CLOSE
Science & Technology

by -
0 1333
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.”

by -
0 572
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.

by -
0 980
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.

 

by -
0 1528
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.

by -
0 1112
Jesús Pérez Ríos at the New York Public Library in 2023. Photo by Anne Martinez Hoth

By Daniel Dunaief

When he’s looking to relax, he builds and rebuilds some of the LEGO sets in his house in East Setauket. One of the things he likes best about being on Long Island, where he’s lived for the last two years, is that he can be alone to think and develop new ideas.

To hear Jesús Pérez Ríos describe himself, he is “just a kid having fun.” An Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University, Pérez Ríos enjoys bridging scientific knowledge, applying his physics background to questions, problems and puzzles in other fields.

Recently, the Stony Brook physicist, who is also an affiliated faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences, collaborated with Stefan Willitsch, Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Basel in Switzerland, to explore the forces that might be inhibiting the reaction between hydroquinone and neon.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Chemistry, Pérez Ríos, Willitsch and members of their teams described in detail several potentially opposing forces that affect the reactivity in the experiment.

Jesús Pérez Ríos at the Barnes and Noble in New York City in 2022 with Lego batman. Photo by Anne Martinez Hoth

“I started collaborating with [Willitsch] because he had accurate results, and it was hard to explain the observations,” said Pérez Ríos. “We had a hypothesis but needed to develop models to test it.”

Pérez Ríos described two interactions in detail. One is due to the long range atom-molecule interactions and the other comes from internal rotational dynamics.

With the experiments in Willitsch’s lab and the theory developed by Pérez Ríos and his colleagues, they highlighted the role of rotational quantum states in a hydroquinone-neon chemi-ionization reaction. A similar mechanism and approach may be suitable for other reactions as well, such as molecular ion-atom reactions.

These molecules are akin to puzzle pieces coming together. Instead of a two-dimensional alignment where pieces find each other and lock together in their complementary parts, these pieces also have rotational effects that can cause a misalignment.

“That is one of our key findings,” Pérez Ríos explained. “It is like the shape of the puzzle piece evolves depending on the molecule’s collision energy and internal state.”

The results presented in the scientific paper are in the realm of fundamental research, with no “immediate practical application in synthesis or catalysis,” explained Willitsch.

Nonetheless, the insights gained through this collaboration “leads to a better understanding of the relevant reaction mechanisms and thus enables a more efficient design of future chemical reactions.”

At this point, Willitsch has presented the work at several conferences, where he has found a receptive audience and expects it will “foreseeably stimulate further work in the field.”

A search for answers

Pérez Ríos explained that Willitsch had some possible explanations for his data, but he did not have a mathematical model to test his hypothesis.

Jesus Pérez Ríos in Port Jefferson in 2022. Photo by Anne Martinez Hoth

“He mentioned the experimental details to me and we discussed the data,” said Pérez Ríos, who has known Willitsch for about 12 years. “Then, we started to do calculations from our side.”

Pérez Ríos has a team of 7 PhD students, one postdoctoral researcher, one Master’s candidate and three undergraduates.

Members of his lab work on simulations of physical phenomena regarding atomic and molecular processes. Additionally, they work on machine learning applications to atomic and molecular physics, exploring ways to teach a machine classical mechanics or quantum mechanics through chemical reactions.

In the reaction he was studying, Willitsch was working with hydroquinone, which has two conformers. These are two molecules with the same chemical formula that have two different structures.

Willitsch was able to select for a particular type of conformer in its reaction with neon.

Pérez Ríos considered many possibilities and models, none of which was fully satisfactory. 

An insight at a conference

When he was at an Air Force Office of Scientific Research review program in Washington DC, Pérez Ríos was considering the problem from numerous perspectives.

He had tried many possibilities, but none were convincing. He needed something new.

“I had the physical picture of the model during a conference: in a break, I started to work on the code, and, in a few hours, I had something ready to get some very preliminary results,” Pérez Ríos recalled.

Willitsch enthusiastically embraced the preliminary results and the group decided to make it more realistic, developing the version of the code to explain Willitsch’s data.

The dynamics simulations were ready in a month, with extra checks conducted for another month to ensure everything was correct. The joint effort took over a year and a half to produce a fulfilling explanation.

Many of Pérez Ríos’s collaborators come from different disciplines, which gives the Stony Brook Assistant Professor an opportunity to learn about a variety of topics. He has worked with particle, atmospheric, atomic and plasma physicists and spectroscopists and chemists.

Pérez Ríos suggested that a physics perspective can help in a variety of settings, even including household problems and daily challenges.

Echoing a theme from the main character Jason Nesmith (played by Tim Allen) in the movie Galaxy Quest, Pérez Ríos said, “you can never surrender.”

 Pérez Ríos added that you “are the only one putting limits on yourself. However, you need to pick the battles worth fighting, which is a very difficult matter.”

More American than Americans

A resident of East Setauket where he lives with his wife Anne Martinez Hoth, Pérez Ríos grew up in Guardamar del Segura, a small town in Alicante, Spain.

The son of restaurant owners,  Pérez Ríos said he didn’t travel during summers to the beach, the way many of his friends did.

When he wasn’t helping in the restaurant, he used his free time to learn about math, zoology, genetics, chemistry and physics.

He enjoys living on Long Island and in the United States. His wife suggests he is “more American than the Americans” because he likes the American job philosophy and the freedom.

At Stony Brook, Pérez Ríos teaches quantum mechanics to undergrads, some of whom say he is strict.

“I have a very particular approach focusing on learning to think rather than knowing how to solve a problem,” he said.

As a research partner, Pérez Ríos is an unusual find, bringing constructive and valuable insights to discussions.

“I have rarely collaborated with someone so energetic and broadly interested” as Pérez Ríos, Willitsch said. “I particularly value his pragmatic approach and that he is not afraid to leave his comfort zone to delve into totally new classes of problems, which have not been tackled before either by himself or others.”

Willitsch added that few scientists have the same broad knowledge of physics and chemistry, which is “vital to push this interdisciplinary frontier.”

by -
0 349
Battery chemist Xiao-Qing Yang (left) with colleagues Enyuan Hu and Eli Stavitski at the Inner-Shell Spectroscopy (ISS) beamline of the National Synchrotron Light Source-II at Brookhaven National Laboratory. (Brookhaven National Laboratory)

Longer lasting batteries would allow electric vehicles (EVs) to drive farther and perhaps inspire more people to make the switch from fossil fuels. One key to better EV batteries is understanding the intricate details of how they work — and stop working.

Xiao-Qing Yang, a physicist who leads the Electrochemical Energy Storage group within the Chemistry Division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, has spent a good deal of his professional career doing just that. DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) recently recognized his contributions with a Distinguished Achievement Award presented during its 2024 Annual Merit Review. Each year, VTO presents awards to individuals from partner institutions for contributions to overall program efforts and to recognize research, development, demonstration, and deployment achievements in specific areas.

Yang was honored “for pioneering [the use of] advanced characterization tools, such as in situ X-ray diffraction and absorption, to analyze battery materials under operational and extreme conditions in support of VTO battery research and development (R&D) at Brookhaven National Laboratory over the last 38 years.”

These techniques use intense beams of X-rays — for example, at Brookhaven Lab’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) — to study the atomic-level structure and chemical and electronic characteristics of battery materials in real time as the batteries charge and discharge under real-world operating conditions over repeated cycles. The use of these methods has been adopted at other synchrotrons throughout the DOE complex of national laboratories to provide scientists with a fundamental understanding of the relationship between the structure and the performance of battery systems. This research also provides guidance and approaches to design and synthesize new improved materials.

“This award recognizes the efforts of and honors the whole Electrochemical Energy Storage group, not just me,” said Yang. “Throughout my career, my goal has been to design and synthesize new high-energy materials with improved power density, longer cycle and calendar lives, and good safety characteristics,” he noted. “It’s great to see these efforts recognized as we try to move toward increased use of electric vehicles to meet our transportation needs.”

Xiao-Qing Yang earned a Bachelor of Science degree in material science from Shannxi Mechanic Engineering Institute in China in 1976 and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Florida, Gainesville, in 1986. He joined Brookhaven Lab’s Materials Science Department in 1986 and rose through the ranks, serving as a Principal Investigator (PI) in materials science from 1993-2005. Since then, he has been a PI in the Lab’s Chemistry Department (now Division), serving as group leader for the Electrochemical Energy Storage Group and as a lead PI and coordinator for several battery research programs funded by VTO within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, including the Battery500 consortium. He received the 2012 Vehicle Technologies Program R&D Award and the 2015 International Battery Materials Association (IBA) Research Award. He is a member of the Board of Directors of both IBA and IMLB LLC, the organization that runs international meetings for lithium battery researchers, and he has served as an organizer and invited speaker at these and many other conferences.

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. For more information, visit science.energy.gov [https://www.energy.gov/science/].

by -
0 961
Qingtao Sun, postdoctoral researcher at CSHL, presents a poster of the cachexia research taken at a Society for Neuroscience meeting in 2023 in Washington, DC. Photo by Dr. Wenqiang Zheng

By Daniel Dunaief

Cancer acts as a thief, robbing people of time, energy, and quality of life. In the end, cancer can trigger the painful wasting condition known as cachexia, in which a beloved relative, friend or neighbor loses far too much weight, leaving them in an emaciated, weakened condition.

A team of researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has been studying various triggers and mechanisms involved in cachexia, hoping to find the signals that enable this process.

Recently, CSHL scientists collaborated on a discovery published in the journal Nature Communications that connected a molecule called interleukin-6, or IL-6, to the area postrema in the brain, triggering cachexia.

By deleting the receptors in this part of the brain for IL-6, “we can prevent animals from developing cachexia,” said Qingtao Sun, a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Professor Bo Li.

Through additional experiments, scientists hope to build on this discovery to develop new therapeutic treatments when doctors have no current remedy for a condition that is often the cause of death for people who develop cancer.

To be sure, the promising research results at this point have been in an animal model. Any new treatment for people would not only require additional research, but would also need to minimize the potential side effects of reducing IL-6.

Like so many other molecules in the body, IL-6 plays an important role in a healthy system, promoting anti- and pro-inflammatory responses among immune cells, which can help fight off infections and even prevent cancer.

“Our study suggests we need to specifically target IL-6 or its receptors only in the area prostrema,” explained Li in an email.

Tobias Janowitz, Associate Professor at CSHL and a collaborator on this project, recognized that balancing therapeutic effects with potential side effects is a “big challenge in general and also is here.”

Additionally, Li added that it is possible that the progression of cachexia could involve other mechanistic steps in humans, which could mean reducing IL-6 alone might not be sufficient to slow or stop this process.

“Cachexia is the consequence of multi-organ interactions and progressive changes, so the underlying mechanisms have to be multifactorial, too,” Miriam Ferrer Gonzalez, a co-first author and former PhD student in Janowitz’s lab, explained in an email.

Nonetheless, this research result offers a promising potential target to develop future stand alone or cocktail treatments.

The power of collaborations

Working in a neuroscience lab, Sun explained that this discovery depended on several collaborations throughout Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. 

“This progress wouldn’t be possible if it’s only done in our own lab,” said Sun. “We are a neuroscience lab. Before this study, we mainly focused on how the brain works. We have no experience in studying cachexia.”

This paper is the first in Li’s lab that studied cachexia. Before Li’s postdoc started this project, Sun had focused on how the brain works and had no experience with cachexia.

When Sun first joined Li’s lab three years ago, Li asked his postdoctoral researcher to conduct an experiment to see whether circulating IL-6 could enter the brain and, if so where.

Sun discovered that it could only enter one area, which took Li’s research “in an exciting direction,” Li said.

CSHL Collaborators included Janowitz, Ferrer Gonzalez, Associate Professor Jessica Tolkhun, and Cancer Center Director David Tuveson and former CSHL Professor and current Principal Investigator in Neurobiology at Duke University School of Medicine Z. Josh Huang.

Tollkuhn’s lab provided the genetic tool to help delete the IL-6 receptor.

The combination of expertise is “what made this collaboration a success,” Ferrer Gonzalez, who is now Program Manager for the Weill Cornell Medicine partnership with the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, explained in an email.

Tuveson added that pancreatic cancer is often accompanied by severe cachexia.

“Identifying a specific area in the brain that participates in sensing IL-6 levels is fascinating as it suggests new ways to understand physiological responses to elevated inflammation and to intervene to blunt this response,” Tuveson explained. “Work in the field supports the concept that slowing or reversing cachexia would improve the fitness of cancer patients to thereby improve the quality and quantity of life and enable therapeutic interventions to proceed.”

Tuveson described his lab’s role as “modest” in promoting this research program by providing cancer model systems and advising senior authors Li and Janowitz.

Co-leading an effort to develop new treatments for cachexia that received a $25 million grant from the Cancer Grand Challenge, Janowitz helped Sun understand the processes involved in the wasting disease. 

Connecting the tumor biology to the brain is an “important step” for cachexia research, Janowitz added. He believes this step is likely not the only causative process for cachexia.

Cutting the signal

After discovering that IL-6 affected the brain in the area postrema, Sun sought to determine its relevance in the context of cachexia.

After he deleted receptors for this molecule, the survival period for the test animals was double that for those who had interleukin 6 receptors in this part of the brain. Some of the test animals still died of cachexia, which Sun suggested may be due to technical issues. The virus they used may not have affected enough neurons in the area postrema.

In the Nature Communications research, Sun studied cachexia for colon cancer, lung cancer and pancreatic cancer.

Sun expects that he will look at cancer models for other types of the disease as well.

“In the future, we will probably focus on different types” of cancer, he added.

Long journey

Born and raised in Henan province in the town of Weihui, China, Sun currently lives in Syosset. When he’s not in the lab, he enjoyed playing basketball and fishing for flounder.

When he was growing up, he showed a particular interest in science.

As for the next steps in the research, Sun is collaborating with other labs to develop new strategies to treat cancer cachexia.

He is eager to contribute to efforts that will lead to future remedies for cachexia.

“We are trying to develop some therapeutic treatment,” Sun said.

by -
0 865
Satellite image of the phytoplankton bloom. Photo courtesy NOAA

By Aidan Johnson

From a young age, children are taught that the ocean isn’t actually blue but is simply reflecting the color of the sky. However, the ocean recently took on a turquoise color not caused by the sky but by organisms called phytoplankton in the water.

Phytoplankton are tiny, commonly single-celled photosynthetic organisms in bodies of water that are carried by tides and currents and are too weak to swim against them.

Along the South Shore, all the way from Montauk to Brooklyn and spanning about 100 miles into the Atlantic Ocean, there is an algal bloom full of a specific type of phytoplankton called coccolithophores, explained Christopher Gobler, a professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University.

According to Gobler, this particular type of phytoplankton has a shell that’s made of calcium carbonate, which is the same substance that clam shells are made of, albeit to a much larger degree.

“What can happen is that after [the coccolithophores have] grown for a while, the shell begins to dissolve and then they might start dying off,” he said in an interview. “And so the coloration seems to be from the dissolution of that shell. It looks green, but it’s really just the interaction of the calcium carbonate with the seawater and the sunlight that collectively leads to that color.”

Gobler also clarified that the coccolithophores do not pose a direct health risk to sea life, but instead “fuel the food chain.”

“And so for the present time at least … we can call it a neutral deposit,” he said.

The bloom already seems to be dissipating, according to Gobler, which means that the sky will once again take credit for the water’s blue appearance.

by -
0 1273
Mario Shields Photo by David Cardona-Jimenez

By Daniel Dunaief

Friend or foe? The question isn’t as easy in the world of molecular biology as it might be after captains pick players for a team.

An important biomolecule in one context could trigger the growth or spread of cancer, while in another system or organ, that same signal might suppress or stop the development or growth of a disease that can threaten people’s health.

So it is for G-proteins, which, in some tumors, serve as tumorigenic signaling hubs that participate in invasion and metastasis and promote inflammation and immune evasion.

In tumors “there was this notion that it works in a certain way, driving tumor development and progression,” said Mario Shields, Associate Professor of Research Pathology at Stony Brook University. “We had that original hypothesis when we investigated it in pancreatic cancer. We found that it’s the opposite.”

Indeed, when the specific proteins he studies, called G alpha 13, are absent, mouse models develop well-differentiated tumors that reduce their survival.

“My research now is to understand why it’s playing the opposite role that we initially expected,” Shields, who joined Stony Brook in July after six years at Northwestern University.

Having worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the lab of Mikala Egeblad from 2012 to 2018, Shields is returning to the Long Island area with a focus on defeating a problematic type of cancer that steals precious time from people and robs families of important members.

“I have come to appreciate the dire situation of people who are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,” Shields said. “We need to figure out how to lower the curve.”

A recipient of the National Cancer Institute’s Moonshot Award, Shields is one of the first 11 Cancer Moonshot Scholars who received a total of $5.4 million.

The program, which was launched by the Biden administration in the summer of 2023, seeks to advance cancer science while diversifying the pool of early-stage researchers and approaches to research that NCI funds.

The goal of the program is to inspire and support scientists from diverse backgrounds, including those from underrepresented groups in the biomedical sciences.

The NCI award, which Shields brings with him to Stony Brook, will support his efforts.

Egeblad, who is now Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Tumor Microenvironment, has stayed in contact with Shields since he left her group. The work he’s doing is “very important” in understanding the “basic mechanism of pancreatic cancer progression” as he has been “very successful in making discoveries and raising funds for his research.”

Egeblad appreciates his contribution to her lab. Shields “was responsible for establishing our research program in pancreatic cancer,” she explained. “Before he joined my lab, I had only worked on breast cancer and [Shields] established the various models to also study pancreatic cancer — models that we are still using.”

Building on CSHL work

At CSHL, Shields worked in Egeblad’s lab and received advice and oversight from David Tuveson, Cancer Center Director at CSHL, who developed the mouse model Shields uses.

Shields has been using human and mouse cell lines to interrogate the mechanism of action of these G proteins in suppressing cancer. 

At Stony Brook, he plans to use patient samples to develop patient-derived tumor specimens.

The major hub of what Shields is studying is the mTOR pathway, which stands for mammalian/ mechanistic target of rapamycin. First isolated in a bacteria on Easter Island in the middle of the 20th century, rapamycin is an immunosuppressant drug.

Any defects that activate the mTOR pathway can lead to the growth and development of cancer.

A developing field

Shields explained that the G protein he is studying, G alpha 13, is a “niche” area right now, with few other labs pursuing the same mechanistic pathway. The G proteins are of more interest to molecular pharmacology and drug design.

In his studies, Shields hopes to use the information on the response to changes in the protein to predict how patients respond to therapy that inhibits the mTOR pathway.

Specifically, he is exploring how alterations in the microenvironment can cause the tumor to progress in pancreatic cancer.

Shields has found some “interesting dependencies” in the mechanism he’s studying. In the first year of work at Stony Brook, he would like to figure out how Ga13 regulates mTOR signaling, as the current context dependency is vague.

The gene that codes for this protein is not heavily mutated. Shields anticipates that a threshold level of the protein may be responsible for conveying its benefit in suppressing cancer, rather than a specific mutational change.

He is eager to explore whether nutrient availability plays a role in cancer progression through the reduction in this G protein. He has exploring that in vitro and is curious how that will translate at the organismal level.

Returning to Long Island

Shields had recently been Research Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.

Having worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Shields felt comfortable moving back to the Long Island area.

“Stony Brook is a good place to do research,” said Shields.

Additionally, Shields was impressed with the number of people who had presented their research from Pathology Chair Kenneth Shroyer’s lab at a conference.

“Further discussions [with Shroyer] indicated we have areas of common interest in terms of pancreatic cancer,” Shields added.

Shields appreciates the greenness of Long Island. When he worked at CSHL, he enjoyed walking on trails and enjoyed the variety of fall colors.

Shields brought one person with him from Northwestern and plans to have a lab of about six people.

As for running his lab, Shields plans to “be patient” and to “see where people are coming from and what they are capable of” as he takes on the role of mentor for members of his lab at Stony Brook.

Shields hopes to inspire and encourage under represented groups to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Egeblad suggested that Shields is warm and calm, which “helps those entering the field really take to his instruction.” She added she believes he is an inspiration to many young scientists.

by -
0 579
Dino Martins

Stony Brook University  announces that noted Kenyan entomologist and evolutionary biologist Dr. Dino J. Martins will begin serving as the director of the world-renowned Turkana Basin Institute beginning on September 1, 2024.

Martins has served as the CEO of TBI (Kenya) Ltd. since August 1, 2022, and has been affiliated with TBI since 2011. In this transition from CEO for TBI’s Kenya operations to serving as director across the entire TBI operation, Martins will lead vision and strategy to build upon the institute’s legacy as a critical site of research and discovery around some of the biggest questions of our time concerning our origins, our current role and responsibilities and, most critically, our future on a changing planet.  Martins will oversee all Institute activities including recruitment, hiring and evaluation of faculty and postdoctoral researchers; development of facilities and fundraising.

Martins will succeed Dr. Lawrence Martin, who has served as the director of TBI since 2007 and will be named TBI director emeritus, taking on a new role to support TBI’s fundraising efforts by organizing and leading donor visits to Kenya as well as working on several other projects for the university.

“As Lawrence and Dino have worked hand-in-hand over the last several years, this will be a seamless transition in the leadership of TBI. I am grateful to Lawrence for his outstanding leadership of TBI, and I look forward to working with Dino to build upon the incredible foundation that has been established and to elevate TBI to even greater heights,” said Carl Lejuez, Provost of Stony Brook University.

Martins earned his PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in 2011 before joining TBI as a postdoctoral fellow at Stony Brook University. Martins had previously graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology from Indiana University and with a M.SC. in Botany from the University of KwaZulu Natal. Martins taught in the TBI Origins field school every semester it has been offered since spring of 2011, when the field school began.

Upon completion of his postdoc, Martins took on the position of resident academic director of the TBI Origins Field School and served for three years before accepting the position of executive director of the Mpala Research Center in Laikipia, Kenya, which is overseen by Princeton University, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kenyan Wildlife Service, and the National Museums of Kenya. During his seven years as director, Dino worked to improve the operations and finances of Mpala and expanded the number of institutions conducting research there.

Martins’ research in the Turkana Basin has included the description of new species of bees, including some of the most ancient lineages of bees known and the discovery of genera previously not recorded from Africa. Martins is also a Co-PI of the Turkana Genome Project, which is bringing together dozens of international scientists to look at the complex interactions among human genes, the environment and adaptation. Dino is actively building links and collaborations globally to expand the scientific frontiers of research at TBI. This includes building on the excellent fundamental research around human origins and evolution, to other disciplines that intersect with the fields of evolution and ecology, climate change and the future of sustainable human existence and development.

About TBI

The Turkana Basin Institute (TBI), a Stony Brook University Institute was established by the late celebrated paleoanthropologist, conservationist and Stony Brook University faculty member Richard Leakey. TBI’s mission is to facilitate the logistics of field research in the Turkana Basin, a remote region of sub-Saharan Africa, by providing permanent research support infrastructure. Fundraising to implement the project began in 2005 and funds have been raised every year since for the construction and running costs of two field campuses.

TBI today houses a sophisticated environment to support the research of scientists and students at its two field campuses, TBI-Turkwel and TBI-Ileret, as well as through an administrative support center in Nairobi. Each of the field campuses comprises 15 to 20 major buildings providing accommodation and dining facilities for up to 60 scientists and students as well as the permanent staff of about 40. In addition, there are multiple laboratories, classrooms for field schools, and conference facilities. TBI has purchased and maintains a Cessna 208 Grand Caravan airplane, which operates as Air Turkana, providing reduced cost flying for education and research that is subsidized by revenue from commercial charters.

 

 

Prev1...8910...73Next Page 9 of 73
TBR News Media is your local news and entertainment website.
We provide you with the latest breaking news and information for your community.
Contact us: [email protected]

Most Viewed

©