep helps him become more patient.

Numerous factors contribute to success on and off the field with these student athletes, including nutrition, hydration, self-care and relationships with their families, as well as sleep, Bischof added.

The soccer coach doesn’t ask about sleep when he’s speaking with high school players who might join the SBU team, but it comes up when athletes ask about ways the school works with athletes beyond training.

He describes mental health support as well as sleep education.

“You always want to make them a better version of themselves,” Bischof said.

Jim Taylor, who specializes in the psychology of sports and parenting and who has been a consultant to the U.S. and Japanese ski teams, met Duffy when they were on a podcast panel related to sport psychology in 2022. Taylor suggested that sleep is much more than a physical process, as it has psychological and emotional implications.

“One of the most powerful tools that athletes have is sleep, which impacts them in so many ways,” he explained in an email.

Taylor, who competes in triathlons, has seen his results improve from top 20 in his age group to two national championship titles and three world championship podiums.

“Of course, I’m sure other factors contributed to my improved results, but I know that improved sleep was a key contributor,” he explained.

Mental health

Sleep can also be a sign of, or a contributing factor to, mental health issues.

In a Sleep-to-Rise campaign, the Sun Belt Conference suggests that talking about sleep is a gateway to discussing mental health.

Not getting enough sleep or poor sleep quality can increase the risk for mental health issues, while poor sleep itself can reflect mental health challenges.

In its sleep-to-rise online effort, the conference urges athletes to consider sleep a “competitive advantage.”

“With student-athletes, we emphasized the importance of prioritizing your sleep,” Lauren Shear, assistant commissioner of Championships & Sports Administration at the Sun Belt Conference, explained in an email. “This meant highlighting how sleep affects both mental health and physical health.”

Shear added that the conference tries to provide educational resources on mental health, nutrition, sleep and other factors to equip the student-athletes with the information they need to succeed in and outside competition.

She tries to get seven to eight hours of sleep per night and has noticed that when she gets six or less, she’s more irritable and lethargic. She’s also more likely to get sick.

Stony Brook’s Hale added that sleep, unlike diet or other life changes, can provide a noticeable benefit.

“People can see immediate results quicker than other behaviors,” Hale said. “If you choose not to have dessert, you might feel like you lost something and you don’t see a benefit the next day. If you actually got a full night of sleep, you might feel the benefits that day.”

Sleep tips from SBU’s Hale

•  Prioritize your sleep health

• Try to have regular sleep times, even on

weekends

• Make sure you get morning light

• Avoid substance use, like caffeine late in

the afternoon

• Put screens away before bedtime

• Sleep in a cool, dark, quiet place

• Pay attention to your body. Figure out when you get restorative rest compared with when you don’t.

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