Science Forward Fall 2018

Dr. Edyta Greer, Baruch College

Author: Gregory Usvitsky (Page 1 of 2)

Final Reflection

December 17, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Before strictly adhering to the instructions I will make a general statement, or possibly a series of them. This was a great course, especially in comparison to the science related subjects I have taken in the past. As someone who is at times intimidated by the STEM field I left this seminar feeling more confident in my ability to analyze and understand scientific journals/findings. The making of Aspirin was an especially valuable lab experiment, as we created something that has been and continues to serve a great public good. For someone like myself who is more interested in the humanities, this felt like a journey back in history where we retraced the steps of Felix Hoffman and other great innovators like him.

The soap lab was another highlight as we were able to overlook the process  for the making one of the most in-demand commodities. Saponification is even more fun than the name makes it sound. One of my all time favorite lessons was for our last class when Dr. Greer taught us about caffeine and how it interacts with the body. The topic was timely and of great interest to a caffeine driven subset of the population, college students. Even though the process of presenting our projects in front of the class repeatedly was not the most thrilling, the final result spoke for itself and reflect the effort we put in. Group work is something I usually shy away from when possible, preferring to control most aspects of the assignment. This group activity made me adjust my professional approach when interacting with fellow students and to find common ground whenever possible. Most importantly I am leaving this class with a newfound love of and interest in science. Thank you Dr. Greer and Dr. Cohen for that.

Device Testing White Blood Cell Count

November 14, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Group: Yina and Natalie

  1.   Fesenmaier, Kimm. “Counting White Blood Cells at Home | Caltech.” The California Institute of Technology. March 26, 2017. Accessed October 9, 2018. http://www.caltech.edu/news/counting-white-blood-cells-home-38975.

This article describes a possible future innovation in the testing of white blood cell count. The idea is to no longer require white blood tests to be conducted at large centralized facilities, but at home and in a shortened span of time. The device that will test white blood cell counts will be cheap, accessible, and small enough to hold. We will use this source in our project to help us understand what the final product will look like and the components necessary to make it workable. For example, the device that the University of Southern California is making in collaboration with scientists in Jerusalem can account for four of the five existing types of white blood cells. The authors are researchers at the University of Southern California

2)     Kabat, Geoffrey C., Mimi Y. Kim, JoAnn E. Manson, Lawrence Lessin, Juan Lin, Thomas E. Rohan, and Sylvia Wassertheil Smoller. “White Blood Cell Count and Total and Cause-Specific Mortality in the Women’s Health Initiative.” American Journal of Epidemiology 186, no. 1 (March 22, 2017): 63-72. doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f.

 

This study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology discusses the implication of white blood cell counts on future health and chances of mortality. The findings do not show a causality but there is a correlation between high blood cell count and higher chances of mortality in the future. Such a study is relevant to our group’s healthcare innovation as it hints the importance of tracking white blood cell count to ensuring future health and longevity. The authors are scientists with articles already published in this reputable journal.

 

3) Girardin, Francois, Dr., Antoine Poncet, Marc Blondon, MD, Victoria Rollason, PhD, and Nathalie Vernaz, PhD. “Monitoring White Blood Cell Count in Adult Patients with Schizophrenia Who Are Taking Clozapine: A Cost-effectiveness Analysis.” The Lancet Psychiatry 1, no. 1 (June 2016): 8-9. doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f.

 

This is a study in the journal of Lancet Psychiatry on how cost-effective or not the monitoring of white blood cell count is. For particular subset of psychiatric patients taking a certain medication, white blood cell testing is mandated. However, the US government wanted to find out whether the costly testing was worth the trouble at all and to what extent it has helped improve survival. Society would be better off if such a question didn’t even have to be ask with a low cost method for testing white blood cell count. This study will help our group gain some perspective on the problems with current testing methods and why our innovation is necessary. The authors are Swiss doctors.

Aspirin Lab Reflection

November 9, 2018 / / 0 Comments

The experience of synthesizing Aspirin in a lab setting this Wednesday left me with an altered impression of pharmaceuticals and a greater confidence. Dr. Greer had provided us with detailed instructions pertaining to the design of the experiment, measurements, procedure, everything we needed to know. I had pored over these instructions the day before and felt that even with figures given they were too vague for a liberal arts major to execute successfully. Surely such ventures are better left to precise machinery and experts. My attitude changed when Dr. Greer announced that those teams which were able to synthesize a purer form of aspirin would receive an extra five points for their lab work! Felix and I realized that failure is not an option, we wanted those five points and badly. The we understood was to be as precise as possible in measurements, timing, and execution of the experiment. We were the last in our class to finish separating the crystals and I nervously dropped a crystal in three separate test tubes as the optimistic Felix looked on. When one of the test tubes turned a bright orange color we celebrated as a pure form of aspirin had been synthesized before our very eyes. This lab experiment reminded me that one doesn’t need to live in a lab to use it in creating something that is still used and was once a revolutionary healthcare innovation. The fact that relatively simple chemical compounds were combined to create something as important as aspirin suggests to me that a great many seemingly simple but groundbreaking healthcare innovations could be just around the corner.

Annotated Bibliography Bioblitz

October 29, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Group: Gregory, Natalie, Yina

 

Natalie

 

  1. Duffy, John, and Russell Sage Foundation. A History of Public Health in New York City. Russell Sage Foundation, 1968.

 

This book, written in the early 20th century, provides insight into the various causes of public health outbreaks in New York City. Historically, swine and other livestock were main contributors to health crises, and flies had helped to spread these diseases. However, New York City is no longer home to many farm animals. This might beg the question, why would fly species in New York City still matter? Even though there are few livestock animals left in New York City, the spread of diseases via flies is still a very valid concern, which is what this book touches upon. A perfect example is the Zika virus, which spreads through flies.

 

2) Decoursey, R M. “THE FEEDING HABITS OF THE FIRST INSTAR LARVAE OF  

How does New York City fly population vary as borough location varies? THE CLUSTER FLY.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 75, no. 1941 (1932): 287.

 

Cluster flies are a fly species native to New York state, and have been observed in New York City. In order for a species to remain and thrive in one place, it is necessary that the place has that species’ food readily available. This study dives deep into the feeding habits of cluster flies, and how nutrient rich their food sources are. Unfortunately, Baruch does not grant me access to the full PDF so I could not get a full grasp of the article. Once I do gain access to the full article, I think that this source will provide valuable insight into the relationship between flies and the availability of food. We can apply this insight to BioBlitz data by looking at the observed fly species and comparing it to the food that its habitat offers.

 

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/75/1941/287.1

 

3) http://science.sciencemag.org/content/129/3361/1484/tab-pdf

 

Lambremont, E N, F W FISH, and S. Ashrafi. “Pepsin-like Enzyme in Larvae of Stable Flies.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 129, no. 3361 (1959): 1484-5.

 

Stable flies are very common throughout New York State, since they thrive around water. In New York City there are also large bodies of water, such as the Central Park pond, so I would not be surprised if students observed stable flies or stale fly larvae during BioBlitz. This article is similar to the last one in that it focuses on the digestive aspect of flies. Pepsin is an enzyme that digests proteins, and flies are known to have a protein rich diet. This article can help us determine why we might observe stable flies in BioBlitz data.

 

Greg

 

  1. Lysyk, T. J., L. Kalischuk Tymensen, L. B. Selinger, R. C. Lancaster, L. Wever, and K. J. Cheng. “Rearing Stable Fly Larvae (Diptera: Muscidae) on an Egg Yolk Medium.” Journal of Medical Entomology 36, no. 3 (May 1, 1999): 382-88. doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f

           https://academic.oup.com/jme/article-abstract/36/3/382/919310

 

This study observed the factors that influence the likelihood of larvae survival. It was   concluded that the presence of certain kinds of bacteria is necessary for the survival of larvae. The density of the eggs however, has little bearing on survival rates. Larvae survival in mixed cultures was lower that larvae survival in pure bacteria cultures. This study will help us account for larvae variations throughout NYC.

 

    2.  Imbahale, Susan S., Krijn P. Paaijmans, Wolfgan R. Mukabana, Ron Van Lammeren, Andrew K. Githeko, and Willem Takken. “A Longitudinal Study on Anopheles Mosquito Larval Abundance in Distinct Geographical and Environmental Settings in Western Kenya.” National Institutes of Health, April 10, 2011. doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3080801/

 

This study observed how local environmental characteristics, such as altitude, climate and land use, can significantly impact on phenology and population dynamics of mosquito larvae, and indirectly affect the dynamics of mosquito-borne diseases. The main conclusion of the study was that most mosquito habitats were man-made (moist agricultural environments) as well as grassy areas. We can use similar variables to find how many and the kinds of mosquitoes develop in different parts of NYC.

 

    3.  Nikookar, Seyed Hassan, Mahmoud Fazeli Dinan, Shahyad Azari Hamidian, Seyed Mousavinasab, Mohsen Aarabi, and Seyyed Payman Ziapour. “Correlation between Mosquito Larval Density and Their Habitat Physicochemical Characteristics in Mazandaran Province, Northern Iran.” PLOS, August 18, 2017.

 

https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0005835

 

This study found that characteristics of mosquito larval habitats are important in determining whether they can survive and successfully complete their developmental stages. Therefore, data on the ecological factors affecting mosquito density and abundance especially the physicochemical properties of water of their breeding sites, can possibly be helpful in implementing larval management programs. Such programs can be implemented in NYC as having some kinds of larvae over others is beneficial to the ecology of the city.

 

Yina

1) Teets, N. M. and Hahn, D. A. (2018), Genetic variation in the shape of cold‐survival curves in a single fly population suggests potential for selection from climate variability. J. Evol. Biol., 31: 543-555. doi:10.1111/jeb.13244

 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jeb.13244

 

This study focused on testing how cold weather affects fly population rates. The study came to the conclusion that fly population dwindles during cold temperatures. Since we are in colder months right now this is an important factor to consider because it may skew our results.

 

2) Clandinin, Thomas R., and Lisa M. Giocomo. “Internal Compass Puts Flies in Their Place.” Nature Neurosience 521 (May 14, 2015): 165-66. doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/521165a

 

This article explains that flies have head direction cells which would affect where they constantly return to. This means that certain flies are more likely to reside within the same location without moving too far. We can use this article because it is proof that flies moving throughout boroughs wouldn’t pose an issue for our project.

Project Proposal

October 15, 2018 / / 0 Comments

          White blood cell count is a good indicator for determining when your body may be fighting an infection or can indicate when you are more susceptible to certain diseases. However, there isn’t an accurate at-home device that can tell you your specific white blood cell count. While there is a device that is soon to hit the market, it is only able to tell you if you have a low white blood cell count but the number of what is considered normal varies depending on the individual. The article “Evaluation of Patients with Leukocytosis” explains each type of white blood cell and what it means when it is too high or low as well as what the normal range is for a newborn, infant, child, pregnant woman, and adults.

        We would like to address this issue by creating an at-home device that can count white blood cells. This innovation would be helpful for the average person since people fight infections all the time as well as cancer patients who are at risk of having a low white blood cell count due to chemotherapy. An interesting find in the article “High White Blood Cell Count Is Associated With a Worsening of Insulin Sensitivity and Predicts the Development of Type 2 Diabetes” was that a high white blood cell count in people who have diabetes affects insulin sensitivity and is an indicator of the progression of type 2 diabetes.

        However, an issue is that current methods of counting white blood cells are costly which is something we must address since our target audience is the average person or person with diabetes or cancer which have expensive treatments and medication. We believe that taking into consideration the cost of the item and who our target audience is would increase the potential of our success. 

 

Device Testing White Blood Cell Count

October 10, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Group: Yina and Natalie

  1.   Fesenmaier, Kimm. “Counting White Blood Cells at Home | Caltech.” The California Institute of Technology. March 26, 2017. Accessed October 9, 2018. http://www.caltech.edu/news/counting-white-blood-cells-home-38975.

This article describes a possible future innovation in the testing of white blood cell count. The idea is to no longer require white blood tests to be conducted at large centralized facilities, but at home and in a shortened span of time. The device that will test white blood cell counts will be cheap, accessible, and small enough to hold. We will use this source in our project to help us understand what the final product will look like and the components necessary to make it workable. For example, the device that the University of Southern California is making in collaboration with scientists in Jerusalem can account for four of the five existing types of white blood cells. The authors are researchers at the University of Southern California

2)     Kabat, Geoffrey C., Mimi Y. Kim, JoAnn E. Manson, Lawrence Lessin, Juan Lin, Thomas E. Rohan, and Sylvia Wassertheil Smoller. “White Blood Cell Count and Total and Cause-Specific Mortality in the Women’s Health Initiative.” American Journal of Epidemiology 186, no. 1 (March 22, 2017): 63-72. doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f.

 

This study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology discusses the implication of white blood cell counts on future health and chances of mortality. The findings do not show a causality but there is a correlation between high blood cell count and higher chances of mortality in the future. Such a study is relevant to our group’s healthcare innovation as it hints the importance of tracking white blood cell count to ensuring future health and longevity. The authors are scientists with articles already published in this reputable journal. 

 

3) Girardin, Francois, Dr., Antoine Poncet, Marc Blondon, MD, Victoria Rollason, PhD, and Nathalie Vernaz, PhD. “Monitoring White Blood Cell Count in Adult Patients with Schizophrenia Who Are Taking Clozapine: A Cost-effectiveness Analysis.” The Lancet Psychiatry 1, no. 1 (June 2016): 8-9. doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f.

 

This is a study in the journal of Lancet Psychiatry on how cost-effective or not the monitoring of white blood cell count is. For particular subset of psychiatric patients taking a certain medication, white blood cell testing is mandated. However, the US government wanted to find out whether the costly testing was worth the trouble at all and to what extent it has helped improve survival. Society would be better off if such a question didn’t even have to be ask with a low cost method for testing white blood cell count. This study will help our group gain some perspective on the problems with current testing methods and why our innovation is necessary. The authors are Swiss doctors. 

BioBlitz Research Question

October 10, 2018 / / 0 Comments

group members: natalie, yina, gregory

  1. What is the final version of the question you are interested in asking? Our final question is: How do New York City fly larvae vary as borough location varies?
  2. List some keywords to use when searching for related scientific literature. Keywords: fly, larvae, manhattan, brooklyn, queens, bronx, staten island, indigenous, population/s, habitat, species
  3. Where will your data come from? Do you need to collect new data? The data we require for this study will be derived from previous BioBlitz events, since they took place in different boroughs.
  4. What will you be measuring or comparing? What are the dependent and independent variables? We will be collecting mostly qualitative data, and comparing the different species we observe from different boroughs. The fly species will depend on the borough we are studying, so the fly species is the dependent variable. The borough we are looking into will be the dependent variable.
  5. Please make a list of your methods. Our Methods: gather all BioBlitz data from previous years on fly populations, sort it by borough, then compare the populations / examine any overlaps, and to enrich the research we can look into habitat components that may explain the variations (such as availability of food)
  6. Why is this question interesting to you? Why should others care about this topic? This question is interesting because people don’t think of NYC as a home to diverse animal populations (other than rats, I suppose). Hopefully this research will sway opinions, and help others to appreciate the biodiversity that NYC has to offer. People should also care because small insects like flies are essential in food chains.

Weighted Pressurized Head Pillow- For Individuals With Autism, Anxiety, and Insomnia

October 2, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Some of my closest friends in high school had autism and were often easily overstimulated. This made it difficult for my friends to relax, shut out the overwhelming external stimuli, to calm their anxieties, to meditate independently, and to fall asleep. At the same time individuals with autism often do not like being touched or hugged and are unable to enjoy the feeling of being held and comforted. I myself have been overstimulated, especially at the start of this semester. That has made it difficult to fall asleep and streamline my thoughts. As a remedy I bought a 20 lb weighted blanket which has noticeably improved my ability to fall asleep on time. It provides a similar sensation to being hugged and calms the nerves. Why can’t we have something similar but catering to individuals with autism? The concept is the same, a material that is weighted and pressurized but to be placed around the head. For lack of a better example it will resemble a soft comforting headlock that blocks out noise, lessens insomnia and alleviates some of the negative symptoms of autism.

Blog Post Number 1- Reflection

September 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Watching the hot topic presentations over the past three classes and delivering my own, I came away with a clearer understanding of what qualities characterize a reliable popular science writer. Some writers were further removed from the science journals they were referencing than others. It was an established theme throughout the presentations that simplifying scientific jargon, excluding certain confusing data illustrations, and making the news more palatable to a wider audience is possible without bending the truth. One approach that was common among popular science writers was taking the brief “abstract” section of a scientific journal and expanding on it. This can be done by pairing technical points relevant to the scientific finding with something comparable and familiar. For example, in my NYT article the author compared the disabling of a cell to the turning off of a light switch. Another approach taken by science writers is interviewing the professionals in the field with greater expertise and credibility, quoting them directly in the article. That is an element that was lacking according to some of the students who presented. Too often an author’s personal agenda to sensationalize or get a point across made the actual scientific findings of a secondary importance. This was more common with less reputable publications such as Vox with Daniel’s presentation. Something of interest that I notices while doing my own research is that part of a scientific journal could be written in such a way as to favor a particular company. Synlogic did this with the reputable Nature journal and that was reflected in the popular article. Even though the scientific journal had a disclaimer near the end pointing out this fact, it can still be misleading for audiences that trust the original source. I wish the popular articles had used visual aids more often from the research and broken them down in a way that the general population can comprehend. It would be more interesting to have an accurate mental image of the bacteria or microbes being talked about.

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