Imaging cells: New method enables clear, precise look inside

Researchers at the Beckman Institute can now ‘see’ the fine structure and chemical composition of a human cell with unmatched clarity and precision

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BECKMAN INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS AT THE BECKMAN INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LED BY BIOENGINEERING PROFESSOR ROHIT BHARGAVA DEVELOPED AN INNOVATIVE WAY TO ‘SEE’ THE FINE STRUCTURE AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF A HUMAN CELL WITH UNMATCHED CLARITY AND PRECISION. THEIR TECHNIQUE TAKES A CREATIVE — AND COUNTERINTUITIVE — APPROACH TO SIGNAL DETECTION. view more 

CREDIT: BECKMAN INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OFFICE OF COMMUNICATION.

It’s why Jaws swam out of sight for more than an hour and hints at the glamour of giftwrap. In movie theaters, living rooms, and even labs, the thrill of the unseen can be counted on to keep us guessing. But when it comes to the hidden chemical world of cells, scientists need no longer wonder.

Inspired by this same thrill, researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology developed an innovative way to ‘see’ the fine structure and chemical composition of a human cell with unmatched clarity and precision. Their technique, which appeared in PNAS earlier this week, takes a creative — and counterintuitive — approach to signal detection.

“Biology is one of the most exciting sciences of our time because there has always been a divide between what we can see and what we cannot see,” said Rohit Bhargava, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who led the study.

As the smallest functional units in our bodies, cells have long commanded the attention of researchers interested in determining what they’re made of and where each element resides. Together, the “what” and the “where” form an all-purpose cellular blueprint that can be used to study biology, chemistry, materials, and more.

Before this study, obtaining a high-resolution copy of that blueprint ranked among the impossible.

“Now, we can see inside cells in a much finer resolution and with significant chemical detail more easily than ever,” Bhargava said. “This work opens a range of possibilities, including a new way to examine the combined chemical and physical aspects that govern human development and disease.”

The researchers’ work builds on prior strides in the field of chemical imaging.

Whereas optical microscopy uses visible light to illuminate surface-level features like color and structure, chemical imaging uses invisible infrared light to reveal a sample's inner workings.

When a cell is exposed to IR light, its temperature rises, and it expands. We know from night vision goggles that no two objects absorb IR wavelengths in exactly the same way; comparing a poodle to a park bench is evidence enough that warmer objects emit stronger IR signatures than cooler ones. The same is true inside a cell, where each type of molecule absorbs IR light at a subtly different wavelength and emits a unique chemical signature. Examining the absorption patterns — a method called spectroscopy — allows researchers to pinpoint the whereabouts of each.

Unlike night vision goggles, the researchers do not analyze the absorption patterns as a color spectrum. Instead, they interpret the IR waves with a signal detector: a minute beam fastened to the microscope on one end, with a fine tip that scrapes the cell’s surface like the nanoscale needle of a record player.

Innovations in spectroscopy over the last decade have focused on steadily increasing the strength of the initial IR wavelengths.

“It’s an intuitive approach because we are conditioned to think of larger signals as being better. We think, ‘The stronger the IR signal, the higher a cell’s temperature becomes, the more it expands, and the easier it will be to see,’” Bhargava said.

A sizeable setback is hidden within this approach. As the cell expands, the motion of the signal detector becomes more exaggerated and generates “noise”: so-called static that impedes accurate chemical measurements.

“It’s like turning up the dial on a staticky radio station — the music gets louder, but so does the static,” said Seth Kenkel, a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Bhargava’s lab and the study’s lead author.

In other words, no matter how powerful the IR signal became, the quality of the chemical imaging could not advance.

“We needed a solution to stop the noise from increasing alongside the signal,” Kenkel said.

The researchers' remedy to noisy cellular imaging works by divorcing the IR signal from the detector's movement, allowing for amplification without the added noise.

Instead of focusing their energies on the strongest possible IR signal, the researchers began by experimenting with the smallest signal they could manage, ensuring that they could effectively implement their solution before upping the strength. Though “counterintuitive,” according to Kenkel, starting small allowed the researchers to honor a decade of spectroscopy research and lay critical groundwork for the future of the field.

Bhargava likens the approach to a road trip gone awry.

“Imagine that spectroscopy researchers were in a car, headed to the Grand Canyon. Of course, everyone would think that the faster the car moves, the faster they’ll reach the destination. But the problem is that the car is headed east from Urbana,” he said.

Increasing the hypothetical car’s speed is analogous to strengthening the IR signal.

“We pulled over, looked at a map, and pointed the car in the correct direction. Now, the increased speed — the increased signal — can effectively move the field forward.”

The researchers’ “map” enables high-resolution chemical and structural imaging of cells at the nanoscale — a scale 100,000 times smaller than a strand of hair. Notably, this technique is free of fluorescent labeling, or dyeing molecules to increase their visibility under a microscope.

While the facilities in Beckman’s Microscopy Suite were critical to the study’s experimental stage, the idea itself arose not from sophisticated technology, but from a culture that supported curiosity, unconventional problem-solving, and diverse perspectives.

“This is why the Beckman Institute is an amazing place,” Bhargava said. “This project needed ideas from spectroscopy, from mechanical engineering, from signal processing, and of course biology. You can’t combine these fields seamlessly anywhere other than Beckman. This study is a classic example of Beckman’s blend of interdisciplinary science at the cutting edge of advanced science and technology.”

---

The article titled "Chemical imaging of cellular ultrastructure by null-deflection infrared spectroscopic measurements" can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2210516119 

For full author information, please consult the publication.

The authors declare no competing interest.

Research reported in this press release was supported in part by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health under award numbers T32EB019944 and R01EB009745, as well as the National Science Foundation under award number 2153032. This content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Media contact: Jenna Kurtzweil, kurtzwe2@illinois.edu

---

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2210516119 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Chemical imaging of cellular ultrastructure by null-deflection infrared spectroscopic measurements

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Nov-2022

Personal sensing at work: tracking burnout, balancing privacy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Personal sensing data could help monitor and alleviate stress among resident physicians, although privacy concerns over who sees the information and for what purposes must be addressed, according to collaborative research from Cornell Tech.

Burnout in all types of workplaces is on the rise in the U.S., where the “Great Resignation” and “silent quitting” have entered the lexicon in recent years. This is especially true in the health care industry, which has been strained beyond measure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stress is physical as well as mental, and evidence of stress can be measured through the use of smartphones, wearables and personal computers. But data collection and analysis – and the larger questions of who should have access to that information, and for what purpose – raise myriad sociotechnical questions.

“We’ve looked at whether we can measure stress in workplaces using these types of devices, but do these individuals actually want this kind of system? That was the motivation for us to talk to those actual workers,” said Daniel Adler, co-lead author with fellow doctoral student Emily Tseng of “Burnout and the Quantified Workplace: Tensions Around Personal Sensing Interventions for Stress in Resident Physicians,” published Nov. 11 Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction.

The paper is being presented at the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Social Computing, taking place virtually Nov. 8-22.

Adler and Tseng worked with senior author Tanzeem Choudhury, the Roger and Joelle Burnell Professor in Integrated Health and Technology at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech. Contributors came from Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell Health and Zucker Hillside Hospital.

The resident physician’s work environment is a bit different from the traditional apprenticeship situation in that their supervisor, the attending physician, is also their mentor. That can blur the lines between the two.

“That’s a new context,” Tseng said. “We don’t really know what the actual boundaries are there, or what it looks like when you introduce these new technologies, either. So you need to try and decide what those norms might be to determine whether this information flow is appropriate in the first place.”

Choudhury and her group addressed these issues through a study involving resident physicians at an urban hospital in New York City. After hourlong interviews with residents on Zoom, the residents and their attendings were given mockups of a Resident Wellbeing Tracker, a dashboard with behavioral data on residents’ sleep, activity and time working; self-reported data on residents’ levels of burnout; and a text box where residents could characterize their well-being.

Tseng said the residents were open to the idea of using technology to enhance well-being. “They were also very interested in the privacy question,” she said, “and how we could use technologies like this to achieve those positive ends while still balancing privacy concerns.”

The study featured two intersecting use cases: self-reflection, in which the residents view their behavioral data, and data sharing, in which the same information is shared with their attendings and program directors for purposes of intervention.

Among the key findings: Residents were hesitant to share their data without the assurance that supervisors would use it to enhance their well-being. There is also a question of anonymity, which was more likely with more participation. But greater participation would hurt the potential usefulness of the program, since supervisors would not be able to identify which residents were struggling.

“This process of sharing personal data is somewhat complicated,” Adler said. “There is a lot of interesting continuing work that we’re involved in that looks at this question of privacy, and how you present yourself through your data in more-traditional mental health care settings. It’s not as simple as, ‘They’re my doctor, therefore I’m comfortable sharing this data.’”

The authors conclude by referring to the “urgent need for further work establishing new norms around data-driven workplace well-being management solutions that better center workers’ needs, and provide protections for the workers they intend to support.”

Other contributors included Emanuel Moss, a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell Tech; David Mohr, a professor in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University; as well as Dr. John Kane, Dr. John Young and Dr. Khatiya Moon from Zucker Hillside Hospital.

The research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation and the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech.

-30-

---

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

DOI

10.1145/3555531 

Remote-controlled microscopes bring complex biology education to students worldwide

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA CRUZ

 

IMAGE: ALISAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ON A VISIT TO THE LIVE CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY DISCOVERY LAB AT UCSC. (PHOTO BY CAROLYN LAGATTUTA) view more 

CREDIT: CAROLYN LAGATTUTA.

In many communities around the world, students’ ability and enthusiasm to pursue STEM fields in their high school and college careers is limited by a lack of resources which prevent them from accessing complex, project-based curriculum like their peers. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these existing educational inequalities, requiring new solutions to democratize access to this field. 

UC Santa Cruz researchers have developed a method for using remote-controlled, internet-connected microscopes to enable students anywhere in the world to participate in designing and carrying out biology experiments.

A new study in the journal Heliyon details this novel and scalable framework for bringing project-based STEM education to students who otherwise would not have access. The researchers implemented the microscope technology in the biology classrooms of several Latinx communities in the United States and Latin America, and found their technology to be an effective and scalable approach for giving students underrepresented in STEM the ability to conduct complex experiments remotely.

“Taking an internet-connected camera and putting it into the viewpiece of a microscope is something that a lot of labs could do,” said Pierre Baudin, a computer engineering Ph.D. student at the Baskin School of Engineering and first-author on the paper. “By laying out the framework in this paper, the idea was to create a roadmap so any lab that feels some kind of mission or desire to create educational resources for their community or others may be able to set up a similar kind of experiment, allowing this concept to spread.” 

Tissue culture experiments are typically unheard of in high school and even the first few years of college, and yet in user studies run for this research, underserved highschool students at Alisal High School in the rural Salinas Valley near Santa Cruz were able to do these experiments.

“We are allowing students to do experiments that are normally not feasible for [many] schools around the world, either because the materials are hazardous or because the equipment is expensive or requires specific training for both the teachers and the students,” said Mohammed Mostajo-Radji, the senior researcher on this study.

Developing the new method

While project-based learning has proven to be an effective method for teaching STEM concepts, it is restricted by barriers such as cost and logistics of shipping materials to isolated communities, limited teacher training, under-resourced schools, and potential exposure to hazardous materials. Through deep experience working with education non-profits, UCSC Genomics Institute’s Mostajo-Radji determined that a successful solution needs to be scalable and affordable, adaptable to a school’s local context, and allow students to fully explore the scientific method. 

Mostajo-Radji and many other researchers at the UCSC Genomics Institute involved in this project believe running complex biology experiments via remote-controlled microscopes can be a solution that fits these criteria. 

The technology that powers these remote experiments was originally developed to enable researchers from multiple geographically-separate institutions to collaborate on stem-cell research as part of a multi-institution group called the Braingeneers. Graduate students Baudin and Victoria Ly developed the tool to control microscopes remotely from anywhere in the world, to enable non-invasive observation of cell cultures in incubators. 

Mostajo-Radji, who was formerly the Bolivian Ambassador for Science, Technology and Innovation, recognized that the microscopy technology could be leveraged for remote education amid growing equity educational gaps during the pandemic. 

“[The remote-controlled microscopes] were not developed for the purpose of education,” Mostajo-Radji said. “What we did was take a lot of lessons that we learned from mine and others’ nonprofit work to build something that is pretty remarkable.”

Mostajo-Radji believes this paper is the first to describe a method that is both truly remote and fully using the scientific method, bringing inquiry and active learning into lessons, which can be especially important for students who are less memorization-based learners. 

Learning from students worldwide 

The paper outlines a framework for other labs and classrooms to run remote-controlled experiments, in which students design an experiment, make observations, analyze data, and present their findings. 

The researchers learned from several user studies which employed this method locally with Advanced Placement Biology students at Alisal High School in Salinas, and abroad with students from two different universities in Bolivia and multinational students involved with the nonprofit organization Science Clubs International. The experiments were conducted in Santa Cruz and San Francisco and accessed completely remotely by the students. Each group’s lessons reflected the student’s local context and augmented an already existing curriculum. 

The first pilot of the program began in Fall 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Programs varied among the different groups, typically running about eight weeks. The researchers met weekly for lessons with some of the groups of students, and with other groups they gave a  tutorial on how to use the technology at the beginning and allowed them to run the experiments independently.  

One experiment that was run with students in Salinas was a “clinical trial in a dish” which allowed students to see the effect of novel drugs on neuroblastoma, a cancerous tumor, in cell lines. In other experiments, students studied the biocompatibility of custom-made gold and graphene nanoparticles

Surveys run at the end of the user-study programs showed that this method positively impacted STEM identity among both cohorts, although more strongly among Bolivian students, and led to an overall increased interest in STEM for participating students. These results offered an opportunity to understand STEM motivation among Latinx populations without the extrapolation of conclusions from one, geographically-limited study.

“For a lot of these education strategies and policies, [researchers] like to think that a study done in a particular region of the world is representative to inform policy in a different part of the world,” Mostajo-Radji said. “Here, for the first time, we are thoroughly comparing  groups of Hispanics [in California] and Hispanics abroad, in the context of the exact same class, exact same lesson, and exact same experiments.”

Expanding the program

The team is now in the process of applying for grants to build the infrastructure to expand this work. They envision an app that would allow high school and community college students from anywhere in the world who might not otherwise go into research to design and execute experiments completely remotely. The researchers recently created the Live Cell Biotechnology Discovery Lab to scale up the use of their technology. 

Ideally, they would have hundreds of microscopes running different experiments. Mostajo-Radji imagines that students from different parts of the world could be in the same group and learn from the same data together. 

The researchers are actively looking for more partners through conferences to create relationships beyond the schools they worked with for this study. To this end, Mostajo-Radji recently was invited to join the U.S. National Academy of Sciences at the International Frontiers Symposium in Nairobi, Kenya to share this idea and create educational partnerships to bring these technologies to more students.

The researchers are also interested in moving beyond microscopy. Areas of interest include devices to teach programming through microfluidics, and techniques for teaching electrophysiology, the study of the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues, to non-visual learners.

“Microscopy, in a way, was a low-hanging fruit,” Mostajo-Radji said. “It’s just the beginning.”

UCSC graduate students Raina Sacksteder, Atesh Worthington, Kateryna Voitiuk, and Victoria Ly were all major contributors to this study. This work was supported by the Schmidt Futures initiative and the National Science Foundation.

---

JOURNAL

Heliyon

DOI

10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e11596 

ARTICLE TITLE

Cloud-controlled microscopy enables remote project-based biology education in underserved Latinx communities

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

16-Nov-2022

Argonne and Economic Development Administration partner to launch national economic research center

Business Announcement

DOE/ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY

The National Economic Research and Resilience Center will provide the research and data communities need to recover from hardships and strengthen from within.

Effective economic development spurs growth, builds prosperity and improves quality of life. Jobs and industry health are indicators of economic development. Available housing, access to natural resources and community infrastructure are, too. Timely, local and highly specific data are critical to understanding and supporting all these areas.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory is joining forces with the Economic Development Administration (EDA) to create a National Economic Research and Resilience Center (NERRC). This new center will be a public resource that unites federal economic development efforts with ongoing research and data analysis. At the heart of NERRC’s mission will be answering basic questions: If communities receive funding from the EDA, is that help effective? What is the outcome? How can communities make themselves more resilient to prepare for future challenges?

“Argonne researchers, working with EDA economists and program staff, are setting a new standard for evidence-based, data-driven economic development,” said Alejandra Y. Castillo, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development.

The NERRC builds on other collaborations between EDA and Argonne. Previously, the two worked together to release the National Economic Resilience Data Explorer (NERDE). The NERDE provides data to local economic developers for project planning, and highlights the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also helps communities understand if they qualify for financial support from EDA. Hosted on the Argonne website, NERDE has already drawn more than 30,000 visits since January.

“Argonne researchers, working with EDA economists and program staff, are setting a new standard for evidence-based, data-driven economic development.” —  Alejandra Y. Castillo, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development.

Argonne and EDA also joined forces to create an online Economic Development Capacity Index (EDCI). The EDCI is publicly available and can be easily searched. It presents data from 53 data sources across five categories: human capital, finance, infrastructure, industries, networks and partnerships. The data reveal county-level strengths and opportunities for growth and investment.

“The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated and created new partnerships,” said Iain Hyde, who will serve as director of the NERRC in Argonne’s Decision and Infrastructure Sciences division. ​“As a result, Argonne and EDA made a long-term commitment to partnering on economic development research. This benefits everyone.”

According to Hyde, the NERRC will accomplish its goals in multiple ways. It will focus on four areas: data access and analytics, research and analysis, program evaluation, and regular convening of economic resilience researchers and practitioners. It will also help economic developers easily find critical data by keeping it in one comprehensive, centralized place. Ongoing research will address high priority questions from the Department of Commerce Learning Agenda and the broader economic development community. Stakeholders will have access to regularly published research, quarterly webinars and an annual convention at Argonne.

“Argonne is excited to help bring the economic development community together to focus on economic resilience for a long time to come,” said Hyde.

The NERRC will host its first quarterly webinar on December 6. The webinar will introduce economic development stakeholders to the Economic Development Capacity Index. Click here to register.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.

UCI researchers demonstrate how to trigger a pathogen release with music

Hospital and laboratory biocontainment facilities vulnerable to terrorist attack

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - IRVINE

Irvine, Calif., Nov. 17, 2022 – Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have discovered that the safe operation of a negative pressure room – a space in a hospital or biological research laboratory designed to protect outside areas from exposure to deadly pathogens – can be disrupted by an attacker armed with little more than a smartphone.

According to UCI cyber-physical systems security experts, who shared their findings with attendees at the Association for Computing Machinery’s recent Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Los Angeles, mechanisms that control airflow in and out of biocontainment facilities can be tricked into functioning irregularly by a sound of a particular frequency, possibly tucked surreptitiously into a popular song.

“Someone could play a piece of music loaded on their smartphone or get it to transmit from a television or other audio device in or near a negative pressure room,” said senior co-author Mohammad Al Faruque, UCI professor of electrical engineering and computer science. “If that music is embedded with a tone that matches the resonant frequency of the pressure controls of one of these spaces, it could cause a malfunction and a leak of deadly microbes.”

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning infrastructure maintains the flow of fresh air into and contaminated air out of a given space. HVAC systems in scientific facilities typically include room pressure monitors, which in turn utilize differential pressure sensors that compare the atmospheres inside and outside rooms.

The researchers said that commonly used DPSs are vulnerable to remote manipulation, posing a previously unrealized threat to biosafety facilities. They tested their hypothesis on eight industry-standard DPSs from five manufacturers, demonstrating that all the devices operate with resonant frequencies in the audible range and are, therefore, subject to tampering.

“When sound waves collide with the diaphragms inside a DPS, it starts vibrating with the same frequency,” said lead author Anomadarshi Barua, UCI Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering and computer science. “An informed attacker can use this technique to artificially displace the diaphragm, changing the pressure reading and causing the whole system to malfunction.”

He said that attackers could thwart negative pressure room systems in a variety of ways. They could manipulate them wirelessly or pose as maintenance personnel to place an audio device inside or near such a room. “A more sophisticated attack might involve perpetrators embedding sound-emitting technologies into a DPS before it’s installed in a biocontainment facility,” Barua said.

In their conference presentation, the researchers suggested several countermeasures to prevent a musical assault on biosafety facilities. Sound dampening can be achieved by lengthening the sampling tube of a DPS’s port by as much as 7 meters. The team also proposed enclosing the pressure port in a boxlike structure. Both these measures would reduce the sensitivity of the DPS, Barua said.

Al Faruque said that this research project demonstrates the vulnerabilities of embedded systems to random attacks but stressed that with a little planning and forethought, facilities can be hardened against sabotage.

Joining Al Faruque and Barua on the study, which received financial support from the National Science Foundation, was Yonatan Gizachew Achamyeleh, UCI Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and computer science.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu.

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists.

SafeSource Direct receives FDA clearance for American-made PPE

SafeSource Direct, created as a joint venture between Ochsner Health and Trax Development during the COVID-19 pandemic, is the only PPE manufacturer that is U.S. provider-owned with U.S. provider-owned quality control.

Business Announcement

OCHSNER HEALTH SYSTEM

 

IMAGE: FDA-APPROVED, CHEMO-RATED NITRILE EXAM GLOVES ARE BEING MANUFACTURED IN LOUISIANA BY SAFESOURCE DIRECT. THE COMPANY WAS CREATED AS A JOINT VENTURE BETWEEN OCHSNER HEALTH AND TRAX DEVELOPMENT DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. view more 

CREDIT: OCHSNER HEALTH

SafeSource Direct, LLC, the maker of high-quality, American-made personal protective equipment (PPE), announced today that its chemo-rated nitrile exam gloves have received FDA 510(k) clearance. The determination follows extensive testing and clears the way for the gloves to be used in healthcare.

“This marks a tremendous step toward U.S. supply resilience as healthcare providers look to mitigate risks in sourcing critical supplies,” said Justin Hollingsworth, CEO, SafeSource Direct. “While COVID-era shortages and substandard products may seem like things of the past, the risk that our nation’s healthcare providers find themselves in a similar situation remains very real. That’s why we’re offering a solution that sidesteps the supply interruptions and lack of quality control that come with dependence on foreign manufacturers.”

Hollingsworth says SafeSource Direct is ready to meet the nation’s demand to keep people safe. With two state-of-the-art facilities in Broussard, Louisiana, it has multiple operational production lines capable of manufacturing 108,000 gloves per hour. The company aims to have a dozen lines operational by January 2024 capable of producing over 2 billion gloves annually with additional manufacturing capacity available on-site. As the company expands its capacity over the coming months, it will be among the largest manufacturers of chemo-rated nitrile exam gloves in America- if not the largest.

In addition to gloves, SafeSource Direct produces Level 1 and 3 surgical ear loop and surgical tie masks and standard three-ply Level 1 and 3 procedure masks, which received FDA 510(k) clearance in May. It also makes shoe covers and will soon be making N95 respirators, hair bouffant covers, and isolation gowns.

With SafeSource Direct’s rapid expansion has come more than 850 American jobs, with 2,200 total expected over the coming months. The company is also planning to become completely vertically integrated by sourcing raw materials in a nearby facility in Louisiana.

“One hundred percent American owned, American operated, and on American soil– we’re uniquely positioned to help solve America’s PPE supply challenges,” Hollingsworth said. 

SafeSource Direct also stands out through its partnership with the Gulf South’s largest health system, Ochsner Health. Created as a joint venture between Ochsner and Trax Development during the COVID-19 pandemic, SafeSource Direct is the only PPE manufacturer that is U.S. provider-owned with U.S. provider-owned quality control.

“Throughout the pandemic we had to innovate, and as a result, we believe we’re better prepared for the next public health crisis or global supply shortage,” said Aimee Quirk, CEO, Ochsner Ventures, Ochsner Health. “This is a long-term, sustainable solution to mitigate risks inherent in the global supply chain.”

“Since COVID, we’ve seen the spread of additional dangerous infectious diseases, inflation, and numerous global conflicts. These types of situations will continue to emerge and disrupt supply,” said Regine Villain, System Vice President of Supply Chain Network and Chief Supply Chain Officer, Ochsner Health. “That’s why we decided to take matters into our own hands with an onshore company that can meet our nation’s PPE supply needs.”

She said purchasing from SafeSource Direct also aligns with the healthcare system’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities.

“Buying from SafeSource Direct eliminates the carbon emissions associated with shipping containers around the world, and it ensures that our products are not only high quality but also manufactured ethically,” said Villain.

###

About SafeSource Direct

SafeSource Direct LLC is an American manufacturer of personal protective equipment (PPE) dedicated to keeping our nation’s healthcare and other essential workers safe on the job. At SafeSource Direct, success minded team-members use innovation and automation to provide high-quality American-made PPE at prices competitive with those of foreign suppliers. Headquartered in Lafayette Parish, La., SafeSource Direct operates a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Broussard as well as in neighboring St. Martin Parish. Positioned near the Mississippi River, rail lines, and interstate highways, it is well positioned to distribute PPE to the nation. To learn more about how SafeSource Direct is laying the groundwork for sustainability in the healthcare industry, visit SafeSourceDirect.com.

About Ochsner Health

Ochsner Health is an integrated healthcare system with a mission to Serve, Heal, Lead, Educate and Innovate. Celebrating 80 years in 2022, it leads nationally in cancer care, cardiology, neurosciences, liver and heart transplants and pediatrics, among other areas. Ochsner is consistently named both the top hospital and top children’s hospital in Louisiana by U.S. News & World Report. The not-for-profit organization is inspiring healthier lives and stronger communities. Its focus is on preventing diseases and providing patient-centered care that is accessible, affordable, convenient and effective. Ochsner Health pioneers new treatments, deploys emerging technologies and performs groundbreaking research, including over 700 clinical studies. It has more than 36,000 employees and over 4,600 employed and affiliated physicians in over 90 medical specialties and subspecialties. It operates 47 hospitals and more than 370 health and urgent care centers across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Gulf South; and its cutting-edge Connected Health digital medicine program is caring for patients beyond its walls. In 2021, Ochsner Health treated more than 1 million people from every state and 75 countries. As Louisiana’s top healthcare educator, Ochsner Health and its partners educate thousands of healthcare professionals annually. To learn more, visit www.ochsner.org.

 

Homelessness, hospitals and mental health: Study shows impacts and costs

Housing status isn’t always recorded in medical records, so researchers say new data are likely just the “tip of the iceberg”

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Six years ago, U.S. hospitals officially got the ability to document patients’ housing status, including housing instability and homelessness. The new “Z codes” reflect an increasing recognition of the role of housing as one of the key social determinants of health.

A new study that harnesses those data reveals vast differences in diagnoses between patients with and without housing issues who are admitted to hospitals. This includes a sharp divide in care for mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental conditions.

The researchers, from the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, say their findings show the importance of improving tracking of housing status in health care, and of working to address housing as a social driver of health.

Hospital staff only recorded any sort of housing instability for 1% of hospital admissions in the national sample studied, according to the new study published in JAMA Network Open by a team led by IHPI scholar Kimberly Rollings, Ph.D. Nearly all of those patients were recorded as experiencing homelessness, even though the Z codes offer 5 different categories of housing instability.

In all, 50% of hospital stays for people with documented housing issues were for mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental care. That’s 10 times higher than the percentage of hospital stays for these conditions by people who didn’t have housing instability recorded in their chart.

Patients with documented housing instability also had longer lengths of stay in the hospital. On average, they stayed two additional days.

Patients with documented housing instability also accounted for 10% of inpatient days for mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental care. These conditions often require long waiting times for beds, so any reduction in length of stay could improve access for all.

The study uses data from the National Inpatient Sample, which captures 20% of all general hospital care to provide nationally representative estimates of hospital care across insurance types. The authors used data from 2017 to 2019, when coding for social determinants of health was becoming more common.

Caring for hospitalized people with documented housing instability in this sample cost $9.5 billion, with $3.5 billion of that cost attributed to care for mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental conditions.

Since people with housing issues were far more likely than others to have Medicaid coverage (55%) or no insurance (12%), the brunt of those costs likely falls on state programs and hospitals.

Putting it all together, the authors explain, "Our findings identify the business case for synergistic collaborations between housing, hospital and mental health experts.”

“Because of the lack of use of Z codes, our findings are likely the tip of the iceberg,” says Rollings. “If we want to improve care for these individuals, and make the best use of hospital beds, health care professionals and their institutions need to do more to improve screening for this important social driver.”

Rollings is in the Health & Design Research Fellowship Program led by Andrew M. Ibrahim, M.D., M.Sc., the study’s lead author. Ibrahim is a surgeon, clinician scientist, and health care design researcher in the Michigan Medicine Department of Surgery.

“This important work led by a housing expert using healthcare data is exactly why we started this Fellowship. We need more interdisciplinary work such as that led by Dr. Rollings,” Ibrahim said.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has more information on using Z codes, as does the American Hospital Association.

In addition to Rollings and Ibrahim, the new study’s authors are Nicholas Kunnath, M.S. of the Department of Surgery; Caitlin R. Ryus, M.D., M.P.H. of Yale University; and IHPI National Clinician Scholar Alexander T. Janke, M.D., M.H.S.

Citation: Association of Coded Housing Instability and Hospitalization in the US, JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(11):e2241951. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.41951

---

JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.41951 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Association of Coded Housing Instability and Hospitalization in the US

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Nov-2022

Georgia State’s CHARA Array detects elusive, dusty inner region of distant galaxy

The long-sought after innermost dusty ring was detected with the highest spatial resolution in the infrared wavelengths ever used

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY

PrintEmail App

 

IMAGE: A TEAM OF INTERNATIONAL SCIENTISTS WORKING AT GEORGIA STATE’S CHARA ARRAY HAS CAPTURED A LONG-SOUGHT-AFTER VIEW OF THE DUSTY INNER REGION IN A GALAXY CALLED NGC 415. view more 

CREDIT: COURTESY: GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY/CJOURNAL

The Astrophysical Journal

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The Dust Sublimation Region of the Type 1 AGN NGC 4151 at a Hundred Microarcsecond Scale as Resolved by the CHARA Array Interferometer

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

17-Nov-2022