Speeding Up Medical Research

Speeding Up Medical Research Speeding Up Medical Research Speeding Up Medical ResearchIf it hadnt been for a chance conversation on a bus ride in 2011 while a senior scholar at the Humboldt Foundation in Germany, biomedical engineer Dr. Melissa Knothe Tate might not be immersed in game-changing medical research. Her goal isto reduce to weeks analyses that have been taking as long as 25 years.Knothe Tate, the Paul Trainor Chair of biomedical engineering at the University of New South Wales (Australia), welches returning to her hotel after hearing a speech by German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she and a fellow Humboldtian started a friendly conversation about their respective work.Her seatmate, an RD specialist at German optical and industrial measurement manufacturer Zeiss, talked vaguely about a new technology adapting something originally developed for scanning silicon wafers for defects into a tool to understand human tissues. He asked me if I could think of any uses for that, sh e recalls, and her brain went into overdrive. An engineer and expert in cell biology and regenerative medicine, she began imagining imaging the whole body and zooming all the way down to a single cell.Sick osteocytes (asterisks) surrounding a blood vessel. Image Knothe TateEventually forging a partnership with Zeiss, U.S.-based Cleveland Clinic, Brown and Stanford Universities, and Google, Knothe Tate began making trips to Germany every two months from the U.S., taking human specimens and returning with terrabytes of data to use in her research exploring osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. Those travels continued until the beginning of this year, but by then she had left Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Ohio to teach and run a research lab she platzdeckchen up in Australia.Now she and the super team of 10 to 20 post doc fellows and students in her lab are figuring out how to put the massive amounts of data together so that they can zoom in and out from, for examp le, the whole hip to the femoral head and then down to a single cell in the femoral head. In laymans terms, the Zeiss technology can do for the human body what Google Maps do in zooming from an Earth view to a street view. The team is using Google maps algorithms to use the tremendous amounts of information fruchtwein effectively.Its a lot of data handling, she says. Something like 2 million images stitched together and organized in a structure so that you can zoom seamlessly in and out - from organ to tissue to cellular level and back.She admits that the first data set was a huge challenge. Now that thats done, the challenge is making the measurements and testing hypotheses on such huge data sets. Now we are only limited by computer power and speed and things like that, she says.Using this technology allows her team to examine how movement and weight bearing affect the movement of molecules within joints, exploring the relationship between blood, bone, lymphatics, and muscle.For th e first time we have the ability to go from the whole body down to how the cells are getting their nutrition and how this is all connected, says Knothe Tate. Understanding this could unlock a range of treatments, including physical therapies and preventative exercise routines, she adds.A mechanical engineer and biomedical engineer by training, she explains that everything she has done throughout her career is at the connection of mechanics and biology or physiology. I always wanted to have a way to see and measure relationships in the body structure functionally. That typically involves development of new imaging technologies or use of imaging technology at the cutting edge.When she started out a number of years ago at Stanford and began to understand how important cells were for the complex physiology of the human body, there were no methods at the time to tie cellular behavior to tissue behavior and then in turn to organs and system behavior. When she began her bimonthly trips to work in the labs at Zeiss, she says, We had to develop a lot of new methods of things that had never been done before.Now, her team is for the first time beginning to understand how emergent behavior throughout the system takes place In other words, tying local events to global events. In the past, understanding emergent behavior in the tissue has lumineszenzdiode to novel understanding of how disease comes about and the development of preventative measures to maintain health, she says.Nancy S. Giges is an independent writer.Learn about the latest trends in bioengineering at ASMEs Global Congress onNanoEngineering for Medicine and Biology. For Further Discussion For the first time we have the ability to go from the whole body down to how the cells are getting their nutrition and how this is all connected.Dr. Melissa Knothe Tate, University of New South Wales

Work-Life Balance for Workaholics

Work-Life Balance for WorkaholicsWork-Life Balance for WorkaholicsIn an increasingly stressed-out world, the phrase work-life balance resonates with us all. No matter how many hurs we work each week, it always seems like theres a little too much time spent in the office (or on the phone) and not enough time spent with family, friends, hobbies or leisure time.Can we always control our work schedules and maintain a certain number of off hours? No. But, we can build better habitsaround the downtime we do have to make sure we get the most out of it.Here are three things you can do each week to reclaim some of your work-life balance no matter how much youre working. Create a transition ritualSome jobs come with a built-in transition period. For example, if you work with your hands or perform mostly manual labor, its hard to be at work when youre not working. But for those of us who work in an office or work with other people, its easy to continue to mull over situations or try to think th rough problems even when were a long way from our desks.Whether you work from home or work in an office, you need a clear transition ritual that tells your brain its time to stop working and to leave all of your work problems for the next day. This can be something as simple as enjoying a non-work related podcast on your commute home, or (in my case) practicing a musical instrument for 15 minutes before you transition out of your office.When youre off, be offWith advances in consumer mobile technology, the workday has essentially extended into a 24-hour cycle of checking email and voicemail. While physicians and some CEOs have an excuse to never turn off, its rarely a matter of life or death for a person or a business if the rest of us turn our phones off its just the busyness myth thats draining our batteries (and our energy) 24/7.Take a look at your life and be honest. When is the last time you completely turned off your phone or removed all work-related information from your hom e computer, tablet, or mobile? If its not every night and every weekend for a set period of time, youre never really resting. Youre always a beep, ring or buzz away from being pulled back into the emotional and psychological pressures of work.Think long-termIts one thing to work a few extra hours for a product launch or during a particularly busy season. Its another thing to find yourself regularly working overtime and choosing achievement in the office over rest and relaxation in your personal life. Over time, these choices lead to burnout and regret.You track and measure important things at work. When was the last time you did so for your personal life? Schedule time each month to review your health, your eating and exercise habits, and the status of your personal life to make sure you arent letting work take over too much of the balance.If you find that work is becoming an overwhelming factor in your life, brainstorm things you can do to avoid burnout such as taking a vacation, s peaking with your manager about pulling back a little or even considering a less stressful job.What are you doing to achieve a greater balance between work and life? Let us know in the comments

6 Cover Letter Mistakes to Avoid in Your Law Firm Job Search [Infographic]

6 titelbild Letter Mistakes to Avoid in Your Law Firm Job Search Infographic6 Cover Letter Mistakes to Avoid in Your Law Firm Job Search Infographic