"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

For me, one of the most rewarding aspects of being an Einstein Fellow has been the opportunity to deepen my own understanding of scientific principles and practices.  I have tried to take advantage of any and all opportunities aligned with one of my professional development goals:  "As an Einstein Fellow, I will strengthen my own scientific content knowledge so that students benefit from an added depth, breadth and interdisciplinary connections."

Here's a sampling of some of the science learning opportunities I have had the chance to participate in as a Fellow:

National Institutes of Health Systems Biology Symposium

In October I attended the 2017 National Heart Lung and Blood Institute Systems Biology Symposium at the National Institutes of Health.  The two-day conference focused on the latest research from five key areas of systems biology: single-cell systems biology, imaging-based systems biology, quantitative proteomics, systems biology of metabolism, and large-scale data integration.  It was really incredible to be a fly-on-the-wall in a room full of research biologists as they presented results, questioned each other's methods, established research partnerships and engaged in academic discourse.  I was able to learn some new things that I will be able to incorporate directly into my classroom next fall.  I took pages and pages of notes!

Georgetown University Mini-Med School

Georgetown University offers a series of courses as "mini-med school."  The weekly lectures follow the traditional disciplines that medical students encounter and that span a variety of topics related to biomedical sciences and health.  The sessions I went to were:

Amazing Things Panel

Amazing Things is a podcast sponsored by United for Medical Research (UMR), a group of biomedical research advocates including patients, scientists, families, venture capitalists and members of the public. The goal of UMR is to increase dedicated federal funding dollars to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world leader in biomedical research.  During a live recording of the Amazing Things podcast, NIH funded scientists shared their research innovations and discoveries. I was able to learn cutting edge applications of the biology I teach to high school students and gain further insight into the nature of the scientific process.  

BIONIC
PANCREAS
Dr. Damiano (Boston University) shared his story of developing an autonomous blood monitoring sensor and hormone infusion mechanism to treat Type 1 Diabetes patients.  Parallel to advancements in mobile phone technology, Dr. Damiano's team engineered ways to use Bluetooth technology to control a device that a Type 1 Diabetic could "put in their pocket to control metabolism."  The "iLet"  (named in honor of the structure of the pancreas that regulates blood glucose levels) is a dual-hormone, pocket-sized mobile system capable of full therapeutic control of diabetes.

VIRTUAL HEART REPLICAS
Dr. Trayanova (Johns Hopkins University) is a bioengineer who developed virtual replicas of actual hearts to allow for modeling the impact of an implanted pacemaker on heart functioning.  Currently, imprecise technology is used to determine who is a candidate for an implanted pacemaker.  The decision is mad by a measure of blood pumping volume, which according to Dr. Trayanova " is a plumbing problem, not an electrical problem."  It would be like calling a plumber to fix an electrical outage in your house.  Once fully developed and tested, the new model will save lives. 

EARLY DETECTION OF CANCER
Dr. Backman (Northwestern University) subscribes to the adage that, "In life, timing is everything."  He is developing a technology to detect early nano-scale changes in chromatin structure that can be a hallmark in the development of a cancerous cell.  This means identifying the signs of cancer before a tumor even develops.  The technology combines optical and imaging techniques for the non-invasive screening, diagnosis and detection of cancer indicators.  The technology will allow for early, less traumatic and lower cost  treatments.   

LED ALZHEIMER'S TREATMENT 
Dr. Tsai (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and her team have discovered that in mice, exposure to LED lights at 40Hz significantly reduced the beta-amyloid plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's disease.  The brain's immune cells, microglia, are activated and actively removing the amyloid plaque.  While there is still a lot of work before the LED therapy is verified in human trials, Dr. Tsai's research may eventually lead to the prevention or treatment of the disease in humans.     

Science on the Sphere

Our cohort of Einstein Fellows had the opportunity to visit the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) "Science on the Sphere."   The sphere is illuminated by projectors and is used to visualize 500+ NOAA data sets on a Earth-wide scale.  NOAA data is collected from multiple sources, including low Earth orbit satellites, geostationary satellites, and ocean buoy networks.  Together, the data allows us to develop understanding and models of Earth's weather, climate and and ocean behavior (including temperature, wave height, turbidity and salinity).  Collectively, NOAA collects over 20 terabytes of data everyday, a figure that is incomprehensibly large. 

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A highlight of the day was hearing from Dr. Walter Smith, a geophysicist with the Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry within the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction.  Dr. Smith shared his educational history and how an man without a high school diploma can forge a path culminating in a model that allows prediction of ocean depth using gravitational distortion measurements collected using satellites. I was mesmerized by Dr. Smith's passion for ocean science, mathematics, modeling and science communication.