Probe Magazine: Issue 1

probe magazine

issue 01 health | innovation | art

2017/2018

Contrast Catherine Wang | Watercolor

Table of Contents 4 | Letter from the Editors 5 | Probe Team HEALTH 6 | “Healing Hands” 7 | Rise of Flying Vaccinations 10 | Uncovering Addiction 13 | “Piecing Myself Together” 14 | Emotions of Mice and Men 16 | Glitter Jars 18 | The Art of K. Euan Yang 20 | “The Reflection” 21 | Compassionate Use INNOVATION 23 | “Innovation” 24 | MIT’s Origami Bots and the Promise of Nanotechnology 28 | How to Cure Cancer with Dr. Michael Lin 31 | Acting with Authenticity 34 | An Interview of Dr. Rhiju Das 37 | Digital Evolution 38 | Neural Nets ART 40 | An Artistic Approach to Health 42 | Interview with Artist Gail Wight 48 | Midnight and Mold 52 | Bridging Art and Neuroscience 55 | “Voices”

Left: “Mitochondria” by Daniel Friedman Cover: “Neural Circuit” by Daniel Friedman Back cover: “Veins and Arteries” by Ariel Kelly Leong, Acrylic

Letter from the Editors: Dear Readers, We are proud and excited to present the first print issue of Probe Magazine, based on the online quarterly run by Stanford Students in Biodesign.

Probe is a science magazine dedicated to exploring the expanding field of biodesign. We report on innovations in medicine and technology, interview inspiring contributors to the cutting edge of healthcare, and reflect on the significance of the intersection of art with science.

Probe was first conceptualized in 2016, when we saw the need for an accessible and educational platform to share cross-disciplinary, and often complex, topics. We aimed to make Probe engaging, relevant and refreshing - and above all - relatable. We launched our website (ssbprobe.com) in 2017, and today, we are proud to introduce this print version of highlights from the past year.

In this inaugural issue, our theme is “Mind and Body.� You can learn about the pathways into biodesign through interviews with artists and bioengineering researchers, discover how stress and addiction can change our brain, and how artificial intelligence is ever-evolving to become more creative in its applications.

We hope you enjoy our first issue and let us know if there any topics you would like us to cover in the future! Send us an email (ssbprobe@gmail. com) if you have any questions or would like to submit your work for our next issue.

Cheers, Ariana & Victoria

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Probe Team Editors-in-Chief:

Ariana Barreau

Victoria Wang Art Director:

Eugene Kim Editors:

Isabela Bumenlag

Kendall Costello

Caitlin Hogan

Kate LeBlanc

Fan Liu

Biolumination 3 K. Euan Yang | Bacteria on Agar Left:

Humans of the Operating Room Soraya Fereydooni | Photography July 14th, 2017, 4:12:18 pm, Lucile Packard Childrens hospital, G22, Intraparenchymal tumor decompression

Writers:

Mel Guo

Jocelyn Kang

Kendrick Shen Contributing writers:

Deepti Kannan

Alex Maben

Kim Ngo

Glenda Smerin

Amelia Traylor

Vivian Xiao

Artworks have been cropped for layout.

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Healing Hands Vy Tran | Oil on Canvas “Hospital and hospitality share the same root origin that means home, yet the former often feels alienating rather than welcoming. Healing Hands is a 3 x 4 ft. painting inspired by my volunteering experience at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Emergency Department. I wanted to reimagine a space often associated with illness and dreariness into a space symbolic of human hope and resilience. This work, among four others that I also painted, is now on permanent display at the hospital’s Emergency Department and its waiting room. By adding colors and life to the hospital experience, I hope to foster an environment warm, calming, and conducive to healing. “ - Vy Tran ‘16 M.S. ‘18

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HEALTH

Source: Gizmodo Australia

Rise of Flying Vaccinations Exploring the use of mosquitoes to address disease Fan Liu Bzzz!

The buzzing of mosquitoes is a harbinger of summer. Long thought to harbor dangerous diseases, these pests are now being used in biomedical research to treat a host of deadly illnesses. In 2010, a group of Japanese researchers at Jichi Medical University attached SP15, a vaccine against Leishmaniasis, to the promoters of the mosquito genome that turn off saliva-producing genes.

When mice were bitten by mosquitoes carrying the vaccine, the mosquito saliva seeped into the mice’s bloodstream, and the mice developed antibodies against SP15. Human trials have also

shown promise. In 2013, volunteers underwent the first mosquito vaccine trial at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle. The participants were bitten by mosquitoes carrying a malaria parasite that was genetically altered through precise gene alterations. Amazingly, the volunteers reported no infection.

Flying vaccinations are an innovative way to distribute vaccines on a large-scale.

The high rate of diseases, such as malaria, coupled with poor infrastructural problems continues to affect developing nations. In 2015, the World Health Organization reported approximately 212 million cases and 429,000 deaths from malaria, a disease spread through mosquito vectors, in Africa. A major contributing factor to these alarming statistics include a lack of public transportation to vaccination clinics. For instance, in Zambezia, a province of Mozambique, due to a lack of public transportation (minibuses, railroads, etc.) traveling to clinics via bicycle or walking takes an average of three hours. Thus, flying vaccinations seem like a promising solution to address critical transportation problems.

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HEALTH However, the implementation of mosquito vaccines raises several ethical concerns that must be addressed before these insects can take flight.

Although these experiments have shown impressive results, they have been largely proofof-principle tests that would not be feasible if they were actually implemented. Pragmatically, these experiments ignore dosage concerns and favor a one-size-fits all approach; dosages vary greatly depending on weight, age, previous disease history, etc. Children are particularly at riskfor overdose due to smaller body size and differently developed immune systems. Thus, dosage adjustment for children still needs to be tested out empirically and rigorously.

Additionally, Science Magazine writer Martin Enserink states that the rate at which these flying mosquitoes bite people can vary. A person could be bitten multiple times with too much of vaccine and another person could receive no vaccine at all. Thus, when a person receives the vaccine, it is largely dependent on the number of mosquitoes present in a specific area.

Dispersing the flying mosquito vaccinations raises a host of serious ethical concerns regarding informed consent that should be maintained in all medical proceedings. Consent requires clear communication with the medical provider, but an individual bitten by the flying vaccination has no agency over whether or not he or she receives the vaccination. A person bitten by the flying vaccination cannot communicate his or her needs to the doctor, as there is no doctor who is administering these vaccines directly. Instead, the mosquito indiscriminately bites, regardless of the mental state, previous medical history, or competence of the individual. Thus, the individual loses his or her ethical right to control what happens to his or her body.

Treating diseases through a mosquito vector does not necessarily require human consent.

For example, modified insect vectors are being developed to eradicate the Zika virus, a disease transmitted through mosquito vectors that can cause serious birth defects, including microceph-

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aly (small brain size and head). These genetically modified (GM) insects are selectively bred to produce offspring that die prematurely. Eliminating the vector (the mosquitos) is an alternative to the traditional method of using vaccination to protect people from dangerous viruses.

Sending out these GM mosquitoes into the real world has generated divisive ethical dilemmas.

As of October 26, 2016, 180 Zika cases have been reported in Florida. A pharmaceutical company called Oxitec hopes to send its genetically modified mosquitoes to Key Haven, Florida for a field test. Confirmation for a field trial is currently being negotiated among citizens in Key Haven.

Some citizens have argued that there simply is not enough data collected on the effects on humans. They also bolster their claims by postulating on the potentially deleterious effects the mosquitoes would have on the environment and other species. Other citizens want to release the GM mosquitoes, which they see as great biotech advances which cannot be deterred by human fear.

There has been a significant divide between the scientific research being conducted and the successful implementation of the research in the real world.

Instead of focusing on using mosquitoes as vectors for disease immunity, perhaps the best way to distribute vaccinations is through more ethical means.

Above: A flowchart illustrating how genetically modified mosquitoes work. Source: Dawne Bennett.

Generally, scientists in academia are mostly concerned with proving that an experiment works, oftentimes in animal models. While this research can be productive in generating new and interesting data that furthers the scientific pool of knowledge, scientists must also consider how their research would directly affect the public. Scientists need be careful not to prioritize expanding the scope of the investigation over the moral considerations of the study.

effectively to developing countries. Creating cheaper and safer vaccines to distribute through local village doctors should continue to be developed, because biotech companies have yet to release an effective Zika or malaria vaccine for clinical trials. And maybe, the most efficient and feasible solution does not have to involve cutting-edge biotech mosquitoes after all.

Instead of focusing on using mosquitoes as vectors for disease immunity, perhaps the best way to distribute vaccinations is through more ethical means. Social mobilization through education of where one can receive free vaccines can promote public health in developing countries. Better ways to package and store vaccines can be developed so they can shipped

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Uncovering Addiction On the path to treating addiction as a disease Kate LeBlanc The brain is one of the most mysterious and beautiful parts of the body. The mysterious part is obvious - many consider the brain one of the last great undiscovered frontiers of science. But the beautiful part may be a little more counterintuitive.

The image above is a picture of a brain that has been tagged in a process known as brainbow, where individual neurons are stained with different combinations of fluorescent proteins, leaving each neuron a distinctly different color and creating a rainbow. It’s estimated that there are about 86 billion neurons in the human brain. Each of these neurons has the potential to make connections to around 10,000 other neurons, leading to immense processing

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power. Despite a recent explosion in research, scientists still know very little about the processes that govern our entire minds. For the most part, debates and cutting-edge research still dominate the field.

One area with intensely accelerating research is addiction, a field that I have been involved in for three summers. Around 6.2% of adults have an alcohol use disorder and the loss of life and economic burden that come with alcohol use disorders are devastating. Addiction has long held a profound stigma in society and those suffering from this debilitating disease are often looked down upon as lacking willpower or self control. This stigma prevents people from seeking treatment and further

traps them in the cycle of addiction.

Addiction has been a hot topic for the past several centuries, and its specific discussion in scientific literature can be found as early as the 17th century. The use of addictive substances, however, existed long before that. For millennia, some substances with psychoactive properties, such as mushrooms, were used by priests and shamans to create states of introspection and meditation.

Other substances were used as medicine, such as opium which, up until two centuries ago, was recommended as a treatment for psychological diseases like depression. The recreational use of addictive substances also has deep roots in history. The first domestically cultivated vines used to make wine date back to 7000 to 5000 BCE. And, as it would be expected, the same patterns of abuse that we see today have been observed since these substances started to be widely used. Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, after many years of what would be characterized today as an alcohol use disorder and many philosophers and physicians of the time discussed the disorder in detail.

Throughout most of history, addiction has been seen as a personal shortcoming. Treatments were composed solely of talk therapy to try to change

Opposite: Brainbow imagery of mouse hippocampus, taken by Professor Tamily Weissman of Lewis and Clark College.

perspective and encourage addicts to stop using drugs altogether. It is only recently that we have started to realize that these old models of defining addiction do not tell the whole story. Addiction is not just a problem with the person, it is a problem with the chemistry of the brain. In the same way that we would not tell a person with a broken arm to just “get over it,� we have to stop treating addiction as something that people have total control over, and start treating it like the disease that it is.

This recent switch in thinking is a result of new research that has been coming out in the field of neuroscience.

These past three summers, I worked in the Ozburn Lab at Oregon Health and Science University, investigating the relationship between circadian rhythms and alcohol use disorders. The circadian rhythm is the daily cycle of changes that the body goes through in a roughly 24-hour period. Hormones, such as melatonin, are secreted and released, which helps to regulate rhythmic processes such as the sleep and wake cycle. When a person has an alcohol use disorder, they will also often have changes in rhythmic processes associated with circadian rhythm such as sleeping. Individuals are also more or less sensitive to certain drugs of abuse at different times of day.

The circadian rhythm is regulated by the Suprachiasmatic Nu-

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In the same way that we would not tell a person with a broken arm to just “get over it,” we have to stop treating addiction as something that people have total control over, and start treating it like the disease that it is.

cleus, a region known as the pacemaker of the brain, and the molecular clock, which is a loop of genes that fluctuates rhythmically throughout the day. Researchers have identified many of the genes that are involved in the process, such as the Period gene, the gene my research was focused on this summer. The Period gene is known to be closely involved in the regulation of daily rhythms and the expression of the gene actually changes throughout the day. The reason that this gene is so interesting is that small changes in this gene have been linked to alcohol use disorders, which made it the perfect target for my lab.

The main finding of our research was that bingelike drinking actually impacts the expression of the Period gene. Usually, the expression of the gene creates a wave that varies over time, with peak expression at certain times of the day.

When mice were exposed to 8 weeks of bingelike drinking, however, the amplitude of the sine wave decreased, indicating that the rhythmic expression was reduced. These changes in gene expression were found both in the Nucleus Accumbens, a region important for stress and reward, and the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus.

This research indicates that binge-like drinking influences expression of genes intimately involved

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in the molecular clock. More research still needs to be done, however, into whether reduced gene expression is a result of alcohol use disorders, or whether reduced levels might be a risk factor for the development of alcohol use disorder. The rhythmic expression of circadian genes controls how excitable cells in the brain are, thus, disruption of these rhythms changes the effect of drugs on the brain. Currently, the Ozburn Lab is testing treatments to “normalize” the molecular clock or bring back up levels of gene expression to see if this reduces drinking tendencies.

This genetic identification can allow for new and more effective drugs to be developed to treat addiction. There are several drugs on the market right now, but most have a success rate of around only 30%. Additionally, most of the biological mechanisms that act through these drugs are not even fully understood yet. This type of research into the genetic origins of addiction is vital for developing drugs that can target and treat addiction, as well as creating better prevention methods. As we discover more about the brain, we will also be able to understand how to make medicine more efficient and effective, rather than believing that mental willpower alone is the answer to overcoming addiction.

Piecing Myself Together Eugene Kim | Digital Painting

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Above: “Lab Rat” by Eugene Kim, Digital Painting

The Emotions of Mice & Men What mice can teach us about cognitive stimulation Glenda Smerin What makes a human being? This question, which has been asked since the beginning of history, takes on a different interpretation when applied to translational research. Scientists use animals, from apes to zebrafish, as models for the human body. This practice, which extends back to the ancient Greeks, changes the question from “What makes a human being?” to “What are the core necessities for being human-like?” Up until recently, the criteria for being sufficiently human-like has been solely physiological. What type of cells, tissues, and organs an animal had was enough to determine its ability to serve as a human model. As a result, elements such as socialization, happiness, and cognitive stimulation often went overlooked. For many scientists, the cost to outfit a mouse cage with exercise equipment, mazes, and ample living space outweighed the undervalued benefit. By the 1960’s, cages had

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become essentially “furry test tubes” that provided the bare minimum to keep a mouse alive.

This standard continued until recently, when a group of scientists, including Stanford’s Joseph Garner, have called for a reevaluation. Citing the fact that only one in nine successful drugs from animal tests work in human clinical trials, Garner argues that enrichment of the animals’ lives holds the key for better human models.

As the professor of comparative medicine explained in an interview with Science Magazine “If we want animals to tell us [what’s] going to happen in people, we need to treat them more like people”. Although some scientists have called the initiative cost prohibitive with the current funding climate and not easily replicable, a few studies have already shown the benefits of providing a more livable environment. A 2004 paper studied different genetic

The impact of living an enriched life seems to reach all aspects of the human experience, both in the mental realm and the physical.

and environmental factors in the development of Huntington’s disease. They found that mice provided with “environmental enrichment” were much slower than the control mice to develop symptoms of Huntington’s disease, a disease that had previously been considered completely genetic. Another study exposed mice to a “Disneyland for Mice,” a one square meter area which consisted of mazes, running wheels, and multicolored igloos. This study found that stimulated mice developed tumors that were 80% smaller than the control mice. Other similar studies have also found a possible link between the enriched environments and both the similarity to humans and the overall well-being of the mice.

With the growing evidence of the need for lab animals to have more of a social and cognitive life in order to better model humans, a new question emerges. What does this evidence say about the nature of human beings? Scientists and medical practitioners have long agreed on the positive effects of socialization and intellectual stimulation on mental health. Do these effects also extend to physical health? Can these elements of our environment be just as integral to being “human” as having a functional respiratory or endocrine system? Widespread studies from many different disciplines have found a common link between enriched lives, both socially and mentally, and overall health. From cardiovascular health to dental health, social life and stimulation have been found to have far-reaching effects.

There have even been scientific papers showing a direct correlation between social isolation and increased mortality. The impact of living an enriched life seems to reach all aspects of the human experience, both in the mental realm and the physical.

As more studies emerge on the physiological benefits of these intangible parts of our lives, the upshot can seem somewhat ambiguous. For college students, there is a pressure to take advantage of every possible opportunity. Similar to how the mazes and running wheels of the mice, club activities and volunteering may act as a means for “enrichment” (and a way to pad a resume). However, while the parallel between the mouse cage and the college campus might seem attractive, an important element is missing.

Stress. Through the pursuit of enriching activities, a student often also takes on stress due to those same activities. One would not think that a mouse stays up at night, worrying if the number of hours it has spent in the maze is enough. In fact, stress may undo the very effects the activities may have promoted. The effects of constant stress on college student life mirrors the effects of social isolation and a lack of mental stimulation seen in the elderly. Achieving a balance helps reduce stress and its negative implications. d

Further reading: 1.

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Cacioppo, John T. et al. “The Neuroendocrinology of Social Isolation.”Annual review of psychology 66 (2015): 733–767.PMC. Web. 13 Feb. 2018.

Cao, Lei et al. “Environmental and Genetic Activation of a Brain-Adipocyte BDNF/leptin Axis Causes Cancer Remission and Inhibition.” Cell 142.1 (2010): 52–64.PMC. Web. 13 Feb. 2018.

Fontanini H, Marshman Z, Vettore M.Social support and social network as intermediary social determinants of dental caries in adolescents.

Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 2015;43:172–182. (2014) John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Grimm, David. “The Happiness Project.” Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 9 Feb. 2018, science.sciencemag.org/ content/359/6376/624.full.

Petersen, Johanna et al. “Longitudinal Relationship Between Loneliness and Social Isolation in Older Adults: Results From the Cardiovascular Health Study.” Journal of Aging and Health 28.5 (2016): 775– 795.PMC. Web. 13 Feb. 2018.

Sandi, Carmen, and József Haller. “Stress and the Social Brain: Behavioural Effects and Neurobiological Mechanisms.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 20 Apr. 2015, www.nature.com/articles/ nrn3918#glossary. van Dellen, A. & Hannan, A.J. Neurogenetics (2004) 5: 9. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10048-003-0169-5

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Glitter Jars Mindfulness in Times of Distress

Above: Students listen to Kramer-Lange’s stories about patients she’s interacted with who have used glitter jars before operations.

Isabela Bumanlag

and an assortment of glitter were transformed into colorful and bright jars that kids could shake.

How do these glitter jars help stressed-out kids and stressed-out Stanford students?

“So...who’s ever been stressed at Stanford?”

The Science of Mindfulness

I half-jokingly asked this question to a group of undergrads, PhD students, and faculty on a rainy Thursday night. It was the middle of the quarter, right before the dreaded “midterm season.” With upcoming deadlines for projects and tests, while balancing extracurriculars and friendships, students can feel overwhelmed by all of their commitments.

Stress is how we feel and consequently how our bodies react when we are fearful or anxious. Stress is healthy, but too much stress for a prolonged period of time is harmful. Physical symptoms of chronic stress include headaches, fatigue, and chest pain. The theory of mindfulness, from the realm of positive psychology, can help counteract the adverse effects of stress. In her famous book Mindfulness, Harvard professor Ellen Langer explains that practicing mindfulness “lets us see things in a new light and believe in the possibility of change.” Mindfulness occurs when we pay attention to what is happening in the here and now. We observe our emotions, our thoughts, our surroundings, in an even-minded way.

Twenty-five people attended an interfaith event that benefitted transplant patients at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Co-hosted by the Catholic Community at Stanford (CC@S), the Muslim Student Union, and the Jewish Student Association, this event gave space and time for students relax and make crafts, while appreciating that the practice of mindfulness exists in various faith traditions. Tiny mason jars, hot water,

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So...where do glitter jars come in?

For patients, especially children, glitter jar making or shaking is very therapeutic.

One shakes the glitter jar to represent current feelings of stress and anxiety.

One takes a deep, long breath as the glitter slowly settles to the bottom of the jar.

These steps help the patient visualize their own process of reaching mindfulness.

Above: A diagram of the brain’s emotion regulation system.

The Science of Stress An impulsive reaction (i.e. fear or anger) comes from the amygdala and hippocampus, two tiny structures in the brain’s limbic system. If one can delay this reactivity, the prefrontal cortex can respond, allowing both children and adults to regulate their emotions.

Glitter jars are used to represent our state of mind, sometimes calm, sometimes stressed out.

All the pieces of glitter symbolize the roughly 2000 bits of information our Reticular Activating System takes in each second. When the mind is calm and clear, like an unshaken glitter ball, information is able to pass successfully to the other parts of the brain. For example, if we need to store memories or pay attention, or solve complex problems, we can do this with ease. In contrast, when the mind is anxious or in a state of stress, the mind becomes just like the shaken glitter jar, cloudy and unfocused, information swirls around.

...practicing mindfulness “lets us see things in a new light and believe in the possibility of change.”

The Glitter Jar Impact Nicole Kramer-Lange, a Ph.D. student in Stanford’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department, gave a talk about the importance of these tiny jars during the event.

Kramer is currently training in pediatric psychology at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Her job involves helping kids and families awaiting for or coping with solid organ transplants (getting a new heart, kidney, liver, or lung) and providing psychological consultation with their transplant medical teams.

Lange is researching how uncertainty affects the bodies and minds of families coping with serious illness through the Prevention & Intervention Lab at the Stanford School of Medicine.. Lange is passionate about equipping kids with tools to manage the worries that further stress their bodies and minds—and glitter jars help with that everyday.

As students, mindfulness can be difficult to practice at all times. There are many initiatives on campus, such as the annual Wellness Week, courses on wellbeing, mental health counseling centers, etc., that emphasize the need to destress. Most students, at one point or another, have been stressed, but as Professor Langer says, “to be mindful is to be in the present, noticing all the wonders that we didn’t realize were right in front of us.”

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The Art of K. Euan Yang Mel Guo What are your thoughts on the intersection of art and science?

What I found is that, through my art, I was able to bridge two schools of thought. People who were interested in biology came through and gained a deeper appreciation of the art, and people who were interested in art gained an appreciation for science. I just thought that was the coolest thing.

I am still trying to find a balance between art and science that isn’t just using science for art. I want it to hold up as strongly as an artistic object with its own mystery and its own interest. And I want to bridge that with a very scientifically rigorous process. To be able to convey that intersection in a way that does not alienate either camp is kind of difficult thing. And I still am trying to deal with it.

What is your take on how your work can be a reflection on the relationship between the mind and body?

We’re so intimately dependent on bacteria, and the way that these beings inside of us exist can determine our health and hence our mind. You hear so much about the gut microbiome nowadays — people are beginning to pay more attention to eating fermented foods and it’s completely reasonable - fermentation is one of our most ancient and anthropologically important processes that has allowed us harness bacterial pre-digestion to gather nutrients from from vegetation and meats.

I haven’t really written this down to vocalize this yet - but this series of work is to express our very intimate connection and dependence on bacteria and other life forms to survive essentially.

And to be cognizant of this is to be cognizant of humanistic hubris in a way — how we depend on these tiny things. And how they could f**k us up if we f**k with it. If you don’t acknowledge the importance of bacteria then you are endangering yourself.

Check out Euan’s student organization, Artx, at artx.stanford.edu Left: “My Mother’s Microbiome Transfer” P. Phosphoreum, a bioluminescent bacteria, pipetted into 24 96 well experimental plates with agar medium chemically and nutritionally matched to the inside of a fish’s gut. Made from a picture of Euan’s mother’s thumbprint.

In collaboration with Dr. Siouxsie Wiles at Superbugs Lab at the University of Auckland.

K. Euan Yang: This happens to be a picture of my mum’s fingerprint. I call this one “my mother’s microbiome transfer” because the first introduction of bacteria into a baby’s gut is through a mother, and that that has its own characteristics.

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Above:“Touch/Transfer” P. Phosphoreum, a bioluminescent bacteria, sprayed and incubated on agar medium chemically and nutritionally matched to the inside of a fish’s gut to moulds of Euan’s hands. In collaboration with Dr. Siouxsie Wiles at Superbugs Lab at the University of Auckland.

K. Euan Yang: The kind of medium that I used was chemically and nutritionally matched to the inside of a deep sea fish’s gut, where the bacteria are naturally found. It was isolated and grown by Dr. Siouxsie Wiles when she went to a supermarket and then swabbed the inside of the fish’s guts.

Wiles put up a call for artists on her science blog to use glowing bacteria to create art for her Biolumination 2 project for the Auckland Art Festival in 2015.

She was organising an exhibition of glowing art in the basement of the central city, just a two minutes’ walk from my high school, which was very exciting because I, as a high school student and emerging artist at the time, was able to very easily find a means express my creativity with amazing media.

Last summer I went back to New Zealand and underwent a two-week microbiology graduate-level training program. Through that, I could understand the actuality of working with living creatures to make art. It was super exciting.

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The Reflection Soraya Fereydooni | Photography To be displayed at Li Ka Shing Center with other pieces as “Humans of the Operating Room” “The sink time to scrub is sanctified. This is where I take the time to reflect about the patient and rehearse all steps of the surgery safety before we begin and is why there is not much chit chat at the sink. As the commander and captain of the ship, you are orchestrating and preparing for what is going to happen next.” -Dr. Gerald Grant, M.D.

HEALTH

Compassionate Use An Analysis of the Ethical Frameworks of Expanded Access Programs Kim Ngo In March 2014, seven-year-old Josh Hardy caught a life-threatening adenovirus infection following a bone marrow transplant. With no treatment options available, Josh was left battling organ failure in the intensive care unit.

Fortunately, his physicians and family discovered an experimental drug, Brincidofovir, that had previously shown positive results in clinical safety and efficacy testing. They immediately requested expanded access from Brincidofovir’s manufacturing company, Chimerix.

Expanded Access Programs (EAPs) allow severely ill patients with no alternative treatment options immediate access to FDA-unapproved investigational new drugs (INDs) outside of clinical trials.

Also referred to as compassionate use, EAPs are meant to create fair medical access for those in extreme need of the treatment. Unfortunately, due to inconsistent application and variations in modern interpretation of medical responsibility, EAPs fail to embody fairness, resulting in ethical inefficiencies in its implementation.

In Hardy’s case, his initial requests for admission into Chimerix’s EAP for Brincidofovir were persistently rejected. Chimerix explained that it must devote full resources toward completing its ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial. However, undeterred, Hardy’s family launched a Facebook page and Twitter site for a national #SaveJosh campaign that rose to gain over one million views.

The campaign was a national success. People, including politicians and other prominent community members, rushed to contact Chimerix

management through phone calls, emails, pleads, and death threats. Local and national TV networks began widespread coverage of #SaveJosh.

Under escalating public pressure, Chimerix rearranged its stance and created a pilot trial available to Josh and 19 other patients.

Hardy’s story highlights a critical ethical issue: compassionate use is, in theory, centered on the prioritization of the terminally ill. How compassionate was Chimerix in its final decision regarding Hardy, considering its refusal of many other patients who had made the same request prior to Hardy, except without the success of a social media campaign? Was biased compassion responsible for Josh Hardy’s treatment?

In practice, EAPs are not applied towards the direly ill. Instead, they are exploited by the most vocal, or in our age, the most skilled at manipulating social media. As stated by Dr. Craig Klugman, “The individual who has the education, access, and money to go through the application process, to put together and sustain a social media campaign, to get elected officials and celebrities advocating on the patient’s behalf, and to afford the drug and cost of treatment means that those of higher socioeconomic status are more likely to benefit. A person who lacks means, technology, or influence is far less likely to be able to benefit from compassionate use.”

Furthermore, can compassionate care further perpetuate health disparities through enforcement of negative stereotypes or prejudice? It remains largely undisputed that racism should not influence medical decisions, but medical de-

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cisions that are deeply questionable as having been made by such prejudices have been evident and present an ethical dilemma.

During the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, two infected, white American health care workers volunteering for the Ebola crisis were airlifted out of Liberia and given a highly experimental treatment, whereas hundreds of African citizens and doctors with Ebola who were also infected were not offered such options. The organization the aid workers were employed by had directly requested ZMapp, the company developing the experimental Ebola drug. Liberia and Nigeria had also inquired ZMapp for the IND yet were not granted approval.

The ethical quandary and practical considerations of ZMapp remain to this day: who, if anybody, should have received the treatment? And, when, if ever, does nationality deserve to play such a huge role in forming the ethical reasoning and ultimate decision of healthcare allocation?

A system of evaluations should have been in place to ensure the prevention of biased prioritization within health care so that it was not compassionate care for only some socially reputable individual, such as a select few Americans, but for all members of a society for a true practice of global and public health.

Henceforth why I can’t conceive of a valid reason why medical exceptions are not made more consistently. There should be a standard of evaluation for petitions to EAPs that require both the FDA and involved treatment provider to limit bias and favoritisms. Compassionate care requirements should have a degree of anonymization to prevent such influences. For example, all personal information aside the patient’s pertinent and

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relevant medical information would be removed electronically by software upon an electronic submission of the request form by the physician. Information that would be excluded on the forms would include name, nationality, hospital name, and all other factors inconsequential to the patient’s medical condition. Then, those with similarly severe medical conditions would have equal opportunity for EAPs, and not just those who were born into a certain country, armed a large enough fan base on Twitter, or with the most active television campaigns.

The extent to which social influence and other factors external to the severity of the patient’s illness play a role in defining medical compassion is extremely dangerous. With greater inclusion of social media and social influence in determining who is allowed EAP, healthcare becomes dictated by the exploitive hands of media and vulnerable to political and legal influences as well, leading to greater health care disparities.

Physicians, public officials, patient advocacy groups, institutional review boards, patients, and medical committees discuss EAPs with at times increasingly divergent opinions, yet all within the immense influence of health care must address the significance and application of the current mode of the meaning of compassionate health care. The consequences to leaving EAPs as they are would be a continuation of unethical and emotionally-driven irrationality with health care systems providing low-quality care and medicine to one community while allowing expanded medical access to a select few. Instead of allowing media-fueled demands of compassion to define the actions of medical professionals, the health care community must reason and consider that compassionate without equity and justice is not an act of compassion at all.

Innovation Chloe Barreau | Pen on Paper

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MIT’s Origami Bots and the Promise of Nanotechnology Using groundbreaking nanotechnology to revolutionize healthcare Kendall Costello The pain had started two weeks before. The stomach-jarring, nausea-inducing agony. The never-ending waves of abdominal contractions.

My stomach seemed to be at war with itself, a war that left me doubled over, gasping for breath. The events which followed are a blur: the trip to the hospital, the thirty-six hour fast, the ultrasound which finally led to a diagnosis: appendicitis.

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Surgery immediately ensued. Afterwards, I remembered looking at my scar, an inch-wide purple dagger slashed across my lower right abdomen. As an eight-year-old, I thought it was pretty large and cool-looking, something I could show off to my fellow peers to prove how tough I was.

Fast-forward five years. As a teenager, I remember gazing in awe at my friend’s stomach - she had just gotten back from her appendectomy.

Opposite: MIT’s newly designed capsule (left) and unfolded origami device (right) Miraculously, there was only one tiny incision point inside her belly button. I remember thinking: if an inch-wide scar could be reduced to a mere incision point in five years, what else could medical innovation uncover? Could invasive surgery become completely unnecessary?

thetic compounds. Indeed, he even suggested how these developments could drive technological innovation, such as the design of denser computer circuitry boards or more powerful microscopes. He even hypothesized that one day people would be “swallowing the doctor,” a reference to the future of noninvasive surgery with surgical nanorobots.

And indeed, that time has come.

This past spring, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the University of Sheffield designed a miniature ingestible robot that unfolds inside a patient to act as a micro-surgeon, performing rudimentary non-invasive operating procedures. The origami robot, which is made out of a durable, dry, pig-intestine-derived material, is wrapped into a dissolvable pill capsule and uses external magnetic fields to steer itself along the stomach wall, performing programmed operations such as stitching up internal wounds, delivering medicine, or removing accidentally swallowed objects.

While it may seem revolutionary, the concept of an ingestible origami surgical robot actually builds upon decades of academic work from Daniela Rus, a Professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and an even longer history in the field of nanotechnology, whereby nanosurgical robots were an idealized fantasy for the forefathers of the field. To better understand the magnitude of such an invention, it is best to go back to when the concept was initially proposed.

A Brief History of Nanotechnology Most people believe the field of nanotechnology came to fruition with Richard Feynman’s 1959 famous lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” at the California Institute of Technology during the American Physical Society’s annual meeting. In the speech, Feynman suggested a new way to manipulate atoms and engineer syn-

Above: California Institute of Technology Professor Richard Feynman, the father of nanotechnology.

Feynman’s speech went largely unnoticed until the 1990’s, when it was rediscovered and used to popularize the field of nanotechnology. With its growing popularity, the speech influenced other bright thinkers of the time to consider a new world involving nanoparticles and their constructive might. Kim Eric Drexler for instance, published his 1986 novel Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology which theorized the ability for artificial machines to selfreplicate via computer control. Additionally, since these machines would be programmable, Drexler envisioned a future where billions of these nanofactories could effectively allow the Library of Congress to fit on a sugar-cube sized chip.

With the publication of Drexler’s book, the previously esoteric field of nanotechnology was finally open to the general population. However, not everyone was pleased with the perilous ramifi-

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Right: A machine made with DNA “origami� developed at Ohio State University.

cations of such developments, particularly considering that what man designs could potentially turn on the rest of society. Such a hypothetical scenario was proposed in Michael Crichton’s bestseller novel, Prey, which warns against the dangers of algorithmic swarms of self-sustaining malignant nanoparticles.

What Nanotech Looks Like Today For starters, nanotechnology is the science of engineering at the nanometer level, the scale at which it is practical to manipulate individual atoms. One of the recent developments of nanotechnology involves the creation of nanorobots.

Because these machines operate at an atomic level, they must take into account different physical forces which are usually negligible at the macroscopic scale, such as electromagnetic interactions between subatomic particles.

Recent inventions reflect just how versatile the field of nanotechnology is. From ant-like automatons with organizational capabilities to bacteriapowered robots with navigational apparatus, nanotech has come a long way since its inception. One notable development is the formation of three-dimensional nanomachines from DNA, which was accomplished at Ohio State University. This creation of DNA origami resulted from the combined manipulation of natural and synthetic DNA molecules. By alternating singlestranded DNA, which provided more flexibility, with double-stranded DNA, which allowed for more stability, scientists could assemble rudimentary 3D origami machines capable of biomarker detection.

Another notable development was the use of magnetism to generate nanomachine movement, which was accomplished by a group of

Left: Sperm-inspired nanobots controlled through electromagnetic oscillations.

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Right: MIT’s initial origami prototype, developed in 2015. researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and the German University in Cairo.

Inspired by the movement of sperm, scientists designed a 332 micron-long flagellated robot which, when subjected to an oscillating electromagnetic field the strength of a refrigerator magnet, produces a magnetic torque which causes its flagellum to oscillate as well. These micro-robotic movements could then be steered towards a certain destination by subsequent manipulations of nearby magnetic field lines.

Together, these prior experiments with DNA origami and sperm-inspired locomotion laid the stage for MIT’s recently-developed ingestible robot. At the 2015 International Conference on Robotics and Automation, MIT researchers proposed its initial prototype, whose minimalistic design consisted of a small magnet affixed to a flat plastic sheet. The sheet, when heated, could expand into its specified three-dimensional insect-like shape and then move in accordance with the external magnetic field in a “stick-slip” manner. In other words, its appendages could stick to nearby surfaces with the aid of friction and then unstick, or slip free, to allow the prototype to maneuver through its environment.

Such mechanisms influenced the development of its successor. As stick-slip can only work when the robots are extremely stiff, the researchers compensated for the new bio-material’s increased flexibility by including fewer slits in the design. Furthermore, because of the fluid-like

environment of the stomach, MIT researchers included a fin on the robot to help it propel itself forward. At the center of the robot is the magnet that interacts with the changing electromagnetic fields to produce movement. This movement is caused by quick and long rotations, depending on whether the nanorobot is spinning in place or pivoting around one appendage.

One practical - though likely unexpected - application for the origami robot is to remove batteries people accidentally swallow. Each year, more than 2,000 people accidentally swallow a button battery, which can sometimes induce an electric current that burns surrounding tissue. As Bradley Nelson, a professor of robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, mentioned regarding the idea of origami robots, “this concept is both highly creative and highly practical, and it addresses a clinical need in an elegant way.”

This elegant treatment is a first step in the space of non-invasive surgery as it introduces a foreign, operable tool into the human body in order to resolve a medical complication for the patient. Furthermore, one can even imagine a future where this technology will apply to scenarios as varied as recovering swallowed batteries to stitching up internal surgical wounds and delivering medicine to particular parts of the body. The future of ingestible robot pills could eventually even include the promise of non-invasive appendectomies, a prospect which would have astounded my eightyear-old self.

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INNOVATION Left: Professor Lin was selected as one of 12 recipients of 2013’s NIH Pioneer Award, a $2.5 million award for high-risk high-impact research.

Image courtesy of Michael Lin. Q: What about scientific research appealed to you and what influenced your decisions to become a doctor?

How to Cure Cancer An Interview with Professor Michael Lin Ariana Barreau Biochemist and neurobiologist Michael Lin is developing smart biological therapies that may finally provide the “magic bullet” for cancer. Born in Taiwan and raised in the United States, Lin spent most of his life in San Diego before attending college at Harvard and medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since being appointed an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and Neurobiology at Stanford in 2009, Lin has initiated research projects in protein engineering and neuroplasticity. One of his goals is to create tailor-made viruses that can target cancer cells within the body, providing an alternative to treatments that mercilessly kills healthy cells as well as cancerous tumors (eg. chemotherapy).

He sat down with Probe Magazine to discuss his dreams and current research projects, and give a few words of advice to STEM students.

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I have been interested in technology and science from a very young age. I guess I never loss my childish curiosity to discover how the world works and make the world a better place. During my high school AP Biology class, I remember writing an essay about making an artificial eye that had photodetectors hooked up to wires in the brain, which could help restore vision in blind people. I even imagined it to not be attached to the head but allow it to “see” around corners.

So I have always been interesting in technological applications, particularly those that improve our health. When writing this AP Biology essay, I never thought I would see this technology in my lifetime, but retinal transplants have been invented and are being used to treat blindness (the see-around-corners feature has yet to be developed). I have been fortunate that technology has developed so quickly that the dreams from a couple of decades ago are now becoming a reality.

I have always wanted to do scientific research, and the academic environment appealed to me for its freedom – as long as you can justify what you are doing and get funding for it, you can do whatever you are interested in. Medical school

We are trying to use synthetic biology to make responses that are truly specific to cancer cells.

gave me experience with treating and diagnosing disease, and I gained exposure to clinical problems that could use laboratory based solutions.

After medical school, I did not want to wait after residency and internship (would have had to wait another four years) before getting back to research.

It is a difficult organ to understand. In order to start understanding it, you need to develop and use all sorts of technological tools. An amateur scientist can create cogent theories but the hard part is understanding functions at the cellular level. So it is a very interesting topic, both from a humanistic and technological point of view.

Q: What has motivated you to do bioengineering and neurobiology research?

It is harder to create treatments for the brain compared to other organs, because drugs don’t enter the brain very well and it’s hard to do gene therapy, as we don’t have good anatomical access to brain structures. The amount of funding we have spent on brain research up to date is still only a small fraction compared to the amount spent researching cancer and cardiovascular disease. Basic [background] research can take forever, but there are many cases where technological discoveries lead to faster discoveries and therefore faster medical advancements.

Biology has always been my favorite topic. Some people believe biology is just a random collection of facts, but if you are truly interested in learning how nature works, then every fact fits into a bigger understanding of how physical and chemical mechanisms underlie natural functions. I have been particularly interested in how proteins do most of the work in our bodies. Proteins are like little molecular machines, so if you are interested in machinery and biology, you end up naturally converging on proteins as an interesting research topic.

Neuroscience is interesting to many biologists for similar reasons. Think of the brain as a computational machine - it is incredibly complicated!

Q: Could you tell us a little more about your current research?

My laboratory is working on protein engineering and the development of new ways to investigate biology, with applications primarily in the

Below: Professor Lin’s laboratory at the Stanford School of Medicine. Image courtesy of Lin Lab.

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neurosciences. We also use synthetic proteins to develop artificial signaling pathways that can be used as biological therapeutics to treat cancer. Our research is motivated by the conviction that we cannot just treat and cure cancer by only somewhat differentiating cancer cells from normal cells and targeting signaling pathways present in every cell. Except for some pediatric cancers, we cannot poison the body and completely eliminate cancer. In adults, cancer always finds a way to mutate and metastasize.

Since cancer is a genetic disease, what we really want is a therapy that is specific to the mutations driving cancer. Our laboratory has been developing a method for activating a designed signaling pathway based on whether or not a cell has a particular cancer mutation. The hope is that if we can achieve high specificity and sensitivity with these artificial signaling modules, then we can link them up to whatever therapeutic effect you want - whether it is by killing a cell or driving replication of a virus to kill the cancer cells. So we want to create a smart cancer therapy that can provide long-term solutions.

Q: Many scientific authors have described cancer as an evolving goliath. Do you believe there is a “magic bullet” for cancer?

I think a cure can be developed. We can create therapies that can target any known pathway defect in a cell, which will have a finite number of defects to target. We would create a collection of viruses that can enter and only kill a cell that has this pathway defect, giving us many of these “magic bullets”. Therefore, the treatment my laboratory is developing is a different paradigm from typical cancer treatments like chemo-

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therapy, which are targeting things that cancer cells might use more than other cells but are still present in normal cells. We are trying to use synthetic biology to make responses that are truly specific to cancer cells. We are working on our first pathway - I guess we are not too close to finding the cure for all cancers, but we hope that once we successfully target one defected pathway, it will be easier to construct the treatments for other pathways.

Q: Do you have any advice for students interested in the sciences?

Get involved in research early if you interested in science or in medicine! However, it is not just about working in a lab - you only get as much from the experience as the energy and time you put in. Doing something as menial as a western blot can be very difficult at first, but it is worth spending the time to master these types of laboratory skills. You want to get to the point where you are technically fast at things. Once you lower the barrier to getting an experiment completed, the faster you get your results and the more things you can test. At least in biological engineering, even with the best ideas, you cannot always predict how things are going to work, so you need time to try a lot of different approaches.

Also, it is important to master the fundamental knowledge taught in science courses. Creativity without knowledge can be very unproductive, which means it is important to stay curious and open minded about the information you learn.

There is no substitute for going out there and trying things and truly understanding what you are doing in classes and laboratories.

Acting with Authenticity Insights at the Spring BMES Industry Panel Amelia Traylor & Alex Maben At the end of the BMES (Stanford Biomedical Engineering Society) Spring Industry Panel, Dr. Eric Schuur told me, “You get a head-start hearing these things when you are young.” Indeed, over the past hour—a discussion panel organized

by BMES Industry Vice President Alex Maben and BMES Industry Officer Amelia Traylor—three speakers from biotechnological and biocomputational companies voiced insights on essential undergraduate skills, post-undergrad education, and workplace culture.

Above: BMES Spring Industry Panel. Image courtesy of Alex Maben.

Dr. Cameron Sepah, who describes himself as a reluctant techie who saw that computation was becoming essential to healthcare, has just launched his start-up Ketosystem, an interface that helps people comply with low-carb, highfat diets to reduce blood sugar and lose weight.

He draws upon his diverse background as a psychologist, clinical professor, founding member of Omada Health, and venture capital advisor. Dr. Eric Schuur is the president and CEO of Hepatx, a 2016 StartX company which develops efficient hepatocyte production technologies to treat end-stage liver disease; this project integrates Schuur’s 25 years of experience as a scientific researcher (at UCLA, Stanford, and the Scripps Institute), associate director of clinical affairs at Asthmatx, owner of GeneSource, and director of Molecular Biology at Calydon. Finally, Ms. Lisa Herta is a software engineer for Fabric Genom-

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ics who builds clinical tools for analyzing wide ranges of datasets including Whole Human, Whole Exome, and RNA Sequencing.

“Don’t pursue additional education mindlessly. Only go into it if you know what you are looking for.”

Our first discussion topic focused on the skills, both academic and non-academic, that undergraduates should develop to prepare for a career in biotechnology or biocomputation. Herta emphasized getting comfortable with group-work: Taking advantage of a diverse array of background skills. She also remarked that your studies should be fueled by an inner motivational force—for her, this was improving clinical patient experiences. Schuur concurred, commenting, “If you like what you’re doing, work is never work.”

While he acknowledged that sometimes you may not be happy with your position, take advantage of the opportunities outside of the classroom or office. Lab skills can be physically gained or in-

directly taught. However, communication skills—a key asset in any company—are best developed through efforts external to the lecture hall: Explore something at Stan- ford that you wouldn’t otherwise experience. In the same vein, Sepah advised getting outside the “Stanford Bubble” to gain experience in the working world and reaching beyond your major. Most importantly, though, Sepah emphasized the power of networking: Don’t be afraid to cold-call professionals for advice or ask to shadow them for a day.

Stemming from their insights on networking and industry, we asked about their opinions on post-undergraduate education. As a bit of background, Sepah and Schuur pursued Ph.D.s, while Herta went straight into industry. Interestingly enough, though, all three shared a common message: “Don’t pursue additional education mindlessly. Only go into it if you know what you are

Below: Panelists at the BMES Spring Industry Panel. Image courtesy of Alex Maben.

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looking for.” Sepah found that unless you want to become a professor or are entering a field where the corporate culture truly expects a Ph.D., the opportunity and monetary costs associated with a doctoral degree isn’t worth it. He mentioned that the worst mistake is to continue in education because you are good at “being a student,” you believe it’s the “right path,” or you want to delay entering the workforce. Sepah said he would have been fine without his PhD. Herta and Schuur agreed. Herta, in particular, chose to enter industry right after college and has no regrets—she found that the working experience, more than any class lecture or internship stint, allowed her to fluidically redefine what she valued in her career.

Finally, since all three shared an entrepreneurial sprit, we were curious to hear their opinions on the workplace culture of start-up and established companies. Sepah recommended sticking with the two extremes: Start your own company with true entrepreneurial gusto (and develop management skills) or start in a bigger company (with great training programs and technological resources). A good plan, he reflected, would be to start at a large corporation, build a solid network, then found a start-up. Sepah warned that mindlessly becoming an employee at a startup straight from college is a high-risk, unstable situation, unless you are mainly looking for an internship to learn more about the start-up experience. Schuur agreed that the middle road is a tough one, but believes that if you’re open-minded, anything is possible: While he cautioned that the start-up life is not for the faint-of-heart, he always personally enjoyed the close-knit atmosphere of a small company. Herta had a slightly diverging opinion—the middle road is not always so bad. Having worked at a large corporation with 10,000+ employees and a smaller start-up project, she preferred the latter: At a well-func-

tioning start-up, there is a familial atmosphere, a clear direction for big projects, and a high respect for individual ideas.

With a few minutes left, each speaker gave some closing remarks. Sepah concluded with the adage, “People in our generation will have five careers,” and remarked that he’s only on his second or third. Doing something different can be painful and can feel like you’re letting people down, but if you have a firm vision, pursue your passions.

Stanford is wonderful for fostering personal values, principles, and curiosities that guide your future. Find a mentor or friend, listen to your intuition, and lead with a brainy heart. Schuur used a comical cell-phone analogy: People have an entire bucket of cell phones to choose from, and sometimes, they select a cell phone that’s not you. Don’t fret. Another buyer will come.

Stretch yourself and don’t be afraid to fail. Facing personal fears, going through the frustration of job-hunts or start-up difficulties, and experiencing disappointments are much more valuable experiences than any financial rewards. Herta reemphasized knowing yourself well and recognizing when you need a big change: If your current career feels stagnated, make a plan for the next step, and make it a reality.

At the BMES Spring Industry Panel—held May 30th, 2017 in an Old Union meeting room filled with Asian Box tacos, inquisitive students, and insightful company representatives—visions on personal skills, college education, and workplace culture flowed harmoniously. The message was clear: Stanford provides a place to explore. Utilize it. Network. Connect with industries. Build personal relationships. Discover passions. Develop principles and values. Experience failure.

Build resilience. Be open-minded about careers.

Act purposefully. Act personally. Act authentically.

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INNOVATION Left: Dr. Rhiju Das. Image copyright belongs to Stanford University School of Medicine Q: What inspired you to become a researcher?

Was there any childhood event that sparked this interest?

Thinking far back, I remember I used to like doing jigsaw puzzles. I knew I wanted to be someone who solved puzzles when I grew up. At first, I thought math might be the best choice, so in high school I planned on being a mathematician.

But then I realized that I enjoyed experiments, so I got involved with physics. If you want to solve puzzles every day, then you should become a scientist.

Q: How would you describe your research?

Puzzles & RNA An Interview with Dr. Rhiju Das Fan Liu About the Researcher: Dr. Rhiju Das (Ph.D., ‘05) is currently an Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Stanford University.

At Stanford University School of Medicine, he leads a research lab that combines biochemical and computational perspectives to elucidate the elusive nature of RNA. He is also involved with the creation of EteRNA, an online video game that uses crowdsourcing and collective intelligence to probe players who uncover the mechanisms of RNA folding machinery.

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In a computer, I try to simulate the behavior of a molecule called RNA, an ancient oddball cousin of DNA. It plays a key role in every process in life and nearly every disease. Half of my time, I learn about viral RNA diseases. I try to understand how RNA folds up in intricate RNA structures; this is called the RNA folding problem. In the other half of my time, I’m involved with creating new therapeutics with RNA products. This idea of creating new RNA molecules is called RNA design or RNA biomachinery. At its heart, if you want to fold a new molecule, you have to design a new molecule from scratch, so you have to get involved with computational models. It’s mostly computational prediction and design.

Q: How has EteRNA bridged scientific discovery and video games?

It’s an exciting area in our lab. We’re experts in our fields, but for a lot of problems we are trying to solve on RNA folding we haven’t been able to figure out a solution. A few years back, I teamed up with a computer scientist and we created an online-scale video game to solve these problems called EteRNA (pronounced “eterna”). In EteRNA, we provide a hypothetical RNA shape as a puzzle

that the players can see and fold. Then, we take the top shapes and in the lab we check to see if it folds up in the way they design.

EteRNA is the first project that has crowdsourced the entire scientific method. We test hypotheses as lab experiments, then go back to the video gamers and ask them to improve their design and solve harder problems. Surprisingly, this player community has repeatedly outperformed scientific experts and the computer.

Q: Interesting! How has EteRNA democratized the scientific method, especially for people who don’t have access to a scientific degree or lab space?

of the players realized something counter-intuitive; they found it was harder to find sequences for symmetric structures. They demonstrated that through a sequence of challenges they gave themselves and to computers. These findings showed that symmetry, although visually appealing to a human, is something you don’t want to have in your design. This arose out of veteran players trying to teach new players concepts and ideas.

Surprisingly, this player community has repeatedly outperformed scientific experts and the computer.

Two or three years ago, we dramatically increased the experimental throughput of EteRNA to increase designs. We challenged players themselves to define puzzles in games. They went bananas and proposed close to 400 micro-projects for other players to solve.

We also incentivized them to write hypotheses and conclusions. These 400 micro-projects are scientifically rigorous hypotheses made by players prior to carrying out experiments. They add a new mode of scientific inquiry; we have encouraged players to collate their micro-projects into manuscripts that they are submitting to peerreviewed publications. The first player-written publication was published last year, and there will be more online.

Q: What are some examples of these microprojects?

One micro-project focuses on target structures made of RNA. There’s a question of how to create a sequence of RNA to perfectly fold up in a chain in an arranged structure. Symmetry seems intuitively ideal and harmonious in nature. A lot

Q: You discuss integrating many interdisciplinary perspectives into your research. What sparked this intersection of disciplines?

Being at Stanford! At first, I was working on my Ph.D. in theoretical physics, but then I saw this fascinating talk on a molecular machine called the ribosome. Then I sought out different professors to work with, made a jump from physics to biochemistry, which was so much fun. There’s a nice culture here at Stanford that welcomes students coming from other disciplines from the labs. In my current lab, we draw students from MD/Ph.D. programs, Ph.D. students from chemistry, engineering, physics.

Q: What do you enjoy most about science and research?

I enjoy the confronting of an idea with experiment with the real world. If you talk to EteRNA players, you will see they are different from other video gamers. They won’t tell you about points or rankings, but they tell you about how many designs they have synthesized on the lab. When we have a new project realized on EteRNA, they get really excited about seeing what nature thought about a new molecule. The long-term players share this research. The community is really exciting and hearing people geeking out about biochemistry. It’s not about getting points,

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INNOVATION but about the key moment where you get your hypothesis tested. A lot of us get a rush from that, and EteRNA is capturing a lot of folks who are scientifically talented but didn’t follow a traditional track.

Q: Lastly, what advice do you have for undergraduates who want to get involved with science?

Try to join a research group as early as possible.

When I see really successful folks and postdocs, one common theme is that they got engaged in a research lab early in their careers. It doesn’t matter what field, but it has to be something you really enjoy. For example, my undergrad research was in particle physics. Research exercises the part of your brain that’s different from your classes.

It’s not about getting points, but about the key moment where you get your hypothesis tested.

Below: A screenshot from EteRNA’s website that allows users to create RNA for nanomedicine.

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Digital Evolution A new world of biological solutions in algorithms Jocelyn Kang Evolution is no longer limited to just the natural world, as it has reached digital worlds as well. Artificial creations living in computational environments now can learn to adapt to them, and can solve problems given to them by researchers.

Biologically, evolution is achieved through DNA replication, selection, and variation (eg. through mutations). Researchers have come up with unique ways to reproduce these three conditions in a computerized environment. For instance, replication can be performed by essentially copying and pasting a data structure. The result of implementing these three conditions is something called an evolutionary algorithm -- which is essentially a set of instructions the computer can follow to evolve and adapt.

Digital evolution draws much inspiration from biological evolution, and researchers in this field study evolutionary processes that are done by computational methods. Excitingly enough, researchers have found ways to implement natural principles that guide biological evolution in a digital environment.

researcher, tasked his artificially intelligent machine with becoming the most “evolutionarily fit” by jumping the highest, only to find the robots cheated by simply making themselves as tall as possible, or somersaulting so their “feet” would be as high as possible and consequently appear as if they had jumped that high.

These algorithms’ abilities to constantly surprise us shows just how much we still have to learn in the field of digital evolution, but these robots’ amazing and out-of-the-box innovations promise a world of new discoveries and possibilities.

This article was inspired by the 2018 paper, “The Surprising Creativity of Digital Evolution: A Collection of Anecdotes from the Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life Research Communities” by by Joel Lehman, et al.

The gradual process of the digital organisms evolving, however, often comes with hilarious surprises. Researchers in the field of digital evolution have countless stories of how their algorithms surprised them with creative and unexpected “solutions” or bugs that reveal just how creative these complex organisms can be. For instance, Cully et. al (2015) designed a simulated robot and tasked it with the problem of walking without using its “feet.” The robot flipped itself on its back and walked on its “elbows/knees.”

Karl Sims, a computer graphics artist and MIT

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Neural Nets Can artificial intelligence be creative?

human fingers sliding up and down the string.

The music is produced using electronic instruments, but bears unmistakable qualities of Baroque- and Romantic-period music.

Jocelyn Kang & Kendrick Shen

How does it work?

Sound Machines 2.0 is not a techno punk rock band. It’s not even a human music group – it’s a self-playing, auto-composing robot quintet, designed by the engineering firm Festo. By using advanced artificial intelligence technology, this “band” analyzes the acoustic fingerprints of existing musical pieces and then generates and executes its own original compositions.

In a purely logistical sense, Sound Machines 2.0 follows the same general procedure that composers do. The model begins with developing a motif (a short recurring musical phrase) and then expands upon it. Therefore, the ability of a composer lies in how he or she can take this simple idea and transform it into an exquisitely layered and complex composition that is harmonized.

Each of these periscope-looking machines (pictured on the right) produces sound by using bouncing pistons to strike a piano hammer against a string. To adjust the pitch, the string is sectioned off by a programmable slider to mimic

On a microscopic scale, the process of composing can be broken down mathematically into simple transitions between tones and chords that satisfy the rules of harmony. However, to formulate an entire piece using these simple build-

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ing blocks is extremely difficult and caused great anguish to even the most skilled composers of centuries past. It has been told that Beethoven would often mull over his sonatas for years, and that it would often take Bach several weeks at a time to put together his elaborate polyphonic compositions. Even Mozart, who is widely regarded as the most ingenious composer to have ever lived, would spend entire days on just one movement of a set.

Now with advanced algorithms and robust hardware, Sound Machines 2.0 is able to produce full-length compositions in mere minutes by analyzing human music and attempting to recreate it. Does this drastically improved efficiency (and potential output volume) mean Sound Machines 2.0 is a better composer than these centuriesold household names?

To answer this, we must dive into how musicmaking machines decide what music is “good” or “bad.” Sound Machines 2.0 and other systems like it use artificial neural networks to refine their compositions through a trial-and-error approach.

Neural nets are multi-layer software systems designed to imitate the processes that human neurons typically execute, such as pattern and symbol recognition. They are composed of abstract neuron-like structures – called nodes – that pass information unidirectionally among layers, each time refining the signal until the desired final result is returned. When a robot “learns,” it utilizes a feedback mechanism, taking massive data sets of popular human-created music and emulating their various styles.

In composing new music, the user of a robot music group would likely begin by feeding the algorithm the digitized representation of songs in the desired style. The computer then proceeds to assign random values to a given set of variables and executes the program. The output at this point is unlikely to resemble the inputted music, but the computer analyzes the similarities between the two and adjusts the variable values. After many

iterations and refinements, a new song can be created with similarities to other songs in the given music style.

The reason for this perceived ease of music production is that the 12-tone system utilized in Western music is very mathematical. This quality allows it to be easily represented and imitated by algorithms, but it also raises the question: can robots really compose creative, unique music?

One could argue that artificial intelligence exhibits at most what might be called secondary, or “derivative,” creativity, given that the foundational information for all compositions comes from external outlets. After all, creativity is a process that takes not a single input source, but a combination of social and personal contexts. We enjoy music because it is an emotional experience drawn from an artist’s personal background and life story.

In an article published by ABC Australia, Jon McCormack of Monash University said “So much of what we think about art is humans communicating to each other.” So when robots make music with no personal or human influences to draw from, it can hardly be deemed original nor sensational.

Although there is still much uncertainty about the future of machine-produced music, there is undeniably a growing interest in exploring capabilities with machine creativity. Going hand-inhand with this development is an advancement not in a machine’s ability to replace human artistry, but rather in our progress of uniting the two to create compelling and artistic content enjoyable across all mediums.

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Diane Heron working in her studio on Large Scale Automatism Painting.

An Artistic Approach to Health A Conversation with Diane Heron Fan Liu “Ever since I was very young, I’ve had the need to create,” she says, looking out the window of her car to the vast Californian landscape.

Oakland-based artist Diane Heron has always seen the interconnectedness of art, life, and well-being.

As a small child, growing up in Los Angeles, she took notice in the arts, architecture, and interior design, that would inspire her to disassemble Barbie houses, and recreate them into large fortresses, filled with handmade and found objects, to produce a very eclectic space for Barbie.

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As far back as she can remember she was hypersensitive to sound, touch, and smell. The heavy, artificial lights that hung above her in class at school and the buzzing electrical signals from household appliances that permeated the air bothered her more than the average person.

She would drape colorful scarves over lamps and could also sense the density of electricity in certain areas and locations.

Recently, Diane was tested and diagnosed as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), she says suddenly her calling as an artist, makes sense in so many ways.

With such heightened sensitivity to touch, in 1989, she was drawn to take a course in massage therapy. Over the years, without a college degree, she worked with some highly respected clients, in Southern California, ranging from Olympic Athletes to Rock Stars, people working in government and everything in between.

Seeing how her extreme sense of touch aided in people’s health and healing, She was on the nursing track until she started painting and and showing her artwork, had a positive outcome on her own health and well-being.

Art has brought sanity to the most obscure and unleashed the genius in the most unexpected. ~Diane Heron Today, she uses art as therapy for herself and for children with different disorders and diagnoses.

One of her favorite jobs is working with children with autism and selective mutism. She is particularly sensitive to these children’s feelings, as she relates to them, through the act of empathy with her own diagnosis of HSP. “Everyday, people with diagnosed disorders can be discouraged if they keep internalizing messages from other people and themselves, ‘What’s wrong with you?’”

She has been inspired by the children and their automatic approach to art and the power of genuine human a connection, never patronizing the children but respecting their creativity as artists, asking them about their art and specific techniques, the colors of the painting, and the different mediums and brushstrokes.

Above: “Dimension 5;” 2016, Acrylic on Canvas.

Below: Left piece: Untitled Painting through the process of Automatism; 2017, Acrylic on Homemade Paper. Right Piece: “American Patrol;” 2017, Ink on early 20th c. Sheet Music.

All images courtesy of Diane Heron.

In multiple instances, while volunteering at the Stramski Children’s Developmental Center, in Long Beach, CA, Diane was able to encourage a child with selective mutism to speak, some of them, after months of silence.

“As someone with HSP, I am a divergent thinker and can relate to children with these disorders in a sense that we both think outside of rigidly defined norms, and, children with autism and selective mutism often have HSP as well.”

Diane hopes to use her process in art and the power of empathy to draw out the confidence and joy in more children.

Find more of Diane’s work at dianeheron.com or @dianeheronart on Instagram.

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An Interview with Artist Gail Wight Gail Wight is an American artist whose work combines art with biology, neurology and technology. Her work explores the impact of life sciences on the human being. She is a professor in Art Practice and has been teaching art at Stanford since 2003. She works primarily in experimental media, photography, video, and printmaking.

Vivian Xiao Q: How did you first become interested in being an artist and find your way into biology, neurology, and technology?

There are a number of artists in my family, so I’ve always been interested in art. I went to the Massachusetts College of Art for my undergraduate studies. At the time I had some medical is-

sues, and I started thinking about contemporary medicine. How do we decide what’s an illness and what’s not an illness? And how has the treatment for different illnesses changed over time? I was asking myself those sorts of questions and at the same time, I was learning how to make art: how to weld, make film, those kinds of things. My professors said to me, well if you’re interested in

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ART these topics about the history of medicine and you’re interested in making art, why not just put them together? It had never occurred to me. So I started making art back in the 80’s about medicine and science, and then I had my first show.

I stuck with making work about medicine for a long time because it was my road into science, and it was the thing that I was most interested in. For instance, I made a piece about an uncle of mine who underwent a lobotomy in his 20’s. I knew him well when I was growing up, but I didn’t realize that he’d been given a lobotomy until I was much older. The piece I made is a classic butterfly collection, but each butterfly is pinned down with

one hundred pins and in its own separate box.

So there are 24 butterflies and 2400 pins in this piece. The idea came to me while reading a textbook written by the person who promoted lobotomy in the US, Walter Freeman. It’s a book called Psychosurgery, and in the frontispiece of the book, there’s a picture of butterflies flying out of a skull.

The image is derived from a French expression, J’ai des papillons noirs tous les jours, which means “I have black butterflies every day”. It’s a French term for having depression.

In the frontispiece, the butterflies are being set free, ostensibly by lobotomy. My butterfly collection uses this French phrase as its title but suggests that the butterflies are not so free after all.

How do we decide what’s an illness and what’s not an illness?

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Opposite: Wight’s art studio at Wadsworth Hall, Stanford. All images courtesy of Gail Wight.

Above: Wight’s most recent work on copepods.

I really loved reading about the history of science, medicine, and psychology. Looking at medicine and its history opened up a kind of Pandora’s box for how scientific research happens, and how aspects of that research are defined by our relationship to other species on the planet. How do we perceive of life in general? Not just our own lives, but how do we perceive of life around us?

That’s brought me to where I am now. I’m thinking about the evolution of these living creatures that I’ve never even heard of. I’m just amazed by the disjunction between the course of our everyday lives and all of the living things around us.

Q: Can you talk more about your recent work?

This past year I’ve decided that I really want to focus on one area of my physical environment.

My work generally has to do with the history of

biology. I realized that if I just focus on one little section of the California coastline, I can dig in and work my way through all of these topics that I’m interested in just by getting to know this one place well.

I went to this beach that I’ve always rejected in my neighborhood. It’s a really stinky beach, because it’s covered in seaweed. I thought, I have to embrace this and not think of this seaweed as detritus and get to know what it’s all about. And it turns out it is a very unusual beach because about 40 different types of seaweed wash up, whereas most other beaches in the area have three or four types. Eventually, that seaweed became this most recent work.

Before I started making this work, I was reading a wonderful book from the Museum of Natural

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History in New York. It was a history of oceanographic expeditions, and in that book I read I’m just amazed by the about copepods, little crustaceans that live in every body of water of the planet. At the time, disjunction between I was photographing along the coast and pickthe course of our eving up seaweed, and it just kind of struck me—I thought, I have to make copepods out of seaeryday lives and all weed. This book, Opulent Oceans, also made that point that many women were involved in of the living things those expeditions. They didn’t go on the expearound us. ditions themselves, but they sorted through the material when it came back home. They did a lot of seaweed pressing, so it all just kind of came that these copepod prints were made with a together for me. scanner. The idea that you would make art using a scanner isn’t something that most people asThese prints are imaginary copepods, made out sume. And yet in the art world it’s fairly common of seaweed collected on that local stinky beach. to pick up a scanner and think of it as a tool for When the seaweed was fresh, I cut it into shapes making art. So getting students to think about and played with it. And then I floated it in a dish the rich potential in the everyday tools around of water and pulled watercolor paper up from us is really inspiring. underneath. Then it was pressed and dried, and finally I scanned the individual images and print- Q: How do you view art’s role in society and ed them on watercolor paper. where it will go in the future?

Q: How long have you been teaching art, and how has it influenced your work?

I’ve been teaching students since 1994. It’s fantastic, being in a classroom with students who are so vibrant and thinking about all kinds of things; they bring all sorts of subjects to the floor that might not have been on my radar. To be a responsible teacher means that I’m thinking about the art world and paying attention to it all the time. I’m trying new methods, exploring new tools, and all of those things come together and really make me stay at the cutting edge.

Here at Stanford, people are involved with technology all over the map, in such different ways.

It’s very exciting to work with students who, in general, know much more than me about technology. At the same time, they’re thinking these technologies in a very specific way. I enjoy breaking down their assumptions about how we should use technology. For instance, I mentioned

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The art world has changed radically in the last twenty years. There’s a whole field of art called social practice; I’m glad that the art world has expanded in that direction. But I still think there is place for an image on a wall that leads one to contemplate. I feel that there is a very essential function for image-making that has been part of our history for over twenty thousand years, and it’s not going to go away. The internet is largely visual; it didn’t really take off until it become a visual medium. When it was text based it was a very small community. As we are a visual species, I think that creating images still has a place in the world. I’m always sparked when I see a visual creation out of someone else’s imagination that makes me see the world differently. It suddenly makes me rethink what I know and assume about life.

Opposite: Imaginary copepods made of seaweed created by Gail Wight.

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Above: Man made of mushrooms displayed for the FROST Arts and Music Festival. All Images courtesy of Ricky Cordova.

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Midnight and Mold Junior brings mushrooms and bread mold into the ‘high art realm’ Deepti Kannan

The head of a rotting cow carcass lies pensively on the floor of an art museum exhibit, enclosed by a large glass casing. Despite the repulsive maggots and flies buzzing around its head, the cow fascinated Ricky Cordova (Bioengineering ‘18).

Cordova said he had the opportunity to “bridge the two worlds” by doing art projects in STEM classes and assignments for ITALIC. He hopes that these intersections will help him “become a better bioengineer and a better artist at the same time.”

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “By making the mental leap to label something differently, [the artist] showed that something so commonplace can be a powerful symbol of the beauty of death … of the metamorphosis of materials after life leaves it.”

Shrooms

The piece, “A Thousand Years” by Damien Hirst, showed Cordova the power of showcasing biological materials and processes as art. Inspired, Cordova decided to combine his two passions for bioengineering and art by pursuing “bioart” of his own. From mushrooms to bread mold, Cordova seeks to push the boundaries of traditional art by utilizing natural, though somewhat disgusting, materials in provocative pieces.

A former participant in Stanford’s immersive art residential program, ITALIC, Cordova was exposed to the theory of art practice early in his freshman year. Similarly, his interest in bioengineering runs deep; his mom was a microbiologist and his dad a systems engineer.

“I loved hearing about synthetic biology and programming organisms, using their DNA as if it were computer code,” Cordova said. “Just realizing the power of biology as a nanofabrication factory.”

One such project was the construction of a lifesize sculpture of a man made of living mushrooms. Cordova conceived of the idea when talking to Philip Ross, a fellow member of the Drew Endy Laboratory. Ross’s start-up, Mycoworks, uses mushrooms to make alternatives for building materials and leather.

After collecting various species of mushroom from the wild, Ross places them in a substrate — a cocktail of sawdust, energy drinks, cat food, and other ingredients — to support rapid growth.

Next, the network of mycelium (the branching roots of mushrooms) expands to fill the container in which the substrate was held. Once baked in an oven, the material becomes sturdy and good for insulation. This allows engineers and artists alike to repurpose these biomaterials.

Inspired by trips to the Rodin sculptures at the Cantor Arts Museum, Cordova decided to apply Ross’s process to the art of sculpture.

“I thought it would be really neat to make a powerful, Renaissance sculpture, but instead of metal or marble, make it out of mushrooms using the same technique as Ross,” he said.

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I suppose in some way the organism itself is the artist.

I’m just giving it form.

With the help of Eda Benites (Bioengineering ‘18), Cordova set out to create a prototype using a Visible Man anatomy model for kids as a mold. They purchased the mushrooms from Mycoworks and grew them for two to three weeks so that the mycelia could spread their network and fill up the plastic mold.

“After three weeks we opened it up and it held its shape and we could hold it,” Cordova said. “It was a little man made out of mushrooms!”

The artists decided to scale up the prototype with the help of a grant to make art for the FROST music and arts festival. Packed with mushrooms, the headless, full-sized manikin lurked in the corner of Cordova’s dorm room, as he waited in anticipation for the mushrooms to grow.

“Within that lack of control — the control you’re leaving up to the piece of art — there’s also a level of uncertainty of whether it would work or not,” he said.

Although they allotted the same three weeks for the mushrooms to grow, the network did not fully spread in time for the festival. As a result, they decided to keep the mushrooms inside the transparent mold when displayed at the festival.

“It looked really cool and otherwordly,” Cordova said. “I think that piece is really interesting because it’s a man that was grown; it’s a totally living art piece in the shape of a man.”

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Top: Process of making the little mushroom man.

Although the artists composted the sculpture after the festival, Cordova imagines burying the man whole and allowing the mushrooms to grow and spread their roots in the earth.

“I feel like it said a lot about life and death and moreso the continuation of life,” he said. “It makes you think, we are kind of just a gathering of materials from the environment that exists for some period, and then is recycled back into the environment. It’s just a big cycle.”

Midnight and Mold Cordova’s quest to label commonplace materials as art does not end with mushrooms. For his final project in ITALIC, he drew inspiration from Josef Alber’s “Interaction of Color,” a book detailing the theory of mixing and juxtaposing colors in art. On display at Cantor is a series of paintings

by Alber entitled ‘Midnight and Noon,’ showcasing squares of color that illustrate the concepts in his book.

“Following this desire to create things out of natural materials, disrupt what you see as high art, I decided to recreate these paintings by growing mold on bread,” Cordova said. “Just the thought of ‘I’m going to grow this painting instead of paint

Left: Completed prototype of little mushroom man. Right: “Midnight and Mold,” as displayed at Cantor.

it’ was a weird thought and something interesting to look at.”

In order to accomplish this task, Cordova obtained loaves of bread from the dining hall, moistened the slices with water and rubbed them on the insides of dumpsters around campus. He sealed the dirty bread in a trash bag and covered it with a blanket to create a dark, humid environment suitable for mold growth.

“I suppose in some way the organism itself is the artist,” Cordova said. “I’m just giving it form.”

Cordova brought the moldy bread into Burbank’s art studio, cut each slice into neat squares and placed them inside plexi-glass cases with the help of Benjamin Atin ‘18. Cordova got to display his work at Cantor as part of the project, titling it ‘Midnight and Mold,’ a play on the name of Alber’s original series.

artistic value, even though it’s a piece of bread with mold on it, which is something you just throw away,” Cordova said.

Content with his projects so far, Cordova said he hopes to continue exploring bioart as he pursues graduate studies in bioengineering. In the future, Cordova hopes to engineer mushrooms to express fluorescent proteins to create glowing sculptures.

Overall, Cordova encourages anyone to find intersections between their passions.

“I feel like no matter what you’re studying or what you’re interested in, there’s a way to meld it with art,” he said. “Everything is a network, just like the mushrooms.”

“It was an interesting take because you can apply the same theory and principles to evaluating its

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Bridging Art and Neuroscience A contemplation of Elizabeth Jameson’s Art Fan Liu Elizabeth Jameson is an artist who uses her art as a way to reclaim her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) from the scientific community.

Through art, she is able to take custody of the often unsettling and clinical black-and-white MRI scans. She uses color to transform the scans into something that invites others to contemplate the beauty of the brain.

As a former public-interest lawyer, Jameson felt disempowered when she was diagnosed with MS and could no longer pursue her passion for public service. She stumbled upon art when her friend took her to an art class after her diagnosis. When she picked up her first paintbrush, she found herself falling in love with the warmth and solace that art provided her. She enjoyed mixing vibrant colors, experimenting with new materi-

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als, and grasping with complex ideas through her art. After she discovered her newfound strength through creative expression, she wanted to use art as a medium to empower others.

For this piece, we interviewed Elizabeth Jameson and Anthony Norcia, Ph.D, a Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford, about the intersection of art and neuroscience that appears in three of Jameson’s paintings, which incorporate vibrant French dyes on silk. Dr. Norcia specializes in visual development in young children. He found Jameson’s pieces to be striking against the many MRI images he examines daily. A fresh re-rendering of the scientific tool, Jameson’s abilities have allowed her to take control of her situation.

Norcia: I’m sure on a day-to-day basis we are largely not aware of the inner, powerful mechanisms of the brain.

In “Conversation with Myself” it seems to be shot from the console with the brain glowing.

I’ve seen multiple times the console with the text on the side, but the presence of the glowing colors communicates that something else is going on. There’s energy — the brain is a living thing.

All of a sudden, people realize: the brain has different parts and is doing different things, and sometimes some parts are more or less active. I think scientists should use more visual images to get the public to understand and to think. If it’s a small child’s brain, all the better.

Jameson: Yes, I agree - research on the brain development for children is so important. I’m currently working with a professor on brain scans of disadvantaged children under stress, such as lack of nutrition or poverty. We are trying to make data more readable so people can become more aware of these issues.

Norcia: For a scientist, a graph is the most obvious way to represent data. With numerical data and graphs, lay people may not grasp graphs intuitively. Art is intuitive. Art speaks to people through a different mode, so a graph is not the best way to make a narrative. So far we scientists haven’t been good at communicating our research, and it’s important that people understand it.

Jameson: Scientists and lay people speak very, very different languages.

The first thing that struck me was the saturation and the choice of colors - it draws the attention of the viewer. There’s also an interesting conversation happening between the geometry of the piece. To me, the piece looks like windows - perhaps, windows to the brain. The smaller rectangles look like pixels. There were also actual, identifiable brain sections that contrasted so much with the pixels because they are in this natural form. Thus, some rectangles are in a verbatim and biological form while other rectangles are more abstract.

That’s kind of how we [scientists] think of the images, “Oh, if we could only have a sharper image, it would make things so much easier for us.”

There are different levels of literalness and accessibility and really wonderful colors.

Jameson: It was lots of fun bridging the clinical and non-clinical in that piece.

Norcia: I appreciate the emotional contact the viewer makes with the art. “Celebration” was amazing. I know as a scientist that it depicts arteries, but to me, they look like dancers. Very Matisse. I have a very positive feeling about this object that would otherwise be treated as a clinical object to be dissected.

To me, the piece looks like windows - perhaps, windows to the brain.

Norcia: Hopefully art can be the mediator between the public and the [scientific community].

Opposite: “Conversation with Myself” by Elizabeth Jameson, French Dyes on Silk.

Below: “Kaleidoscope” by Elizabeth Jameson, Solarplate Etching on Paper

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ART We typically think of many medical things, such as human anatomy, to be scary - but in this image, you are transforming it by drawing people into it. There’s beauty here and excitement and joy. The image is no longer creepy but becomes interesting and cool.

A lot of this has to do with how information is conveyed. Many people do not think of the internal inner workings of their brain while they are thinking. It’s like looking at a map — you can see the nooks and crannies.

You become fascinated by a particular part of the map, which you previously overlooked. This is similar to your art, you shed light on parts people previously haven’t seen.

Jameson: Exactly, I wanted to create images of clinical data, making the images more approachable.

Norcia: We’re approaching a new space here; it’s a different language. The scientist revisits his work and finds a new way of seeing.

Jameson: Imaging makes the invisible visible. The mystery of how the brain works becomes visible. Yet, imaging is not a neutral act for patients.

There’s a psychological impact on people who have their MRIs done. It can be invasive since an MRI is a very vulnerable space as you’re naked and your brain processes become exposed. The question is, how do we as patients cope with the MRIs? That’s why we need to develop narratives and take ownership of the data.

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Above: “Celebration” by Elizabeth Jameson, Solarplate Etching on Paper.

Voices Angela He | Digital Painting

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