From left: Carl Safina, Larry Swanson and Malcolm Bowman. Swanson who died Oct. 17, was renowned not only for his work at SBU, but also his kindly demeanor. Photo from Stony Brook University
Stony Brook University’s Robert Lawrence “Larry” Swanson, associate dean of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, died Saturday at the age of 82, leaving behind a professional legacy that included awards for his stewardship of waterways and numerous personal connections.
Swanson was a chair of the SoMAS Boat Committee for years and loved being with the crew and out on the boat. He was known for his appreciation for snacks, particularly Oreos. Photo by Jason Schweitzer
Swanson, who had planned to retire next summer, was teaching waste management issues remotely this fall.
A fixture at Stony Brook since 1987, he led the Waste Reduction and Management Institute. The 6-foot, 2-inch Swanson, who was interim dean for SoMAS from 2016 to 2018, had joined Carl Safina, endowed research chair for Nature and Humanity and Malcolm Bowman, distinguished service professor SoMAS, on the New York State Ocean Acidification Task Force since 2018.
In an email, Safina described Swanson as a “gentleman” and a “kind and knowledgeable man who was a well-recognized leader.”
In 1979, Swanson came to the rescue for Bowman, his wife Waveney and their young family. The Bowmans had rented their Stony Brook house during the summer and planned to live in the United Kingdom. With their children, the Bowmans decided to return to New York, where they endured mosquitoes and yellowjacket stings while living in a tent.
Swanson offered the Bowmans his house as long as they took care of Swanson’s golden retriever while he and his family traveled.
He met his wife Dana Lamont at a party in Seattle, where the scientist rose to the rank of captain as a commissioned officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Swanson used to take long walks in Seattle. After the couple started dating, he told Lamont he must have walked by her house numerous times before they met, which Lamont likened to the song “On the Street Where You Live” from “My Fair Lady.”
Swanson and Lamont have two children, Larry and Michael.
Lamont recalled how Swanson spent considerable time at sea. Lamont said her husband was on a ship once and tried to teach college students reluctant to learn about celestial navigation because they had GPS.
“A week or two later, there was a fire on board, they lost all technology and [Swanson] said, ‘OK, you put the fire out. Now, take us to Hawaii,” Lamont said. They had to use celestial navigation.
Lamont said her late husband was “never afraid of anything, such as flying through the eye of a hurricane.”
Swanson testified in a Supreme Court case in 1985. Lamont said he “loved” the experience.
Described by people who worked with him as kind, caring, steady, reliable and humble, he was considered a role model as well as a leader.
SoMAS adjunct professor, Frank Roethel, recalled how he had major surgery in a Manhattan hospital. One afternoon, he woke to find Swanson in a chair next to his bed.
“I was shocked that he would travel just to spend a few moments with me, but that was him,” Roethel said by email.
Bonnie Stephens, who worked for Swanson for 22 years, appreciated how the man brought people together for lunch, where they discussed politics, shared jokes and offered personal stories.
A dog lover, Swanson also leaves behind their dog Lily, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, which was his favorite breed of dog.
Born in Baltimore, Swanson spent his childhood primarily in Maryland with his parents Hazel and Lawrence.
A 1960 graduate in civil engineering from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Swanson earned his doctorate in oceanography in 1971 from Oregon State University.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, raised a red flag about the safety of annual family gatherings during Thanksgiving last week on an interview on CBS.
People may have to “bite the bullet and sacrifice that social gathering unless you’re pretty certain that the people that you’re dealing with are not infected,” Fauci told CBS.
Richard Gatteau, SBU Dean of Students. Photo from SBU Website
Doctors at area hospitals and officials at Stony Brook University are offering guidance to residents and students over a month before an annual holiday that often brings people from several generations, cities and states together.
Before they send some of the 4,200 on campus students at SBU home, the university plans to test them for the presence of the virus that causes COVID-19.
The week of Nov. 16, “every resident will be tested,” said Dean of Students Richard Gatteau. “Any positive cases would remain on campus” until the university knew they were negative.
Students remaining on campus would receive meals and would get the same level of care through the holidays that students would normally get if they tested positive during the semester.
Stony Brook expects the student population to decline after Thanksgiving, when all classes and final exams will be remote through the end of the semester.
For the students who plan to return to campus, Stony Brook realizes the logistical challenges of requiring viral tests during the short holiday and will provide tests in the first two days after these students return to their dormitories.
Even before the holiday, Stony Brook expects to increase the frequency of viral testing from bi-weekly to weekly.
Gatteau said the student government plans to educate students who plan to join family during the holiday about procedures to keep everyone safe. This guidance mirrors school policies, such as wearing masks inside when near other family members, keeping a distance of six feet inside and washing hands regularly.
The dean of students recently spoke with Dr. Deborah Birx, head of the White House’s coronavirus task force who visited Stony Brook to speak with officials about the school’s COVID response. Though Birx was pleased with the measures the university took, she was reportedly more worried about the behavior of extended family than with students during Thanksgiving.
“Her concern is with the older generation not following the rules,” Gatteau said. She wanted students to encourage their grandparents to follow the same procedures because “grandparents will listen to their grandkids.”
Types of Tests
Dr. Michael Grosso, Chief Medical Officer at Huntington Hospital, urged everyone to plan to get tested before coming together for Thanksgiving.
Dr. Grosso said two types of tests are available for students and parents. The first is an antigen test and the second is a PCR, for polymerase chain reaction, test. Grosso suggests that the PCR test is more reliable as the antigen test “misses more cases.”
The test technique is critical to its success. Some false negatives may result from inadequate specimen collection, Grosso said. The deep nasopharyngeal specimen “requires a little skill on the part of the person doing the test.”
Additionally, people getting tested before a family gathering need to consider the timing of the test. They may receive a negative test during a period of time in which the virus is developing in their bodies.
Active testing may have helped reduce the severity of the disease for people who contract it. People are coming to the hospital in some cases before the disease causes as much damage.
In addition to getting tested and monitoring possible symptoms, Grosso urged residents to continue to practice the new, healthier etiquette, even when they are with relatives during the holidays.
“Families need to have conversations” about how close they are prepared to get before they see each other, Grosso said. People need to “decide together what rules [they] are going to follow, and make sure everybody is comfortable with those.”
As for Thanksgiving in the Grosso home, the Chief Medical Officer said he and his wife have five children between them, two of whom will be coming for the annual November holiday. The others will participate, as has become the modern reality, at the other end of a zoom call. Typically, the entire family would come together.
Stony Brook’s Gatteau said he and his partner typically have 20 to 25 people over for Thanksgiving. This year, they are limited the guests to seven people. They plan to keep masks on in their house and will crack a window open so there is air flow.
Stony Brook University baseball player Nick Grande slides into third. Photo from SBU Athletics
Stony Brook Athletics launched its latest fundraising campaign asking people to “Believe in the Seawolves” as the university sports program faces an uncertain future.
SBU Athletic Director Shawn Heilbron accepts the 2019 Commissioner’s Cup from America East Commisioner Amy Huchthausen. Photo from SBU
On Thursday, Oct. 8, the university’s Giving Day, Director of Athletics Shawn Heilbron held a virtual town hall through Facebook Live to answer questions surrounding the status of Stony Brook Athletics for this school year and for the future.
“Let’s have the Stony Brook Athletics story of 2020-2021 be the greatest story in our history,” Heilbron said during the town hall. “I think we’re going to do that.”
One of the major concerns, he said, was the financial standing of the university since revenue dropped throughout the COVID-19 crisis, calling it a “dramatic financial impact.”
He mentioned that the program lost nearly $700,000 from basketball, alone, and when the school closed in March, students were reimbursed their student fees which neared a $2 million loss.
“Ticket sales, donations, corporate partnerships … you could imagine the impact there,” he said. “The trickle down comes from the state to the school to us, and many universities across the country are dealing with it.”
He said it was close to $5 million in revenues lost.
“We’ve made some tough decisions, many staff positions are being left unfilled,” he said. “We’re very concerned about our future … schools across the country are cutting sports, these are difficult decisions that are hard to come back.”
The new fundraising campaign coined “Believe In the Seawolves” comes from asking people to do just that. “Believe in our value and commitment to this university,” Heilbron said. “If we can get people to get behind that we can come out of this stronger … It’s more than a campaign, I want it to be a movement.”
But just because COVID-19 guidelines aren’t allowing sports to be played as of right now, Heilbron they are not cancelled, just postponed. He added that fall sports were moved to the spring, which will make for a very active season.
“It’s going to be quite an active period for us,” he said. “We’re just starting to look at what those schedules will look like and will be announced very soon.”
He said that utilizing this time now will be a springboard for next fall, and are keeping safe in doing so.
The athletes who are participating in practices now, like basketball, have a regimented screening process before hitting the court.
“Student athletes come through one entrance, have their temperature checked and then they get a wrist band,” Heilbron said. “They can’t come in if they don’t have the wristband.”
Although it is an uncertain time for the student athletes who worked to play at Stony Brook University, Heilbron said the first day of fall semester was a good one.
“It literally was an energetic lift in our department that they needed,” he said. “It was good to have the family back together.”
The university announced after Thursday’s Giving Day campaign, more than 240 donors combined to contribute gifts exceeding $200,000 to go towards athletics. The campaign will continue to fundraise throughout the remainder of the year.
The Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Chamber of Commerce train car will be the site of the Council District 1 Drug takeback event Oct. 24. File photo by Kyle Barr
It’s time to turn in those unused and expired prescription medications sitting in the bathroom cabinet.
The Town of Brookhaven Council 1 Drug Prevention Coalition and the Center for Prevention and Outreach’s SB IMPACT Coalition through Stony Brook University’s Student Health, Wellness and Prevention Services will be hosting a Drive-Thru Wellness Day to support a healthy, drug-free community during Red Ribbon Week.
On Saturday, Oct. 24 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., visitors can turn in their old prescriptions for safe disposal and celebrate National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.
The event will be held at the Port Jefferson/Terryville Chamber Train Car, located at the southeast corner of route 112 and 347. Cars enter on Rose Ave.
Free masks and hand sanitizer will be given out, and a food drive will be collecting to benefit local food pantries.
Elizabeth, Evie, Madelynn and Kevin Kennedy preparing at their home for Thursday night’s virtual Wave of Light to remember their lost daughter and sister, Grace Ann. Photo byJulianne Mosher
Elizabeth Kennedy lost her second child when she was 26 weeks and six days pregnant.
On Feb. 25, 2018, she heard the words from her doctor that no mother wants to hear, that their unborn child Grace Ann’s heartbeat could not be heard. Struck with grief, Kennedy, a Rocky Point resident, felt she needed to find an outlet to help her cope with her loss, so she began researching different infant loss support groups. Through her online search, she found the Star Legacy Foundation.
“I’ve gotten in touch with other women and families who have lost babies and it’s been such a relief to know that I’m not in this alone,” Kennedy said. “It has made me want to let other people know that they are not alone, either.”
When she found the strength through the organization, she knew she had to give back and help other women who have gone through the same thing.
“It has made me want to let other people know that they are not alone, either.”
— Elizabeth Kennedy
Last year, through the nonprofit, Kennedy took the initiative to try and make Oct. 15 a county-wide Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Awareness Day. The month of October was proclaimed as “Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month” by President Ronald Reagan in 1988.
Earlier this year, she met with Legislator Sarah Anker (D-Mount Sinai), who sponsored the resolution. The legislator said Kennedy’s story moved her in a personal way.
“Many other families in our county have experienced this kind of tremendous loss,” Anker said. “I hope that designating this day will help provide necessary support to those who are grieving and remind them they are not alone.”
The resolution was approved unanimously by the Suffolk County Legislature Oct. 6. Anker said the day will increase awareness of the causes and impacts surrounding pregnancy and infant loss. It is also a means to improve understanding as well as offer support and potential resources for those who grieve the loss of a pregnancy or infant.
According to the Star Legacy Foundation, thousands of families in the United States experience pregnancy and infant loss each year. In the U.S. there are approximately 24,000 stillbirths, or one in 160 births a year. In addition to stillbirths, current research suggests that between 10% and 20% of medically confirmed pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
“It’s not just the experience that’s traumatizing for families,” Anker said. “It’s everything after, too.”
Kennedy is also using her new platform to establish a support group collaboratively with Stony Brook University Hospital.
“I want to put as much information out there as possible so when people go through this, they don’t just crawl into a ball and feel that they’re by themselves,” she said. “To be able to talk to these people and have somebody who understands what you went through, to cry with them, remember our babies with them — it just needs to be out there more … it needs to be talked about. We need to change the stigma.”
On Thursday night, Anker joined people across the country and hosted a virtual “Wave of Light” on Facebook Live and through Zoom. With Kennedy’s family online, and several other local families who experienced such a loss, they lit a candle in honor of the children who are not here today.
During the candle lighting ceremony, Kevin Kennedy, Elizabeth’s husband, spoke on behalf of his wife.
“We’re all grieving the loss of a baby or a friend’s baby,” he said. “Every one of these candles has a name attached to it … a life’s flame blown out too soon, and it’s our responsibility as survivors to honor and remember them all.”
Although getting over her loss is not easy, Kennedy said she finds comfort in knowing maybe this happened for a reason — that losing Grace will help get the message out to families to know they are never going to be alone.
“I hope people catch on to this now and realize we’re not hiding anymore,” she said. “We’re not going to hide our babies; we’re going to be okay.”
Residents on Long Island and elsewhere can’t call their doctor’s offices and ask to receive all of the same treatment that sent President Donald Trump (R) from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center back to the White House and the campaign trail.
Dr. Luis Marcos said SBU was planning to participate in the second Regeneron trial, but a general lack of COVID patients scrapped that idea. Photo from SBU
After officials said he tested positive for COVID-19 Oct. 2, the president received a combination of the antiviral drug Remdesivir, an antibody cocktail from Regeneron, and the steroid dexamethasone.
Remdesivir has become more widely used in hospitals on Long Island.
The last two months, “all patients admitted to the hospital may qualify for Remdesivir according to the clinical judgment of your doctor,” said Dr. Luis Marcos, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University.
The patient population that is most likely to benefit from Remdesivir includes residents who are over 60, have diabetes with hypertension and have been admitted to the hospital with mild pneumonia.
Patients who have liver disease or kidney failure may not be prescribed the intravenous drug.
Typically, Remdesivir, like other antiviral drugs, benefits patients who have contracted COVID-19 within a week, because the medicine stops the replication of the virus.
Patients who received Remdesivir after an infection that lasted more than 10 days may not benefit as much because the drug won’t reverse damage done to the lungs.
The side effects of antivirals typically last one to two days.
Dexamethasone is also available and used in hospitals including Huntington Hospitals and Stony Brook.
As a steroid, dexamethasone has “multiple side effects,” said Dr. Michael Grosso, Chief Medical Officer at Huntington Hospital. “It is only given when the benefit is expected to significantly outweigh the risk and so there’s going to be that assessment in every case,” Dr. Grosso said.
Patients with diabetes are likely to experience “more trouble with their blood sugar control if they’re receiving dexamethasone,” Grosso added.
Dexamethasone can also produce sleeplessness and, in some cases, psychiatric disturbances, doctors added.
The monoclonal antibody cocktail from Regeneron the president received has had limited use, mostly through clinical trials and in compassionate care cases. It has not received approval from the Food and Drug Administration, although it has applied for emergency use authorization.
Stony Brook was planning to participate in the second trial of Regeneron, with Dr. Bettina Fries, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, as the principal investigator and Dr. Marcos as the co-principal investigator. The hospital did not participate because it didn’t have enough cases.
Marcos said the cocktail of antibodies block the virus actively causing inflammation.
The good news with the Regeneron treatment is that the side effects appear minimal, Marcos said.
Regeneron is unlikely to reverse the damage in the lungs caused by the virus. In managing patient care, doctors try to slow or stop the progression of pneumonia from the virus.
Marcos said patients who are asymptomatic or have minor symptoms shouldn’t race to take the more widely available Remdesivir or Dexamethasone because 99% of patients with COVID infection do not have pneumonia. Those patients with a mild upper respiratory infection may not need anything but Tylenol.
Patients who are developing more severe symptoms can come to the hospital to determine the best medical response.
“If you have fever or you don’t feel that great, of course, come to the Emergency Room, we can evaluate you, and decide what to do next. For mild, mild cases, I don’t think we should be using Remdesivir,” Grosso said.
Chris Pendergast celebrates his 70th birthday at 89 North Music Venue in Patchogue with family and friends. Photo by Elliot Perry
At St. Louis de Montfort R.C. Church in Sound Beach, Monday, Oct. 19, those who came to mourn the passing of Chris Pendergast filled the pews, or at least as much as they could while trying to distance due to COVID-19.
Founder of ALS Ride for Life and renowned North Shore figure, Pendergast passed Oct. 14 surrounded by friends and family. He was 71. The nonprofit he founded reported Monday, Oct. 12, that Pendergast was starting to receive home hospice care. The organization announced his death Wednesday afternoon.
Authors Dr. Christopher Pendergast and Christine Pendergast
ALS Ride for Life started when Pendergast embarked on a ride with his electric scooter from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx to Washington, D.C., 22 years ago to raise awareness about the disease and raise funds for research. After a few years, the ride was contained to New York state — from Riverhead to the Bronx — where participants stop by schools along the way that take part in the organization’s presentations throughout the school year.
Pendergast, a Miller Place resident and former Northport elementary teacher had lived with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, for 28 years. When doctors diagnosed him, they thought he only had a few years to live.
Many who gathered together to pay respects to the Ride for Life founder have been touched in some way by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a debilitating condition that, over time, paralyzes a person and eventually leads to their death. Father Francis Pizzarelli, director of nonprofit Hope House Ministries, led the funeral Mass at the church, and said to those gathered that his own brother had been diagnosed with the disease at 36 years of age several years ago. Without even knowing it at the time, the Pendergast family reached out to his brother to offer him advice and comfort, something that made “a profound difference in his life.”
Not only did he defy those odds, but he would spend more than two decades after his diagnosis raising millions for ALS research and spreading awareness for it.
Chris’ wife of close to 50 years, Christine Pendergast, said beyond all the work he’s done over the past two decades in advocacy and fundraising, he will be remembered by her and her family as a loving father.
“While everybody is remembering Chris as an ALS advocate and fighter, at the end of the day he was my husband, our children’s father and our grandson’s poppy,” she said.
Monday’s funeral Mass was one of somber remembrances, and tissue boxes were always close at hand. But at the same time, both Pizzarelli and the Pendergast family looked for ways to say though he may be gone, his life should serve as an example.
Pendergast’s daughter, Melissa Scriven, said during the funeral Mass her father was a supremely intelligent man, one who was exacting when it came to her homework as a child. Before he was diagnosed with the paralyzing disease, Pendergast was a handyman, able to “fix anything, even if it was with duct tape.” Her dad’s favorite meal to make when his wife was working late was “tuna noodle casserole, warm, with crushed Doritos … so my brother and I didn’t really like it when my mom worked late.”
During a funeral that was filled with music, some of which were songs Pendergast loved in life, Scriven played one she said was her dad’s favorite, John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” in which everyone’s tears dried ever so briefly as they joined in the chorus: “Country roads, take me home to the place I belong.”
Pendergast Leaves Lasting Mark
The founder of ALS Ride for Life became an icon and symbol for the North Shore for never giving up. Even as he lost the ability to speak and had to communicate with an eye-to-speech device, his determination never seemed to relent. Just this year, Pendergast, alongside his wife Christine, released the book “Blink Spoken Here: Tales from a Journey to Within” about his life since his diagnosis in 1993.
Ray Manzoni, chairman of the board for ALS Ride for Life based in Stony Brook University, knew Chris for many years, as both their kids went to school together in Miller Place. It was one day after both he and Pendergast were together after Mass that the educator told Manzoni he was likely to die in a few years, and that he wanted to raise awareness.
Pallbearers lift Pendergasts casket into the car that will take him to his final resting place at Washington Memorial Park in Mount Sinai. Photo by Kyle Barr
Since then, the organization has raised over $10 million for advocacy and research. Their yearly Ride for Life trips were later accompanied by visits to close to 90 school districts on Long Island.
“Anyone who knew him, I believe he helped us all to live a better life,” Manzoni said. “He was a teacher of gifted and talented kids, and he took this terrible disease and turned it into amazing positive life.”
Paul Weisman, a member of ALS Ride for Life, was diagnosed with the disease in January 2013. Getting introduced to Ride for Life, he started going out with the nonprofit’s founder during their school trips. He would also visit some districts without Pendergast. The organization and its founder gave him a real purpose, “something to strive for, something bigger than myself, to raise as much awareness to fight this disease.”
“Meeting Chris, he gave me hope that three to five years might not be true, that there may still be life here,” Weisman said.
Pendergast had four mantras: Never give up, never lose hope, always remain optimistic and be willing to defy the odds. Weisman loved that last one so much he had it tattooed on his left arm. Upon showing his new ink to the Ride for Life founder, Weisman said his mentor and friend smiled.
“Chris could smile and light up a room,” he said. “We all want to do something with our lives, but he certainly did.”
Pendergast’s roots on the North Shore ran deep, so much so that he became renowned in local school districts. He traveled from classroom to classroom, auditorium to auditorium, helping young people from elementary on up understand ALS but, more importantly, serve as a role model for what bravery truly looked like. Manzoni said students would often embrace Pendergast after these talks. As the years fell by, young students who were inspired by the Ride for Life founder would internalize his message. The board chairman said one time an EMT stopped by the side of the road during the annual ride and told Pendergast how his example inspired them to want to help others.
“If you had the honor of meeting him, riding or walking next to Chris in his ALS Ride for Life from Montauk to Manhattan, or hearing his story of determination, you walked away a better person,” Miller Place Superintendent of Schools Marianne Cartisano wrote in a statement. “He left you with the lasting impressions that made you want to be more tolerant, kinder, more understanding and compassionate toward others. His fight against the devastation of ALS left you inspired, knowing him filled your heart and being in his presence left you humbled.”
ALS Ride For Life Talks Future Efforts
Despite the passing of its founder and leader Chris Pendergast, ALS Ride for Life isn’t thinking of slowing down anytime soon.
Manzoni said the organization wants to continue its fundraising efforts, starting with himself getting on a bike later this month and hitting the road, going to school districts they have visited before the pandemic. He plans to spend enough time at each to wave to children and “hopefully greet someone who has supported our program and to say ‘thank you’ to them, give them banner in recognition.” The organization has also developed a revised packet on how, even during a pandemic, people can support ALS over the school year.
“ALS is not going away, and we have to continue the fight,” he said.
There are even talks of doing a documentary film on Pendergast’s life, something Manzoni said the organization is wholeheartedly all for.
Weisman, still an active member of Ride for Life, said one of his last conversations he had with Pendergast was “to keep going until we found that cure for ALS,” he said. “He firmly believed, as I do, that there’s a major breakthrough coming somewhere around the corner … it’s up to us to finish it.”
Weisman added that while the pandemic has made their normal school trips much more difficult, they have some preliminary ideas to host online talks instead.
“Chris laid down 28 years of work,” he said. “Now it’s up to us.”
In 2016, Stony Brook University rebranded itself to a new campaign called Far Beyond.
The idea behind the campaign was to highlight the wide range of programs and activities the school offered, since everyone normally acknowledges the university for its medicine, science and technology specialties.
But this year in 2020, the institution proved that it indeed has gone “far beyond” with protecting public health.
Dr. Deborah Birx, head of the White House’s coronavirus task force, visited SBU last week, a stop in a several-month-long tour of different colleges and universities across the United States. But her visit to the local university was different, and she made that clear.
During her press conference, she spoke highly of how Stony Brook has handled the COVID-19 crisis. She said from the start, it was going, well, “far beyond” what other schools, and even hospitals, were doing.
She said that back in March when the university shut down and patients with the virus were filling the rooms, Stony Brook did something different from other institutions — it actually collected data, while continuing to take care of the patients.
“I was listening to the research activities that they started from day one,” she said during the press conference. “And it thrilled my heart to hear from them that their number one thing was collecting data and collecting information in real time.”
It’s right to give credit where its due, and Stony Brook, both on the medical and campus side, has done good work in keeping the number of cases down. The university’s COVID dashboard reports just two students, one university employee and four Stony Brook Medicine employees have currently tested positive as of Oct. 11. Better yet, the school has been upfront in where those cases are located and how it is handling them.
This is compared to places like SUNY Oneonta, which had to close back in August after hundreds of students tested positive after a large super-spreader party. The Oneonta dashboard reports 712 confirmed cases among students since the start of the fall semester.
It’s also not to say that SBU has not made stumbles, especially in communicating with students.
Right off the bat during the start of the pandemic, students were rightfully upset at how the university handled the virus. In March, dorming students were shocked when each received an email saying they needed to move out, go home or find shelter elsewhere because the campus was officially closed.
Students said they felt rushed, and felt the university wasn’t being truthful or transparent with everything being so abrupt. Some international students couldn’t even go home since their countries were in lockdown.
But the students are back, and cases remain low. Is it because of the incentives the university has taken with social distancing guidelines, removing of sports and recreational activities, hybrid learning and sanitizing stations? Or is it just because Stony Brook is not a “party school” and the students there really don’t congregate as at some of the schools upstate, like Oneonta. It’s also important to note the number of students living on campus has fallen from 39% in 2019 to 17% this fall.
With a new president installed at SBU, Maurie McInnis, we think that communication with students has improved. Every person, every institution has been impacted by the pandemic. The students, who feel they are paying a lot for what at times must feel like a mostly online education, need that person-on-person interaction to let their voices be heard, even if it’s behind a clear plastic barrier.
Nonetheless, Stony Brook gets high praise from both us and those involved in the national response to COVID-19, as well as Birx, for going “far beyond.” We kindly ask that the university keeps it up, for the sake of both your students and the wider community.
Children knock on the door of 1313 Gluto Lane, a favorite house for Halloween. The resident, known for providing coveted confections at a rapid rate, immediately comes to the door, asks no questions about the Halloween costumes that might slow the process down and, with almost super-human speed, dumps candy into open bags and closes the door.
Word spreads about the house on Gluto Lane. Soon, the doorbell rings at a furious pace, with children eager to get the best candy of this difficult year and move on to the next house.
At first, with Trick or Treaters coming at a regular pace, the process works, but then, something goes awry, creepy music begins and the door doesn’t open.
That’s what’s happening in bipolar retinal cells in the goldfish Christina Joselevitch, a Postdoctoral Associate in the Neurobiology and Behavior Department at Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine, is studying.
Known for their incredible speed at releasing neurotransmitters stored in circular vesicles, these bipolar retinal cells go through a depression in which they can’t release the neurotransmitter glutamate despite repeated signals for the release of the neurotransmitter.
“When you stimulate those cells very strongly, with two stimuli close apart, they suffer depression,” Joselevitch said. “Nobody knew why, if they’re able to signal constantly, they should suffer from depression.
To be sure, Joselevitch was working with extreme stimulation to probe the limits of the system and understand its underpinnings. This is not necessarily how these cells work. She said the researchers don’t know if retinal neurons experience synaptic depression under normal conditions and what function depression would have in bipolar cell physiology, in vision or in signaling processing in general.
In a recent publication in the Journal of Neuroscience, Joselevitch described at least two processes that contribute to this slowdown, which she describes as the rate limiting steps. The vesicles need to get to the membrane and they need to get ready to mature before they are release. Once vesicles move towards the cell membrane, they don’t immediately fuse and send their neurotransmitter into the synapse between cells. In some cells, such as the retinal photoreceptors and bipolar cells and in hair cells of the ear and lateral line in fish and in cells of the pineal gland, they gather in a ribbon close to calcium entry points.
Scientists have two theories of the ribbon function. The first is that it could act as a conveyor belt and speed up vesicle priming and delivery to the membrane and the second is that it could set a constant pace for vesicle delivery.
Joselevitch’s results suggest that the vesicles attach to the ribbon, where they go through a maturation process. These paired-pulse depressions don’t just occur in fish: they also affect the ability of mammalian cells to respond to a second stimulus.
These cellular phenomena show the limits of the system. Indeed, Joselevitch likened the process to a car that has reached its maximum speed. Pushing down harder or more on the accelerator won’t enable further acceleration.
The impact of this work is “broad,” she said. Studying this process could enable a stronger awareness of the steps in fast-acting processes in the nervous system. Such research could also provide an understanding about processes that go awry in various neurological diseases.
In an email, Professor Lonnie Wollmuth, who is the principal investigator for the Stony Brook lab in which Joselevitch works, described Joselevitch as “invaluable to our on-going efforts to study presynaptic mechanisms in the retina.” He wrote that she was an “outstanding and very careful scientist” who is “passionate” about her research and has served as a mentor for others in the lab.Joselevitch has been working in Wollmuth’s lab for about 16 months.
Synaptic transmission is fundamental to all brain function, Wollmuth explained. “Changes in the strength of synaptic transmission underlie basic higher order brain functions like learning and memory,” the Stony Brook Professor wrote. Joselevitch’s experiments “reveal mechanisms of presynaptic vesicle release at all synapses and provide novel insights into the processing of vesicles at ribbon synapses.”
Based on Joselevitch’s work, Wollmuth’s lab has submitted a large National Institutes of Health grant to the National Eye Institute to study the molecular components of presynaptic release in the retina. She has also started to integrate her work with Alzheimer’s Disease, as proteins found in that disease disrupt the molecular machinery involved in presynaptic release.
A native of Brazil, Joselevitch has been at Stony Brook University since last July. She is on sabbatical with the University of São Paulo. She is hoping to participate in these studies in New York for a few more years.
She said she was “always a nerd,” and liked to study languages. With varying levels of proficiency, she speaks five languages: Portuguese, English, German, Dutch, and Spanish. At one point, she wanted to be an astronaut, but her mother Carmen dissuaded her from pursuing that interest.
Joselevitch had planned to return to Brazil to see her family in April, but had to cancel that plan because of a travel ban from the COVID-19 pandemic. She said her parents have been “good sports” and her father has bought a smartphone so he can talk through Skype or WhatsApp with his scientist daughter.
Joselevitch enjoys biking, hiking, singing and playing guitar and has been productive during the pandemic, writing papers and proposals. Stony Brook is nominating her work for consideration for the Warren Alpert Distinguished Scholar Award.
Wollmuth wrote that Joselevitch’s research forms “the foundation for future experiments to address the molecular components of vesicle dynamics.” Once they are identified, researchers can modulate and protect them in brain diseases.
Citing author James Joyce, Joselevitch explained her focus on neurons in the fish eye, which, she hopes, may lead to a broader understanding of neurology and disease. When asked why he wrote about Dublin when he could describe other places he’s visited, Joyce responded, “In the particular is contained the universal.”
SC Legislators join Dr. David Fiorella, fourth from right, in congratulating the Mobile Stroke Unit’s efforts after it was launched last year. Photo from William Spencer’s office
In March of last year, Dr. David Fiorella went before the Suffolk County Health Committee chaired by Legislator William “Doc” Spencer (D-Centerport) and announced the launch of Long Island’s first Mobile Stroke Unit program aimed at reducing death of stroke victims. Fast forward 18 months and Fiorella has reported to the same committee Oct. 1 that since deployment, the MSU has been on over 1000 total calls. Findings during the first-year show Stony Brook Medicine’s units have successfully facilitated the diagnosis and rapid delivery of time-critical therapies to stroke patients at the point of care resulting in substantially improved outcomes.
“We are also very grateful to all of the members for the Suffolk County Legislature for their help in promoting the program’s success and look forward to further improving upon these outcomes and expanding this program to service even more residents of Suffolk County in the future,” said Fiorella, a neurointerventionalist and Director of the Stony Brook Cerebrovascular Center and Co-Director of the Stony Brook Cerebrovascular and Comprehensive Stroke Center.
Fiorella also mentioned their intent to locate two more stroke units to add to the current slate located at Long Island Expressway Exits 57 and 68. Each unit is equipped with telehealth capability to communicate with physicians at Stony Brook University Hospital. When a suspected stroke call comes in, the mobile stroke unit is dispatched and the team works quickly to determine the type of stroke the patient is experiencing using the features on board including a CT scanner and CT angiogram. Once that is determined, first responders in the unit can begin administering time-sensitive stroke treatments.
Data from the program further shows stroke patients transported by the MSU had much greater rates of discharges directly from the hospital to home after treatment, higher rates of independent clinical outcomes after stroke and much lower rates of death from stroke when compared to national averages, county average, and Stony Brook’s own data preceding the MSU program.
“The work that Dr. Fiorella and his team are doing is extraordinary,” Spencer said. “The reduced time it takes their units to reach and care for stroke victims is yielding measurable improvements to the lives they touch.”
Spencer also noted the legislature’s goal in expanding the program.
Strokes are a major public health concern nationwide. Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States suffers a stroke and every four minutes someone dies on one, according to the American heart Association.
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