Why Do We Age?

By Angel Zhou, Branson School


Why do we age? It might seem like a silly question, but scientists have asked it in hopes that they might one day counteract the process.
Never before have so many people lived for so long. Life expectancy has nearly doubled over the last century, and today there are 36.8 million Americans age 65 and older. Longer life has obvious appeal, but it entails personal hardships and financial burdens. In addition to personal hardship, there is also a cost to society. The financial burden of treating the chronic diseases of aging is expected to rise steadily as Baby Boomers get older. Politics may come to be dominated by the old, who might vote themselves ever more generous benefits for which the young must pay. If longer life expectancy simply leads to more years in which pensioners are disabled and demand expensive services, health-care costs may balloon as never before, while other social needs go unmet.
Since 1999, scientists have studied ways to make organisms live much longer, and with better health than they naturally would.  Previous research assumed that chronic diseases arise and should be treated individually. What if, instead, aging is the root cause of many chronic diseases, and aging can be slowed?

The Buck Institute for Research on Aging (http://www.buckinstitute.org) is the nation’s first independent research facility focused solely on understanding the connection between aging and chronic disease. At the Buck Institute, world-class scientists work in a uniquely collaborative environment to understand how normal aging contributes to the development of conditions specifically associated with getting older such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and cancer. Their interdisciplinary approach brings scientists from disparate fields together to develop diagnostic tests and treatments to prevent or delay these maladies and to ultimately increase the healthy years of life.
The aging of our population — in past decades and in the foreseeable future — presents both a challenge and an opportunity for all of us as we seek to stay healthy throughout our longer lives. If medical interventions to slow aging result in added years of reasonable fitness, life might extend in a sanguine manner, with most men and women living longer in good vigor, and also working longer, keeping pension and health-care subsidies under control. Indeed, the most exciting work being done in longevity science concerns making the later years vibrant, as opposed to simply adding time at the end.


In his Marin Science Seminar, Dr. Lithgow (http://buckinstitute.org/lithgowLab) of the Buck Institute will discuss the mechanisms of aging by identifying agents that extend lifespan or prevent age-related disease and solutions to eventually eradicate the chronic diseases of late life.

Join us this Wednesday, February 25 for this week’s Marin Science Seminar Do We Have to Grow Old? The New Science of Aging with Gordon Lithgow, Ph.D. of the Buck Institute in Room 207 at Terra Linda High School in San Rafael. For more information, visit Marin Science Seminar’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/870825009620005/.

Interview with Art Wallace, MD PhD on Big Data and Medical Innovation

By Angel Zhou, Branson School


Mobile technologies, sensors, genome sequencing, and advances in analytic software now make it possible to capture vast amounts of information that could transform medicine. The question is: can Big Data make health care better?

In the upcoming Marin Science Seminar, “Big Data and Medical Innovation,” Dr. Art Wallace, Chief of Anesthesia Service at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and a Professor of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care at UCSF Medical Center, will discuss applications of Big Data in medicine and how Big Data has changed epidemiology, quality improvement, and drug discovery. Read the following interview to learn more about Dr. 

Wallace’s thoughts on Big Data and its impact on medical innovation.
Art Wallace, MD PhD

What is Big Data and what is its significance to medicine?  What makes Big Data different from other data that people work with in the healthcare industry?
Big Data is data that is acquired for other purposes that can be analyzed to understand processes, people, and systems. Big Data includes many things: cell phone records, super market purchase card records, credit card records, medical records, internet search terms, medication usage, hospital admissions, social security records, etc. This data can be used for epidemiology to identify associations between factors and outcomes.
Big Data gives additional power to identify factors associated with rare outcomes. I can now easily do a study in 1 million people using data collected for administrative purposes. Doing a study in 1 million patients used to be enormously expensive, now it just requires computer programming and epidemiologic analysis. Before Big Data, the cost of collecting data was prohibitive, so many studies could not be done. With Big Data, there is little to no cost of collecting the data, making the analysis the entire cost for large studies. The profoundly lower costs with Big Data techniques make studies that were previously impossible, possible at minimal cost.
How does Big Data impact professionals in the medical field? Can Big Data be used to improve healthcare?
We have identified factors associated with adverse outcomes, identified medication practices that are associated with increased mortality, identified medications that can reduce morbidity and mortality, and we have identified possible therapies for diseases that have no current therapy. We can reduce morbidity, mortality, cost, and assist in the development of new therapies.
  
Big Data can be used to reduce morbidity, mortality, cost, and improve efficiency. Big Data can be used to ask questions that are morally, politically, technically, socially, ethically, or legally impossible to answer with randomized trials. Big Data is being used to improve quality of life while lowering costs.
Describe how Big Data is reshaping the drug industry?
Big Data can be used to identify medications that reduce or increase risks. Post marketing testing can identify medications that have significant associated morbidity and mortality. For example, we identified a drug that increased mortality risk 5 fold (increased from 3 to 15% with drug use). This use of Big Data led to a medication being taken off the market. It had been used in Europe for 30 years, in the U.S. for 10 years, and it increased the risk of death from 3 to 15%. Big Data was used to identify a very serious risk to patients and led to the medication being taken off the market.
How will Big Data accelerate innovation in medicine?
Big Data will be used to identify new uses of medications. It will identify risk factors for morbidity and mortality. It will lead to further randomized trials.
What are the benefits and dangers of providing Big Data online as the “ever expanding cloud of information” becomes more accessible?
It is easy to identify people from their digital detritus. It is easy to identify very personal things about people from their data trails. Factors such as financial status, interests, sexual orientation, political beliefs, religious beliefs, health status, pre-existing medical conditions, drug and alcohol use, pregnancy status, and proclivities can all be assessed via Big Data. Big Data can be used to manipulate, track, and market to people. At the same time, Big Data can identify very serious risks to patients’ health. Scientific method is an approach; Big Data is a tool. Both can be used for good or bad purposes. Big Data is simply a new and extremely powerful scientific tool.   

Join us Wednesday, February 11th, 2015 to learn more about “Big Data and Medical Innovation” with Dr. Art Wallace from 7:30 – 8:30 PM Terra Linda High School, San Rafael in Room 207.

Interview with Alex Gunderson, Ph.D: The Price is Wrong

Join us Wednesday, November 19th, 2014 for:

Interview with Alex Gunderson Ph.D.
by Isobel Wright, MSS Intern, Tamalpais HS

How can you compare a game show to climate change and its effect on animals? Well, Alex Gunderson has. Alex Gunderson, Ph.D is a physiological ecologist who specializes in thermal biology and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley. His current research is aimed at answering these questions. How do physiology and behavior interact to influence the vulnerability of ectotherms to climate warming?  How do divergent climatic habitats shape physiological phenotypes, and how does physiological divergence contribute to evolutionary radiations? To answer these questions, he has studied the Caribbean Anolis lizards but is now exploring the crustacean systems. Read the following interview to learn more about his life and work as a physiological ecologist. 

Alex Gunderson, Ph. D.

1.    How did you decide to enter this line of work, as it is so specialized?
I think I gravitated toward biology as a profession because I love being in nature. I grew up in a very rural part of the Midwest where I spent a lot of time outside, on lakes and in the woods. That led me to be interested in how the natural world works.
2. Why did you decide to use the Price is Right as an analogy for the effects of global warming?
The Price is Right was as easy choice for me because it is one of my favorite game shows. When I was in grade school and would get sick and stay home, it was the show I looked forward to watching most. I have always wanted to spin the big wheel!
Anole Lizard

3. What have you learned from working with the Caribbean Anolis lizards?

I have learned a lot! Maybe one of the biggest things is how subtle nature can be. On Puerto Rico there are ten different species of Anolislizard and to most people they all just sort of look like a generic lizard. But when you look closely, you see that they have evolved all of these small differences that allow them to live and thrive in different habitats. It really is amazing!
4. What level of education do you need to do what you do?
It depends on what your ultimate goal is. You can get paid to do biology with a Bachelors degree, but many positions require graduate degrees like a Master’s or PhD. My goal is to be a college professor, so a PhD is required.  
5.  If there was one thing you could tell us to do to prevent climate change, what would it be?
The biggest road-block to making progress on climate change is political inaction, so speak up about it through your vote (if you are 18!), letters to politicians, and outreach activities. On a personal level, there are a lot of things you can do to reduce your contribution to climate change. The Nature Conservancy has a great website where you can calculate your carbon footprint and learn about ways to reduce it: http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/ 
6. What was your biggest Aha moment in life so far, relating to your work?
I think the biggest “Aha” moment I had was when I decided that I wanted to study how animals adapt to different climates. It was my first year as a PhD student, and I was in Puerto Rico for the first time. I thought I wanted to study the evolution of animal signals, or how animals communicate with one another. I had been studying one species in northern Puerto Rico, but I knew the same species also lived in southern Puerto Rico so I decided to drive down there. I was driving south through the mountains with my cousin Neil (he was helping me do my research) and all of a sudden, the landscape changed dramatically. It went from cool, shady tropical rainforest to hot, dry desert in just a few miles. I thought there was no way the same species could live in such different conditions. But sure enough, the same species was there. I wanted to know how they did it, and my fascination with thermal biology was born!
7. What are the best parts of your job? What are the worst parts?
There are two things that I think are best about my job. First, my job takes me amazing places to study amazing animals. Over the years, I have studied lizards in the Caribbean, frogs in the back-country wilderness of Montana, and seabirds in the Galapagos, to name a few. Hard to beat. Second, in many ways, I am my own boss. With some caveats, I get to decide what I study, where I study it, and how I study it. That kind of freedom is hard to come by in many professions.
The worst part of my job? Writing grants. Because most scientific research doesnt generate profits like a business, you have to convince other people to give you money to do it. Those other peopleare usually government agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Its fantastic that they give the money, but the grant writing itself is often extremely tedious. 

Learn more about Alex Gunderson and his research here

Join us and Learn! 


NuSTAR: Bringing the High Energy Universe into Focus

by MSS Intern Isobel Wright, Tamalpais HS
NASA’s NuSTAR, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, is the first device to use orbiting telescopes to target light with high energy X-rays. The high-energy X-rays can perceive objects with 100 times more sensitivity than other missions can, which results in 10 times better resolution. This allows it to explore the hottest and densest structures in the Universe.  NuSTAR was launched on June 13th, 2012. 

 During its first two-year mission, NuSTAR will outline certain areas of the sky to take a survey of collapsed stars and black holes by studying the sectors around the center of the Milky Way, and to map new materials in infant supernovae remnants so as to interpret how stars explode and how the elements are formed. Finally, it will explore particles from galaxies which contain extremely large black holes in order to understand “what powers relativistic jets”. The NuSTAR instrument is created from two aligned grazing telescopes with specialized optics and advanced detectors that have a more developed sensitivity to higher energy forces.

February 19th, 2014 – The first map of radioactivity in the remnant of a supernova.
The blue represents the high energy X-rays observed by NuSTAR. 
Black holes are some of the most unique objects in the universe. NuSTAR studies the X-ray light that is produced by the black hole as it gathers matter. NuSTAR has various programs observing both black holes in our own galaxy as well as supermassive black holes in remote galaxies. NuStar studies the supernovae explosions which create elements that make up our Earth. With the help of NuSTAR, we can better understand how these actions occur. 

NuSTAR also studies neutron stars, which are dense remnants of supernovae. It has several programs which analyze the physical make-up and creation of neutron stars. 

Finally, NuSTAR examines relativistic jets of radiation and fragments that move around the speed of light, making them some of the most intense sources of X-ray energy in the universe. 

This is an artist’s interpretation of NuSTAR in orbit

Join us Wednesday, November 12th 2014, to hear Dr. Lynn Cominsky of Sonoma State University discuss NuSTAR and other NASA projects currently being undertaken in SSU’s Astronomy and Physics Department. Join us and learn!

California Droughts

by Isobel Wright, MSS Intern
Tamalpais High School

Having suffered three consecutive years with abnormally low rainfall averages, California faces its most severe drought in decades. In 2013, we received less rain than any year since California became a state in 1850. In fact, many Bay Area scientists have proven from tree-ring data, that on the current path, the upcoming rainfall season will be the driest since 1580. The effects of low water levels have left communities fighting over emergency water supplies, fires raging across the state, and whole species and industries are subsequently threatened.

Many reservoirs are only 30 percent full (like Folsom Lake, shown above). Retrieved from Huffington Post.

But we have had little rainfall before, so what makes this drought different? What makes this drought particularly cruel is the record-keeping heat experienced in the first half of 2014. This heat exacerbated an already devastating drought. The National Climatic Data Center released information revealing that California had its warmest January-June season since the recording began in 1895, with the temperature being 4.6 degrees Fahrenheit above average.

This graph shows the extremely low rain fall levels in 2014. Retrieved from Independent.com. 

It is thought that this intense heat is being caused by human created global warming and a persistent high pressure ridge above the West and the eastern Pacific Ocean. This ridge has prevented storms from reaching this region.

Information sources:

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/09/02/california-megadrought/14446195/
http://ca.gov/drought/

Join us Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014 to learn more at Pain for Cows and Pumpkins: Drought Impacts on Central Valley Agricultural Water Supply with Douglas Charlton PhD of Charlton International.  7:30 – 8:30 pm Terra Linda High School, San Rafael, Room 207. RSVP on Facebook here.

Saving Our Ocean Friends: An Interview with Dr. Claire Simeone of the Marine Mammal Center

by MSS Intern Isobel Wright, Tamalpais High School

From sea lions with cancer to stranded motherless seal pups, Dr. Claire Simeone knows just what to do. Dr. Simeone works as a Conservation Medicine Veterinarian at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California and at the National Marine Fisheries Service in Washington, DC. In addition to tending to sick animals, she travels the world to attend Unusual Mortality Events, international training programs, and works on the Marine Mammal Health Map. Dr. Simeone attended the University of Maryland College Park to receive her BSc in Physiology and Neurobiology, and graduated from veterinary school at Virginia Tech. Read the following interview to learn more about life at the Marine Mammal Center and working with animals. 
Claire Simeone, DVM
            Could you walk me through your typical day at The Marine Mammal Center?
One of the best things about working at The Marine Mammal Center is that every day is different. Some days, you’re caring for harbor seal pups that have been separated from their mother. Another day, you’re treating California sea lions with cancer. You might be medicating elephant seals that are dying of lungworms. Some days, you’re treating all of those animals, plus caring for the two hundred additional animals that are ALSO onsite. 
As a veterinarian, I usually start my day walking around the pens to check in on all of the animals on-site, and then our team starts procedures, which include blood draws, x-rays, and surgeries. If animals die, we perform post-mortem exams to determine why they died. At the same time, our volunteer crews (more than 1,000 committed people!) are preparing fish, feeding the animals, and cleaning their pens. Our night volunteer crews take care of the animals into the night, and the veterinarians and technicians are on-call 24 hours a day to make sure all of the animals receive the care they need.
What are the best and worst parts of your job?
There are so many best parts of my job. First, I’m lucky to be able to travel around the world to care for marine mammals and learn more about them. Second, I really feel that I’m making a difference with the work I’m doing – whether it’s saving a seal pup or training the next generation of marine mammal veterinarians. Third, I’m constantly learning new things – about marine mammals, their habitats, and what affects their health. 
Because I do work with animals, a difficult part of the job can be seeing animals that are suffering, often because of things humans do – but it helps to know that we are doing everything we can to bring that animal back to health.
What does it feel like to rescue an animal?
Imagine getting a call from someone who was on vacation, and saw a California sea lion that had fishing line around his neck. First, you feel focused – you take down the description of the animal from the citizen, check your maps, and plan out your strategy. Your rescue volunteers have confirmed that this animal is one you’ve been watching for months, and he’s asleep on the beach. You load up the truck, and make the drive to meet your team. You feel hopeful – he’s still snoring away. Holding your breath, you sneak up slowly, and then with a leap you throw the net over his head. He roars as he jumps up and finds himself trapped. With swift action your team boards him into a carrier, and as stealthily as you came, you load him into the truck. You feel elated as you watch him resting calmly on the way home. 
After a quick procedure to remove the line, it’s clear his wound will heal on its own, and he’s ready to go back to the ocean. After driving him back to the beach, you open the carrier, and he strides out into the waves and dives under the break. You feel proud that you’ve saved this animal’s life, and returned him to his ocean home. 
What’s the most common injury/disease you see in marine mammals? How can we prevent this?
Unfortunately, we commonly see injuries that are due to something called human interaction – entangled in fishing line, nets, or plastic packing straps; ingesting pieces of plastic; struck by a boat; or gunshot. In 1972 the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed, making it illegal to harass or harm a marine mammal. However, many marine mammals are still harmed in passive ways from our trash or discarded items. You can prevent these entanglements by properly disposing of plastics, and helping to keep beaches clean by picking up any trash you see. Just a few weeks ago the annual International Coastal Cleanup Day brought 54,000 volunteers to California’s coasts. They removed over 680,000 pounds of trash in one day!
What level of education and experience do you need to obtain a job like yours?
As a veterinarian, I have a bachelor’s degree, as well as a DVM – Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. However, there are many ways that you can be involved with marine mammals or ocean conservation – through a Master’s or PhD, if you’re more science-focused, or you can have a completely unrelated career, and get your fill through volunteering at a facility like TMMC. We even have a Youth Crew volunteer program for teenagers 15-18 years old (learn more at http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/Get-Involved/volunteer/youth-crew ). As far as experiences go, I would recommend doing as much as you can to get a variety of experiences, which will help you decide what is really right for you. I’ve worked with dogs and cats, horses and cattle, birds and seals, and each experience set me up for the next step in my career. 
What have you learned from working with these animals?
I’ve learned that in order to conserve energy while diving, some seals can lower their heart rate to 10 beats per minute, and right before they surface, their body speeds the rate back up to 120. I’ve learned that a sea otter, if left alone, will unscrew all of the screws on a drain – that were placed with an electric drill! – with its bare paws. And I’ve learned that a harbor seal, blind from cataracts, can find fish by sensing the water movement with its vibrissae (whiskers). Each one of our patients has given me great stories with which to share the knowledge I’ve learned. 
What is an Unusual Mortality Event? What is it like to attend one? Tell me about the most recent one you attended? 
If a group of marine mammals are sick, they may strand on the beach near one another. Unusual Mortality Events (UMEs) are declared when the number of sick or dying animals is larger than expected in that area or time frame. A panel of experts is then called to lead a response to care for the animals, and to try to figure out why they are dying. A recent UME was close to home – in 2013, more than 1500 starving California sea lion pups washed up on southern California beaches. Thanks to the UME response team, it was determined that the reason the pups were starving was because the fish their moms were feeding on had moved farther offshore – meaning they had to go farther to forage. This caused moms to either lack the milk they needed to nurse them, or abandon their pups completely. Caring for hundreds of sea lion pups at a time is exhausting – most need to eat 3-4 times a day, and they may need treatment for vomiting, diarrhea, or pneumonia. It was thanks to hard-working rehabilitation centers, like TMMC, all along the California coast, that we were able to save so many pups. 
What is the Marine Mammal Health Map? How do you contribute to it?
Think about all of the animals we’ve talked about – starving sea lions, entangled elephant seals, gunshot animals or animals with cancer. Each one of these animals provides a unique look at what is happening in the ocean at that location. All of the animals that come through TMMC have a record with all of their health information. Similarly, all of the stranding centers across the country have records on all of their animals. However, there is no centralized database to collect these data, or display them for all to see. The Marine Mammal Health Map will be that space – so that biologists, veterinarians, and members of the public will know what’s happening to marine mammals in their area. I’m working with scientists from around the country to develop the Health Map and ensure that all of our marine mammals are represented. You’ll have to come to the talk to learn more!

Watch this video below to see the process of the rescuing, rehabilitation and release of a sea lion…

Join us for “Sick Seals and Seizing Sea Lions: What Marine Mammals Can Tell Us About the Health of Our Oceans” with Claire Simeone DVM of The Marine Mammal Center, Sausalito – Wednesday, October 8th, 2014 at Marin Science Seminar

Mission Control with Jay Trimble

by Gillian Parker, Tamalpais HS         
Have you ever wondered what happens down at mission control? Who supports astronauts from below? Jay Trimble leads the User Centered Technology Group at NASA Ames Research Center (NASA-Ames Website). The UCT Group is a collection of people with various specialties from  anthropology to computer science that work together to create software for mission control. Jay also led another team called Mars Exploration Rover Human Centered Computing Project, which worked on Mar Rover Operations. Read the following interview with Jay Trimble to find out more about mission control.
Jay Trimble

1. What are some of the projects that the User Centered Technology (UCT) Group at NASA Ames Research Center has worked on?
The UCT Group has focused on component software that allows users to build their own software with compositions, meaning users can essentially assemble their own software using drag and drop. The software is open source, it’s called Open Mission Control Technologies. You can learn more about the software at http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/OpenMCT/, or on GitHub at https://github.com/nasa/mct. The UCT group has also built software to assist scientist in archiving planetary science data. 


2. What is the process of making software at the UCT Group like?
The process for making software is focused on the users. We use a range of methods to connect with users and translate what we’ve learned into the design of the software. We observe users doing their work in their own environment. This is important because observing users gives you a perspective that you won’t get by talking to them, though talking to users is also important. We interview users as well to better understand their work. We develop prototypes and iteratively improve them. Ideas are communicated and tested visually before committing to code. 

3. How did the Mars Exploration Rover Human Centered Computing Project improve the process and technology of Mars Rover Operations?
For Mars Rover Operations we worked with the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). We were part of a team looking at science processes. We developed software that ran on large touch screens that allowed the scientists to plan several days out what they wanted to be doing. 

4. What are your favorite/ least favorite parts of your job?
My favorite parts of my job are being part of space exploration and the people I work with. My least favorite part of the job is the uncertainty of the federal budget process. 

5. What do you see in the future of the UCT Group, and space-related technology in general?
That’s a very broad question. My group is working on a Lunar Rover Mission to conduct surface exploration in polar regions to prospect for water and other resources. That’s our focus at the moment. We are also continuing to work with JPL on software for monitoring solar system exploration spacecraft. I think space technology in general in focused on moving us beyond low Earth orbit and out into the solar system. 
6. How did you decide your career path?
I decided my career path based on my interest in the space program that began in grade school when we were landing on the Moon. 

Come to the Marin Science Seminar on Wednesday May 21 at Terra Linda High School, San Rafael; Physiology Lab 207 from 7:30-8:30 to learn more

NASA in the Silicon Valley: An Introduction to the NASA Ames Research Center

by Claire Watry, Terra Linda HS

Located in the heart of the Silicon Valley, the NASA Ames Research Center is one of ten NASA field centers across the country. The Ames Research Center has been a leader in space research and development for over 60 years. It was established in December of 1939 as part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and was absorbed into NASA in 1958. The Ames Research Center currently employees 2,500 people and contributes $1.3 billion annually to the U.S. economy. It is involved in a variety of fields and a multitude of areas of ingenuity, lists of which can be seen below.

Ames’ Key Goals are as followed:

Just out the video below for a more thorough overview of the Ames Research Center or check out the official NASA Ames Research Center YouTube channel 

The focus of the presentation will be on the Human Factors Area of Ames Ingenuity. The human factors area involves “advancing human-technology interaction for NASA missions.” The human factors research is currently conducted by over 150 researchers in more than 20 labs to improve safety, efficiency, and mission success. The rapid advancement of new technology requires humans to make competent, critical decisions in a complex, technological environment. Human factors studies the interaction between humans and engineering systems to ensure safe, effective, and cost-effective operations, maintenance, and training. Ames human factors encompasses a wide range of projects from simple visual perception and motor control to the more complex areas flight deck design and crew operational procedures. One of the featured examples involves placing human subjects in a centrifuge to simulate the vibration and enhanced g-forces experienced during launch and measured the subjects’ gaze stabilization reflexes, eye-movement reaction-time, accuracy, and precision, and hand-movement reaction-time, accuracy, and precision. Ames human factors includes research and development in the following areas:

  • Human-Machine Interaction improves NASA software through careful application of human computer interface methods.
  • Human Performance: develops new technologies, human performance models and evaluation tools to enhance human productivity and safety for both space and aviation environments.
  • Integration and Training: develops and evaluates methodologies to integrate human factors principles and improve aviation capacity, safety and training.
  • Intelligent Systems: conducts user-centered computational sciences research.
  • Aviation Systems: conducts research and development in air traffic management and high-fidelity flight simulation.                                              (From the NASA-Ames human factors website)
 A subject being prepared for an advanced controls and displays studies (left); a Human Computer Simulation Lab (right)

Join us this Wednesday, May 21 for this week’s Marin Science Seminar “This is Mission Control” with Jay Trimble of NASA-Ames in room 207 of Terra Linda High School in San Rafael.

~Claire Watry

High Tech Mannequins

by Gillian Parker, Tamalpais HS   
Oftentimes it is nerve-wracking or even dangerous for new medical staff to carry out certain procedures on real patients. At the VA Medical Center in San Francisco, the Simulation Center has high tech mannequins to help train staff in a low-risk environment. These mannequins simulate a normal patient and allow new staff to practice various procedures like chest tube insertion and IV catheter insertion, among others. They can also be hooked up to monitors that are often used to observe patients.

     Abi Fitzgerald practices one day every week in the emergency department at the SFVA as part of her one year fellowship in advanced clinical simulation. She is an RN and achieved her MSN at San Francisco State University. Read the following interview with Abi Fitzgerald to find out more about her experience with the simulators!


1. What is the best part about having the high tech mannequins to practice on?
    
    The manikin’s ability to simulate human functions allows clinicians to practice going through the physical motions assessing patients in both emergent and non-emergent situations, as opposed to verbally walking through the process.  This develops muscle memory and skills for recognizing normal vs. abnormal breath sounds, heart sounds, mental status, neurological functions and more.  

2. How would medical staff be trained without these medical robots?
    They could practice on actors, in which case the abnormal functions such as wheezes or heart murmurs are difficult to simulate.  They would also practice on real patients, which they still currently do, but using a manikin allows them more freedom to perform procedures and other tasks that they wouldn’t necessarily be able to do on a live patient. Working with manikins allows students and clinicians to refine their skills before working with actual patients.
3. What procedures have you performed on the simulators? Could you describe some?
This year the VAMC sim lab acquired a few new simulators that have allowed us (the simulation fellows) and the clinicians who train on them, to become more familiar with a lot of new procedures.  We now have an endovascular trainer which simulates procedures that take place in the cath lab such as non-open heart valve replacements.  This is when the doctors access the heart valve through a long wire and tube that is inserted in the leg and follows the artery all the way up to the aorta and into the heart where they can replace replace a heart valve using fluoroscopic imaging. We also have a new manikin that simulates ultrasounds and displays a three dimensional virtual reality image on a computer screen.   
4. Are there any flaws/negatives to the simulators?
   
The cost of acquiring the simulators and the repair costs can be high, but the quality of training and knowledge gained are very much worth it.  Additionally, ongoing research projects have resulted in the acceptance of grant proposals which has made the acquisition of some of the simulators possible. 
5. What are some things that the simulators can’t fully prepare you for?
  Even though we do our best to make simulated scenarios as real as possible, there are always some elements such as smells and unexpected outcomes that can be difficult but not impossible to simulate well.

Come to the Marin Science Seminar on Wednesday, May 14th, 7:30-8:30 to hear Abi Fitzgerald and Richard Fidler talk about medical education robots at Terra Linda High School in Room 207, 320 Albion Way, San Rafael, CA 94903