Events

Local readers, mark your calendar for a free, public event on the medical school campus on March 6. “seXX & seXY: A Dialogue on the Female Brain and the Male Brain,” will feature a variety of experts discussing sex differences in the brain and covering such topics as autism, Alzheimer’s disease and obesity. The event marks the launch of the Stanford Center for Health Research on Women and Sex Differences in Medicine, which will encourage scientists to study sex differences in cells, tissues, animal models and human health outcomes across the life span, with an emphasis on women’s health.

As I wrote in a story on the new endeavor:

The center will unite the many Stanford faculty members conducting health research on women and sex differences in basic biology and the influence of gender on disease. Some researchers, for example, are examining a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease that may be seen in women only. Others are studying how to tailor diagnostic tests and treatments for women, as well as men, with cardiovascular disease. The center hopes to promote further research in all medical disciplines, as well as identify clinical areas (such as health issues in gay, lesbian and transgender people) that need to be recognized in order to provide health equity for everyone.

…

[Directors Marcia Stefanick, PhD, and Lynn Westphal, MD,] felt strongly that the center’s emphasis should not be solely on women, but also on their Y-chromosomed (and gender variant) counterparts. Women have better outcomes than men in many disease categories, but worse outcomes in others. Investigating why, for example, men have more all-cause cancers and more heart disease, and die at higher rates than women in every age category until age 80 and older, could be of clinical benefit to both sexes, they say, as will learning why women suffer more from autoimmune diseases and other illnesses.

“Understanding the reasons would shed light on diseases and allow us to tailor treatments,” said Westphal.

The March 6 symposium (for which people can register here) will be followed by a general women’s health forum on May 15; the events are designed to interest both a lay and professional audience.

Photo by Hey Paul Studios

A new study from Stanford molecular and cellular physiologist Axel Brunger, PhD, and colleagues clears up a controversy in the neuroscience community by pinpointing a critical feature of the mechanism by which our nerve cells manage to talk to one another in something approaching real time. If that conversation were stuck in slo-mo, the distinction between brain and blob would vanish.

While the study is noteworthy in itself, the fact that its findings appear in the first issue of eLife, a newly launched open-access journal, rather than Science or Nature is also significant. As a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator with close to 250 peer-reviewed publications under his belt, Brunger is hardly hard-up for high-rated scientific outlets. But his experience, he tells me, has made it clear that “our peer-reviewed publication system is in a state of crisis.”

It seems other scientists feel the same. A University of Montreal study published in November concluded that the most prestigious journals were publishing fewer and fewer of the most frequently cited articles.

“For many ‘high-impact factor’ journals, initial triaging and final decisions aren’t made by active scientists,” says Brunger. “That’s not to say that these journals don’t publish excellent work, but the criteria for acceptance seem rather arbitrary and random.”

The brainchild of three heavyweight research-funding entities – HHMI, the Max Planck Society, and Wellcome Trust – eLife is not only open-access, but publication-immediately-upon-acceptance and embargo-free. (Not to mention just plain free, for both authors and readers.) Brunger’s is one of a score or so of research papers selected for eLife’s first issue, which published today.

Photo by mikebaird

More than a third of adults in the United States are obese, and obesity rates for children in the country have tripled since 1980. In an effort to foster conversation about the issue, the School of Medicine is hosting a public forum on Nov. 27 on the driving forces behind the nation’s weight gain, including food policies and diet trends.

A flyer (.pdf) for the free event offers more details about the guest speakers:

Acclaimed science writer Gary Taubes will  join in conversation with Christopher Gardner, PhD, director of Nutrition Studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. Gardner is actively involved in research focused on dietary intervention trials designed to test the effects of food components or food patterns on chronic disease risk factors, including body weight, blood lipids, and inflammatory markers. Taubes has argued that our diet’s overemphasis on certain kinds of carbohydrates, has led directly to the obesity epidemic we face today – which immediately stirred controversy and acclaim among academics, journalists and writers alike.

The discussion will be moderated by Paul Costello, the medical school’s chief communications officer, and end with an audience Q&A.

Previously: Four states examine their cultural environment to reduce obesity rates, Examining why instilling healthy eating and exercise habits in children may not prevent obesity later in life, Stanford researcher fights obesity out on the farm and Obesity in kids: A growing and dangerous epidemic
Photo by Jodi Green

Nearly 50 years after the first Surgeon General warnings linking smoking to cancer appeared on cigarettes packages, millions of Americans have managed to break the addictive habit. And while a decrease in the numbers of smokers provides great reason to celebrate, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death. The damage that smoking does to the lungs still means a far higher risk of developing cancer.

Unfortunately, lung cancer is most often not diagnosed until its later stages, which decreases the chance of successful treatment. However, new screening guidelines for earlier lung cancer detection were approved this spring by the American College of Chest Physicians and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

On Thursday, the same day that the American Cancer Society sponsors its annual Great American Smokeout, Stanford lung cancer experts will be on hand at a free public panel to address the new screening guidelines and the latest approaches to lung cancer treatment. The panel will include:

• Daya Upadhyay, MD, a pulmonary specialist focused on lung nodules, early lung cancer diagnosis and the impact of smoking and environment on lung health
• Joseph Shrager, MD, chief of Stanford’s Division of Thoracic Surgery and expert in video-assisted thoracic surgery for early stage lung cancer
• Heather Wakelee, MD, a medical oncologist with expertise in molecularly-targeted treatment of lung cancer who heads the thoracic oncology clinical research group
• Billy W. Loo Jr, MD, PhD, program leader of thoracic radiation oncology and an expert inimage-guided stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) for early stage lung cancer

If you are in the Bay Area, and you or someone you know is a current or former heavy smoker, consider attending the panel. The event will be held from 7 – 8:30 PM at the Francis C. Arrillaga Alumni Center on the Stanford campus. Seating is limited; to register call (650) 498-7826.

Previously: Lung cancer can affect anyone, Lung cancer rates declining in the U.S., Study shows secondhand smoke a serious health threat to casino workers, patrons and Study suggests smoking may cause the body to turn against its own helpful bacteria
Photo by Fernando Mafra

Food Day - Oct. 24 – is fast approaching. Food researchers here will be celebrating by attending Food Summit 3, a two-part event for scientists, community activists and members of the general public with an interest in food systems research.

During the day, there will be a symposium for Stanford researchers and members of community-based food organizations. The agenda includes, among other things, presentations on three food-related research projects that grew out of Stanford-community partnerships started at last year’s Food Summit.

The evening features a forum for the general public that begins with a presentation by speaker, author and activist John Robbins, who is perhaps best known for his 1987 book “Diet for a New America.” His presentation will be followed by a panel discussion entitled “Farm Bill or Food Bill?” that features food activists from here and around the Bay Area.

I wrote more about the Stanford event in a release:

“Our longer-term goal is to build a food-systems research center on campus,” said Christopher Gardner, PhD, the associate professor of medicine who is organizing the summit. The engagement of all seven Stanford schools in a variety of food-related research projects gives Stanford a unique niche in addressing local, national and global food problems, Gardner said. “Of 7 billion people on the planet, a billion are hungry and nearly a billion are overweight or obese,” he said. “There’s enough food to go around, but how do you produce it and how do you distribute it? Those are systems issues in growing a sustainable-food movement that Stanford may be able to help solve.”

Both portions of the Food Summit are free; registration is available online.

Previously: Stanford expert discusses motivating Americans to make better nutritional choices, Food, glorious food: Stanford’s first food summit and Stanford researchers seek interdisciplinary solutions to food-related problems

Scientific studies are revealing new insights into the plasticity and capability of the brain that hold the promise of changing the way we think, interact and plan throughout our lives. On Saturday, a group of distinguished thought-leaders and scientists will convene at Stanford and explore how neuroscience in the 21st century will impact our society.

ABC news correspondent Juju Chang will moderate the Oct. 6 roundtable, called “Gray Matters: Your brain, your life and brain science in the 21st century,” and will be joined by:

• John Hennessy, PhD, president of Stanford
• Carla Shatz, PhD, Stanford neurobiologist and director of Bio-X
• Frank Longo, MD, PhD,  chair of the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford
• Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD, a brain scientist who wrote about her stroke in the New York Times best-seller, ”My Stroke of Insight“
• Bob Woodruff, JD, co-anchor of ABC World News Tonight

The event, which begins at 9:30 a.m., is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required, but parking is limited.

Previously: Video from Stanford’s longevity roundtable now available and Experts weigh in on how aging population affects us
Photo by Heidi Cartwright, Wellcome Images

Stanford’s Medicine X conference closed yesterday with a presentation from ePatients who participated in the IDEO Design Challenge.

During the workshop, which was held last Friday at the IDEO headquarters in Palo Alto, ePatients got the opportunity to learn the company’s design process and collaborate with IDEO designers, researchers, technologists and health-care providers to develop new ideas for improving patient care.

Workshop participants were divided into five teams, and each team included an ePatient who has experience managing a chronic disease and who uses technology to help facilitate his or her own care. Each patient brought a statement problem, which was based on their chronic illness and application, for the team to address in working through the design-thinking process.

According to IDEO Partner Dennis Boyle, this was the first time the company had collaborated with patients as members of a design team.

Three of the ePatients – Nikolai Kirienko, Sarah Kucharski and Scope contributor M.A. Malone - took the stage alongside moderator Nick Dawson, a Medicine X board member and director of community engagement at Bon Secours Virginia Health System, on Sunday to discuss their experiences participating in the design challenge.

Kirienko described working with team members to create a participatory health record that would help ensure patients weren’t the last to know about a doctor’s orders. “The thing that struck me most about the workshop was that it was a very healing process,” he said. “Having spent thousands of hours in the hospital, it was an amazing experience to be able to think about those problems so that patients in the future wouldn’t have to encounter some of the same situations.”

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It was my privilege this past weekend to moderate a lively Medicine X panel comprising three speakers who’d just given presentions on different phases of the avalanche of information already rumbling down the mountain of scientific curiosity. Sean Bonner talked about his nonprofit company Safecast‘s efforts to put into place myriad mobile sensors to monitor radiation in the wake of the Japanese reactor disaster. Stanford medical data king and father of several biomedical start-ups Atul Butte, MD, PhD, described how his team mined public databases to isolate a protein that’s likely a key player (and until now an entirely  overlooked one) in the development of Type 2 diabetes. Pete Binfield, PhD, former publisher of the open-access journal PLoS ONE, explained how his latest venture, PeerJ will push the open-access envelope even further.

I  had a bone to pick concerning the quality of the information that’s being scooped up, sifted, sorted, and spewed out in ever-increasing quantities. A few weeks ago I got a notice in the mail informing me a traffic violation on my part had been picked up by an automatic tracking device. Seems I’d evaded a two-dollar toll on Highway 261 on Sept. 10, at 6:50 a.m.

But Sept. 10 was a Monday. On Mondays I work from my home in San Francisco and don’t open my eyes till 6:30. Highway 261 is in Orange County, easily 500 miles away. So, say I flew out of bed at 6:30 sharp, skipped breakfast and brushing my teeth, raced down the stairs, and jumped in my car …  I’d still have to drive really fast (like, 2,000 miles an hour) to get to that toll booth within 20 minutes. Assuming I obeyed even half of the traffic signals on my way out of town, we’re talking relativistic speeds.

And I got popped for jumping a crummy two-dollar toll, but not for speeding?

I knew something was fishy. So I called the 800 number and they checked their photo and, sure enough, they were off by one digit on the license-plate number. They were very nice about it, too – which tells me this happens a lot. It’s an example of what people in the bioscience biz call a “false positive.”

And it got me thinking about large-scale data collection and crunching. So I asked Sean, Atul, and Pete how their respective approaches would safeguard or improve quality. Their unanimous prescription, captured in this video (our session starts at about 02:59:50), in a word: transparency.

Previously: Mining medical discoveries from a mountain of ones and zeroes, The data deluge: A report from Stanford Medicine magazine and Stanford’s Atul Butte discusses outsourcing research online at TEDMED
Photo by plushev

More news about Stanford Medicine X is available in the Medicine X category.

This weekend at the Medicine X conference, Stanford biochemist Rhiju Das, PhD, shared with the audience how he and colleagues are tapping into the online gaming community to accelerate researchers’ understanding of DNA’s once-unsung chemical cousin, RNA. Das’s laboratory partnered with scientists at Carnegie Mellon University to design a video game, called EteRNA, that allows players to design RNA molecules. Researchers synthesize the “winning” RNA sequences on a weekly basis, determine if they fold up as designed and feed the experimental findings back to the players.

The game now has more than 51,000 players, and more than 4,400 have logged enough hours playing the game to submit lab designs. These users are churning out roughly 1,000 designs on a weekly basis, but Das’ lab can only synthesize about eight each week. As Das explains in the above video, he and his team hope to solve this problem using an approach comparable to cloud computing that they call “cloud biochemistry.”

Previously: How play and games can impact the future of science and health, O’Reilly Radar Q&A looks at how games can improve health, Paramecia PacMan: Researchers create video games using living organisms and Mob science: Video game, EteRNA, lets amateurs advance RNA research

More news about Stanford Medicine X is available in the Medicine X category.

Yesterday afternoon at the Medicine X conference here, artist-in-residence Regina Holliday captivated attendees with her heartfelt and empowering presentation on patient engagement.

A widow and mother of two, Holliday speaks nationally about patient rights and challenges the health-care system through a range of art projects. One of her artistic efforts is her walking gallery, a collection of more than 107 jackets that capture the causes of the patients who wear them. A number of Medicine X attendees have worn their jackets this weekend.

In the video above, Holliday discusses her work and passionately calls for people to join the ePatient community and use their voices to collaborate with providers, pursue new health systems, and develop patient-centered design solutions.

Previously: Image of the Week: Regina Holliday’s Medicine X (redux) and How Regina Holliday uses art to advance the discussion about patients rights

More news about Stanford Medicine X is available in the Medicine X category.