by Natalie Punt

“Intelligent, fast-paced, with a take-no prisoners style of research”, is how my new mentor,
Dr. Irizarry, was first described to me. Working with Dr. Irizarry over the summer has compelled me to agree with the description. However, I would like to add another descriptor- extraordinary. 

I sat down with Dr. Irizarry to ask him about his background, scientific interests, and future direction.

Natalie: What was your background starting in high school? Did you prepare for a
scientific career?

Dr. Irizarry: In high school, I was interested in science and math. As an undergrad at RPI, I mainly took math and science classes that I was interested in, e.g. physical chemistry, quantitative physics, biochemistry and biophysics, and put off declaring a major. My first
undergraduate research project was studying how to inhibit cocaine addiction in rats. The project worked well and I was in the lab on Saturdays taking care of the rats. But, I disliked the animal research and ended up doing my senior thesis in Dr. Salerno’s computational biology lab modeling the theoretical structure of Nitric Oxide Synthase.

by Amy Beth Prager

Professor Gilbert Strang is the Mathworks professor of mathematics at MIT and an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford University. He is widely known not only at these institutions for his superb mastery of applied mathematics but all over the world through his many textbooks and most of all his Open Course Ware lectures. He served as President of the Society of Applied Mathematics and has won too many medals and international prizes to list or even easily count.
It is a great honor to interview him today.
   
He is best known for his classic text on finite elements. After writing this book, he decided to focus more on linear algebra. He describes writing his linear algebra text as a" wonderful adventure" and says his motivation for writing the text was that, at the time, most math courses were missing the importance and beauty of the subject and had to change. At the time, Strang recalls that most courses emphasized proofs above all else, with no emphasis on applications. He believed that for math majors, even for theoretical mathematicians, this was not the correct approach. He states quite emphatically that there is a whole world of students that need and use linear algebra, and he is there for them.

by Riana Balahadia

Hey Scientistas! This past week has been a very productive one so far. We’ve been working at Dr. Galler’s office in Brookline, looking through the file cabinets and organizing the data. Luckily, I was able to catch an interview with Dr. Galler in between patients. Check it out! 

How did your interest in child malnutrition lead to the Barbados Nutrition Study? 
I’ve always been interested in studies about developing countries and poverty and in children. But it was somewhat accidental. I was actually studying neurochemistry and ended up working with a professor who encouraged me to set up a rat laboratory for him. Four years later, when I was a resident, my mentor passed away and I salvaged his data in order to continue working on prenatal malnutrition in rats. But a new opportunity arose: to work on a human study in parallel to my rat studies. In the beginning of 1973, I received funds and visited countries in Latin America
and the Caribbean to search for a place to set my study. I serendipitously ended up in Barbados through a recommendation from a friend who knew Dr. Frank Ramsey, my future collaborator. Up until his death 3 years ago, Dr. Ramsey was a local Barbadian who was very involved in public policy and was the head of the medical school and Nutrition Center. He was a trained pediatrician in Barbados interested in doing research on malnourished children. And I was on the other end in the U.S. with a neurochemistry background in rat infant and prenatal malnutrition. It felt like a meeting of minds, and so we joined forces. That was how the Barbados Nutrition Study began.

By Juliet Snyder

The Power of a Flinch for Diabetic Neuropathy
             
There is no one“typical day” at the Calcutt pathology lab. Sure, the framework may be the same: I run experiments and I analyze the data that I gather from said experiments. However, research is a wonderfully creative process that requires a great deal of innovative thinking: How do I gather said data? What variations do I need to do to test my hypothesis?

On a typical day I get into the lab at 9:30 AM (I really appreciate not having to get into work at 7) and set up my experiment for the day. Diabetes comes with many complications, one of which is diabetic neuropathy. It is well known that diabetes causes degeneration and regeneration of peripheral nerves, causing sensory loss. Unfortunately few treatments currently exist for diabetic neuropathy, with the leading treatment simply being blood glucose control. This is where my lab steps in, working on discovering potential treatments for diabetic neuropathy. My day comprises of behavioral tests on diabetic mice to determine the extent of nerve degeneration. The specific test I run takes about 3 hours because the test has to be repeated every thirty minutes (time trials!) to track increases or decreases in nerve sensitivity.

by Natalie Punt

Research is Dynamic

When I was a kid, I guess I was what you’d call a “dork.” I read books three grades above my expected level, made honor roll every year, and won many awards in reading and math. Not much has changed since then—except that I’ve realized a “dork” is really someone who pursues their intellectual passions.

Pursuing my intellectual passions is exactly why I chose a career path in veterinarian research. Another positive aspect of this career path is that it gives me the opportunity to be surrounded by other “dorks.” Being on campus in the summer doing research, I am surrounded by like-minded people pursuing their interests and passions. During the summer, we can celebrate our unique attributes by parading openly through the library and lingering near the offices of distinguished professors in hopes of enticing them into conversation.

by Nzuekoh Nchinda

As I ride the shuttle bus each morning to the Longwood Medical Area, I become increasingly excited for what the day will have in store. Days at the Fortune Lab are far from boring, since each one brings a new learning experience, broadening my knowledge of both laboratory techniques as well as the vast scope of public health. 

On most days, I immediately start on my project. Conducting the necessary lab procedures takes a full 9:30am to 5:30pm day. But time always seems to fly by—despite repeating the same procedures daily, work never feels monotonous. What makes bench science so stimulating is that the potential result of your procedure is always unexpected. I may perform the same basic technique multiple times, but each time I make slight adjustments based upon the results of previous experiments. And the results of each procedure are different. So much of lab work is based upon trial and error. There have been days when all of my procedures failed to yield the results I needed. But then that moment comes when that desired result occurs. From that moment, I gain a deeper understanding of the bacterial mechanisms taking place in my project. It is that moment of discovery that keeps lab work exciting.

by Rabeea Ahmed

Every morning, when I enter the Space Science Institute (STScI) to begin my work for the day, breath-taking pictures of space that line the walls of the lobby greet me. Although I have walked through the lobby every day for over three weeks, the one-tenth-scale replica of the Hubble Space Telescope that hangs on the ceiling of the lobby always catches my attention. It infuses within me the thrill of being a part of an expedition that ventures into the haunting depths of space to learn more about our universe and our place in it.

Most mornings at the STScI begin with a talk scheduled for student interns to learn more about the great work that takes place at the STScI. Dr. Alberto Conti, who is currently an Innovation Scientist for the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), delivered today’s talk, entitled “A New Kind of Astronomy”. As a computer science and astronomy student, the title of the talk piqued my interest. I was curious to know what new things were at the frontier of astrophysics today and what the future was like for the field. Indeed, the focus of the talk was

by Amy Beth Prager

My typical day at MIT can be summed up in one word: MATLAB! MATLAB is an enormously powerful and popular software program that performs symbolic algebra and linear algebra. I spend the largest part of my day either running MATLAB (sometimes even successfully!), being lectured about MATLAB, or looking up MATLAB documentation on the web. One interesting application we learned was determining if a structure, such as a treehouse, is stable. Our professor said to always use MATLAB before sending our children up to a treehouse we build!
 
It is really astounding how much computational power has expanded during my lifetime. When I was a little girl I begged my parents for a Timex Sinclair 2K computer with no screen- state of the art for 1980! I am constantly amazed by the advances made in technology and what modern technology is capable of! Despite how much technology changes, what is most important stays the same.

By Shaira Bhanji

The “Typical” Day: Senza Da Capo

The melody of the day begins from the alarm of a small phone sleeping on a pillow dressed in
sheets stamped with the seal of St. John’s Hospital. It’s 7:20AM, and my eyes roll open as the sound of rickshaw horns and the bark of dogs permeate the netted window to join in on the symphony. I throw off the bed sheets to feel the onset of itching and witness the redness that paints itself on my leg from the fresh kiss of a mosquito.…Welcome to India!

I pick my shalwar for the day and slather on sunscreen, and then I hear another tune…the cheerful noise of a Skype call coming in from my family. Good morning or good evening—either greeting is appropriate given the 12.5-hour time difference between Bangalore and California. After sharing the latest occurrences and some virtual hugs, it’s time to fuel up for the day. If my suitemates and I aren’t eating oatmeal at home, you’ll find us at Sukh Sagar awaiting the arrival of two angelic rice cakes (called “idly”), which come to rest in front of me along with a hot cup of the finest masala chai I have ever tasted.

by Riana Balahadia

Sites of Translation: Unraveling the Genes of Barbados

It’s hard to define a “typical day” working for the Barbados Nutrition Study—and that isn’t a bad thing. This internship allows me to work in three different locations: Dr. Galler’s office in Brookline, Judge Baker’s Children Center in Mission Hill, and UMass Medical School in Worcester. Aside from the newly-increased MBTA fares, the change in scenery keeps things interesting and exciting. Even more importantly, working in multiple environments has made the
connection between an evolutionary perspective and global health clearer to me.

Dr. Galler’s office basement holds towers of data since the 1970s, from teacher assessments of post-malnourished children to the psychiatric clinical interviews of those same kids later as adults. My two co-workers and I are working on organizing this data and making sense of it for future papers. It’s actually quite enlightening sifting through this history; we’ve seen some interesting commentary on people potentially undiagnosed with some mental or heart disorder. Here, the connection between the papers I’ve read and the Barbadian people come alive. Collectively, those musty, yellowed pages reveal the lasting impact of child malnutrition. The truth is, this impact goes beyond the sad infomercials about starving boys and girls