RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE

Manish Ayushman, a PhD student in bioengineering, has watched more than a thousand hours of microscopic footage of stem cells in the lab. At first, the cells seemed like they weren’t doing much of anything. But when Ayushman looked a little more closely, he noticed they were moving ever so slightly – turning and pulsing to a languid tempo.

When he sped up the footage, the movements became clearer: Each stem cell appeared to be shimmying and shaking with purpose.

In a paper published Nov. 1 in Nature Materials, Ayushman and Stanford Medicine colleagues described this previously unknown type of cell movement, which they’ve named cell tumbling. Unlike known types of cell movement, such as spreading and migration, which take hours to days, cell tumbling is relatively quick, taking seconds to minutes.

Microgravity is known to alter the muscles, bones, the immune system and cognition, but little is known about its specific impact on the brain. To discover how brain cells respond to microgravity, Scripps Research scientists, in collaboration with the New York Stem Cell Foundation, sent tiny clumps of stem-cell derived brain cells called “organoids” to the International Space Station (ISS).

Surprisingly, the organoids were still healthy when they returned from orbit a month later, but the cells had matured faster compared to identical organoids grown on Earth — they were closer to becoming adult neurons and were beginning to show signs of specialization. The results, which could shed light on potential neurological effects of space travel, were published on October 23, 2024, in Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

The recent nationwide alert about E. coli-laced organic carrots is just the latest example that our food safety isn’t guaranteed. Now a research team at UT Dallas is exploring a way that people can do a final check for contaminants—right in their own homes.

From contaminated carrots to harmful hamburger, tainted food has caused sickness and even death for decades—with E. coli-laced organic carrots the latest item to alarm Americans nationwide. Now a research team at the University of Texas at Dallas is developing a tool for consumers to use right in their own homes to add an extra level of food safety.

The researchers—led by Dr. Shalini Prasad, department head of bioengineering at UTD’s Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science—is developing sensors that could make it possible for consumers to detect contaminants in food and water “within minutes,” the university said.

Researchers at the University of Texas and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) say they have created a liquid ink that can be directly printed onto a patient’s scalp to measure brain activity, offering an alternative to traditional electroencephalography (EEG). The new technology, detailed in the journal Cell Biomaterials, is part of ongoing research into electronic tattoos (e-tattoos) and their potential to improve both clinical diagnostics and brain-computer interface applications.

“Our innovations in sensor design, biocompatible ink, and high-speed printing pave the way for future on-body manufacturing of electronic tattoo sensors, with broad applications both within and beyond clinical settings,” said lead researcher Nanshu Lu, PhD, whose lab at the University of Texas at Austin focuses on the development of bio-integrated electronics.

A study from Johns Hopkins University, published in Biophotonics Discovery, examined how skin tone affects the accuracy of photoacoustic imaging (PAI), a technology gaining traction in breast cancer diagnostics, especially in situations where traditional mammography is insufficient. The study shows how image reconstruction methods and laser wavelengths influence the visibility of cancerous targets in patients with diverse skin tones and suggests practical solutions to improve equity in diagnostics.

Photoacoustic imaging is a hybrid imaging technique that combines light and sound. Light pulses are transmitted into the body and absorbed by structures like blood vessels, which then undergo thermal expansion and generate sound waves. Ultrasound detectors capture these waves to create detailed images.

People from minoritized racial and ethnic groups continue to face numerous systemic barriers that impede their ability to access, persist, and thrive in STEMM higher education and the workforce.

To promote a culture of antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) in STEMM, organizations must actively work to dismantle policies and practices that disadvantage people from minoritized groups.

The recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, in addition to the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on African Americans, are wrenching reminders of the many harms that societal racism, inequality, and injustice inflict on the Black community. These injustices are rooted in centuries of oppression—including slavery and Jim Crow, redlining, school segregation, and mass incarceration—that continue to influence American life, including the biomedical research enterprise. Despite leading an NIH Institute whose mission includes building a diverse scientific workforce, at NIGMS we’ve struggled with what an adequate response to this moment would be, knowing that the systems that mediate the distinct and disparate burdens Black students, postdocs, and scientists face are complex and often aren’t easily moved with the urgency that they demand. With that in mind, below we share thoughts on what each of us who is in the majority or in a position of power can do to help break the cycles of racial disparities that are woven into the fabric of the biomedical research enterprise and that limit opportunities Link to external web site for Black scientists Link to external web site.

Institutional structures, policies, and cultures Link to external web site, including those in the biomedical research enterprise, all contribute to racial inequality and injustice. This fact was laid bare for us by the responses to the request for information (RFI) we issued in 2018 on strategies to enhance successful postdoctoral career transitions to promote faculty diversity. Respondents cited bias and discrimination—including racism—most frequently as a key barrier to postdoctoral researchers attaining independent faculty positions.

Sexual harassment, including gender harassment, presents an unacceptable barrier that prevents women from achieving their rightful place in science, and robs society and the scientific enterprise of diverse and critical talent. As the largest single funder of biomedical research in the world, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) bears a responsibility to take action to put an end to this behavior. In 2019, the NIH began to bolster its policies and practices to address and prevent sexual harassment. This included new communication channels to inform the agency of instances of sexual harassment related to NIH-funded research. This week, the NIH announces a change that will hold grantee institutions and investigators accountable for this misconduct, to further foster a culture whereby sexual harassment and other inappropriate behaviors are not tolerated in the research and training environment.

Last year, an Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) of the NIH presented a report and recommendations to end sexual harassment. A major theme of this report was the need for increased transparency and accountability in the reporting of professional misconduct, especially sexual harassment. The cases of sexual harassment that surfaced in the wake of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) 2018 report highlighted a substantial gap in the NIH’s oversight of the research enterprise: There was no straightforward mechanism for the agency to learn of sexual harassment or other misconduct taking place at grantee institutions in the context of NIH-funded research. It was not uncommon for the NIH to discover such cases through the media, amid rightful public outcry. Holding institutions and investigators accountable for this behavior was challenging.

Over the past couple of weeks, our nation has been confronted with ugly truths and hard history revealing how systemic racism rears its head in almost every space. Since the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down our typical lifestyles, people seem to be listening.

This moment feels very different from other situations when we had to address human rights in the context of race relations in the United States. With that comes a host of emotions that White people have rarely had to deal with because of their racial privilege, and this includes White people working in academia.

Like many Black faculty, and Black people in general, I have received messages and texts from White colleagues apologizing, expressing their guilt and remorse, and asking what they can do to support their Black colleagues and friends.

I am writing these guidelines in response to the recent events that have impacted the Black community, specifically, the Black computing community. As the Department Chair of the Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Department at the University of Florida, I lead, one of, if not, the nation’s most diverse computing sciences (CS) department. We have the nation’s most Black CS faculty and PhD students. We are one of the top CS departments for the number of female faculty. As a researcher, I have had the honor of producing the nation’s most Black/African-American CS PhDs. I have also had the honor of hiring and promoting the most Black faculty in CS. My experiences span more than 20 years and those experiences are the foundation for these guidelines.