As Alec Morlote emphasizes, he’s a Biology major because “I’m really interested in it. I’d definitely be a Biology major whether I was pre-med or not.”
Morlote, a Trinity junior from northern New Jersey, works in the lab of Dr. Pelin Volkan studying the neurobiology of fruit flies. Why fruit flies, of all things? Well, Morlote initially signed up for a research fellowship program during the summer following his freshman year.
Of course, in March of that year, COVID-19 happened, so Morlote ended up postponing his work to this past summer. He got paired with the Volkan lab because he didn’t want to work in an area of research that was very familiar to him.
“I wanted to use research as an opportunity to learn something completely new,” he said. The neurobiology of fruit flies hit the nail on the head.
Alec Morlote
The Volkan Lab is a cell biology and neurobiology lab that studies how social behavior, specifically courting, is affected by stimuli, using fruit flies as a model organism. Morlote’s specific project has to do with olfactory stimuli – the things flies smell. In flies, as he explained, one gene is responsible for courtship behavior in male flies. If you take out the olfactory receptor of the fly, however, that gene won’t be active.
Morlote is interested in seeing how the olfactory receptor is critical to the expression of this gene.
To do this, he has been working on imaging the antennae of flies – work he describes as “cool, but tedious.” It’s incredibly detailed work to pick apart the antenna off of such a tiny creature. Once isolated, neurotransmitters in the antenna that have been tagged with green fluorescent protein (GFP) light up, thus showing the expression pattern of all cells expressing the neurotransmitter.
Humans clearly don’t have as simplistic a courtship behavior as fruit flies, but the simplicity of the fruit fly makes it an incredibly valuable organism for studying neurobiology. All discoveries in humans initially started with some sort of watered-down version of the human anatomy, whether mice or in this case, fruit flies. Discoveries into the neurobiology and neuroplasticity of fruit flies just might yield significant discoveries into the neurobiology and neuroplasticity of the human brain.
When asked about his favorite and least favorite parts about his research, Morlote laughed.
“I don’t like doing work for three months and getting no results at all,” he remarked in reference to the initial work he started on this summer – but alas, such is the nature of scientific research. But he adds that the best part of research is getting results, any at all. And even no results can mean something.
Morlote’s poster from his summer research
Research was a way for Morlote to narrow his post-graduation plans. He knows now that he wants to pursue an MD, or possibly an MD/PhD. But initially, research was a way for him to see whether this was the path for him at all. When asked why he chose to be pre-med, Morlote said that “it just seemed like the most practical way to apply a love for science.” Biology is the science that he loves the most, and so being pre-med seemed like a no-brainer.
It’s also a family business. Both of Morlote’s parents are doctors, so medicine “is not unfamiliar territory to me.” Being Latin American, both his parents have worked extensively with Latin communities in New Jersey, which is work he hopes to emulate in the future.
Whether or not benchwork stays a part of his life, Morlote knows that he wants his career to involve research somehow. The way he sees it, “you’re doing the bare minimum if you’re just a doctor but you’re not trying to better medicine in some way.”
Contributing to research just might become his way.
In an era of seemingly endless panaceas for age-based mental decline, navigating through the clutter can be a considerable challenge.
However, a team of Duke researchers, led by cognitive neuroscientist Edna Andrews, PhD, think they may have found a robust and long-term solution to countering this decline and preventing pathologies in an aging brain. Their approach does not require an invasive procedure or some pharmacological intervention, just a good ear, some sheet music, and maybe an instrument or two.
Dr. Edna Andrews, pictured in 2017. (Photo by Megan Mendenhall/Duke Photography)
In early 2021, Andrews and her team published one of the first studies to look at musicianship’s impact in building cognitive brain reserve. Cognitive brain reserve, simply put, is a way to qualify the resilience of the brain in the face of various pathologies. High levels of cognitive reserve can help stave off dementia, Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis for years on end. These levels are quantified through structural measurements of gray matter and white matter in the brain. The white matter may be thought of as the insulated wiring that helps different areas of the brain communicate.
In this particular study, Andrews’ team focused on measurements of white matter integrity through an advanced MRI technique known as diffusion tensor imaging, to see what shape it is in.
Previous neuroimaging studies have revealed that normal aging leads to a decrease in white matter integrity across the brain. Over the past fifteen years, however, researchers have found that complex sensory-motor activities may be able to slow down and even reverse the loss of white matter integrity. The two most robust examples of complex sensory-motor activities are multilingualism and musicianship.
Andrews has long been fascinated by the brain and languages. In 2014, she published one of the seminal texts in the field of cognitive neurolinguistics where she laid the groundwork for a new neuroscience model of language. Around the same time, she published the first and to-date only longitudinal fMRI study of second language acquisition. Her findings, built upon decades of research in cognitive neuroscience and linguistics, served as the foundation for her popular FOCUS course: Neuroscience/Human Language.
In more recent years, she has shifted her research focus to understanding the impact of musicianship on cognitive brain reserve. Invigorated by her lived experience as a professional musician and composer, she wanted to see whether lifelong musicianship could increase white matter integrity as one ages. She and her team hypothesized that musicianship would increase white matter integrity in certain fiber tracts related to the act of music-making
To accomplish this goal, she and her team scanned the brains of eight different musicians ranging in age from 20 years to 67 years old. These musicians dedicated an average of three hours per day to practice and had gained years’ worth of performance experience. After participants were placed into the MRI machine, the researchers used diffusion tensor imaging to calculate fractional antisotropy (FA) values for certain white matter fiber tracts. A higher FA value meant higher integrity and, consequently, higher cognitive brain reserve. Andrews and her team chose to observe FA values in two fiber tracts, the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) and the uncinate fasciculus (UF), based on their relevance to musicianship in previous studies.
Relative location of subcortical white matter fiber tracts (lateral view). Image from Wikipedia.
Previous studies of the two fiber tracts in non-musicians found that their integrity decreased with age. In other words, the older the participants, the lower their white matter integrity in these regions. After analyzing the anisotropy values via linear regression, they observed a clear positive correlation between age and fractional anisotropy in both fiber tracts. These trends were visible in both tracts of both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Such an observation substantiated their hypothesis, suggesting that highly proficient musicianship can increase cognitive brain reserve as one ages.
These findings expand the existing literature of lifestyle changes that can improve brain health beyond diet and exercise. Though more demanding, neurological changes resulting from the acquisition and maintenance of language and music capabilities have the potential to endure longer into the life cycle.
Andrews is one of the strongest advocates of lifelong learning, not solely for the satisfaction it brings about, but also for the tangible impact it can have on cognitive brain reserve. Picking up a new language or a new instrument should not be pursuits confined to the young child.
It appears, then, that the kindest way to treat the brain is to throw something new at it. A little bit of practice couldn’t hurt either.
As any first-year will tell you, the scramble for joining new clubs can be a daunting one. As the dust settled from the Involvement Fair, I looked at the fistful of flyers overflowing from my desk. One of these flyers stood out to me in particular: Student Collaborative on Health Policy (SCOHP). The program, backed by the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy, seeks to educate, serve, and research within the Duke and Durham community regarding the social, economic, and political determinants of health care.
The Four Committees of SCOHP
Intrigued, I ventured to the Social Sciences building the following Sunday afternoon for their inaugural GBM. The event was lively, filled with a dizzying number of avenues for involvement. One such avenue that was the SCOHP-organized Health Policy Case Competition, advertised as a two-day team sprint to develop and pitch solutions to a pressing health care problem. The prizes were handsome: $1,000 for 1st place, $500 for 2nd place, and $250 for 3rd place, courtesy of the Margolis Center and RTI International. Furthermore, participants would be given access to mentors and industry leaders with vast experience in the area of public health.
Six teams, each consisting of three to five members, participated in the case-writing festivities. On Friday, September 10 at 5:00 PM, the case document was released. Our task: to develop a five-year plan aimed at increasing the screening for human papillomavirus (HPV) in either Malawi, South Africa, or Eswatini via a novel imaging technology known as microbeads. A considerably complex task given the vast number of social, institutional, and political barriers lying between the new technology and the women who needed it the most, not to mention the potential for HPV developing into cervical cancer if left undetected and untreated.
The Case Competition Title Document
Our team, Team J, assumed the role of a local NGO partnering with the Eswatini government. The preliminary hours of the competition were spent sifting through a sea of research. We read reviews of tissue imaging technology, feasibility studies on drug distribution networks, and mathematical projections of healthcare costs. At once invigorating and ceaselessly frustrating, the process of developing a comprehensive solution required significant mental and physical rearrangement. The nine hours following the release of the case were spent in a variety of popular campus study spots, from Bostock to Rubenstein Library, The Coffeehouse to dorm common rooms. In the early morning hours, our plan had finally begun to take shape.
A meager five hours of rest separated Day One of the competition from Day Two. After a night of brainstorming and research, we were left with three hours to finalize our five-minute proposals before a hard 12:00 PM deadline. As the deadline approached, we changed into our best attire from the clavicle up (the marvels of Zoom) and sat down. For the next hour and change, ideas flowed thickly and quickly; eager and persuasive tones emanating from our screens, tense silence as the judges moved into breakout rooms for deliberation.
The top three teams, Team J included, were selected for a final presentation round. The guidelines for this round: strengthen the argument, lengthen the presentation. We were in the final stretch. What followed was two hours of remarkably focused work, the likes of which I had never experienced in a team setting. As we sat down for the deciding presentation of the competition, I felt an immense sense of pride, not only in our solution, but also in our twenty-six hour transformations from perplexed receivers to confident presenters. This confidence and breadth of knowledge was visible in all three teams over the course of their fifteen-minute presentations and subsequent five-minute Q&A’s.
Team J’s Final Round Presentation Over Zoom
As the clock struck 7:00 PM on Saturday, September 11, the judges had submitted their verdict, at which point the teams turned towards the screen with rapt attention. The SCOHP organizers began reading the final standings. In what was described as an extremely close decision for the judges, Team J ended up winning first place. Battling the equally powerful forces of disbelief and sleep deprivation, we let out a collective breath. It was all over.
At the time of the competition, I had yet to complete a month at Duke. I didn’t know it then, but those twenty-six hours would end up being some of the most impactful in my first semester. The competition offered an entirely different approach to learning, one that was grounded in interdisciplinary inquiry and effective collaboration. And to think–it all started with a flyer buried underneath many other flyers.
When people use apps or services like Netflix, Instagram, Amazon, etc. they sign, or rather virtually accept, digital user agreements. Digital agreements have been around since the 1990s. These agreements are written and enforced by the institutions that create these services and products. However, in certain conditions, these systems fail and these digital or service-level agreements can be breached, causing people to feel robbed.
A recent example of this is the Robinhood scandal that occurred in mid-2021. Essentially, people came together and all wanted to buy the same stock. However, Robinhood ended up restricting buying, citing issues with volatile stock and regulatory agreements. As a result, they ended up paying $70 million dollars in fines for system outages and misleading customers. And individual customers were left feeling robbed. This was partially the result of centralization and Robinhood having full control over the platform as well as enforcing the digital agreement.
Zak Ayesh Presenting on Chainlink and Decentralized Smart Contracts
Zak Ayesh, a developer advocate at Chainlink recently came to Duke to talk about decentralized Smart Contracts that could solve many of the problems with current centralized digital agreements and traditional paper contracts as well.
What makes smart contracts unique is that they programmatically implement a series of if-then rules without the need for a third-party human interaction. While currently these are primarily being used on blockchains, they were actually created by computer scientist Nick Szabo in 1994. Most smart contracts now run on blockchains because it allows them to remain decentralized and transparent. If unfamiliar with blockchain refer to my previous article here.
Smart contracts are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement being directly written into computer code.
Zak Ayesh
There are several benefits to decentralized contracts. The first is transparency. Because every action on a blockchain is recorded and publicly available, the enforcement of smart contracts is unavoidably built-in. Next is trust minimization and guaranteed execution. With smart contracts, there is reduced counterparty risk — that’s the probability one party involved in a transaction or agreement might default on its contractual obligation because neither party has control of the agreement’s execution or enforcement. Lastly, they are more efficient due to automation. Operating on blockchains allows for cheaper and more frictionless transactions than traditional alternatives. For instance, the complexities of cross-border remittances involving multiple jurisdictions and sets of legal compliances can be simplified through coded automation in smart contracts.
Dr. Campbell Harvey, a J. Paul Sticht Professor of International Business at Fuqua, has done considerable research on smart contracts as well, culminating in the publication of a book, DeFi and the Future of Finance which was released in the fall of 2021.
In the book, Dr. Harvey explores the role smart contracts play in decentralized finance and how Ethereum and other smart contract platforms give rise to the ability for decentralized application or dApp. Additionally, smart contracts can only exist as long as the chain or platform they live on exists. However, because these platforms are decentralized, they remove the need for a third party to mediate the agreement. Harvey quickly realized how beneficial this could be in finance, specifically decentralized finance or DeFi where third-party companies, like banks, mediate agreements at a high price.
“Because it costs no more at an organization level to provide services to a customer with $100 or $100 million in assets, DeFi proponents believe that all meaningful financial infrastructure will be replaced by smart contracts which can provide more value to a larger group of users,” Harvey explains in the book
Beyond improving efficiency, this also creates greater accessibility to financial services. Smart contracts provide a foundation for DeFi by eliminating the middleman through publicly traceable coded agreements. However, the transition will not be completely seamless and Harvey also investigates the risks associated with smart contracts and advancements that need to be made for them to be fully scalable.
Ultimately, there is a smart contract connectivity problem. Essentially, smart contracts are unable to connect with external systems, data feeds, application programming interfaces (APIs), existing payment systems, or any other off-chain resource on their own. This is something called the Oracle Problem which Chainlink is looking to solve.
Harvey explains that when a smart contract is facilitating an exchange between two tokens, it determines the price by comparing exchange rates with another similar contract on the same chain. The other smart contract is therefore acting as a price oracle, meaning it is providing external price information. However, there are many opportunities to exploit this such as purchasing large amounts on one oracle exchange in order to alter the price and then go on to purchase even more on a different exchange in the opposite direction. This allows for capitalization on price movement by manipulating the information the oracle communicates to other smart contracts or exchanges.
That being said, smart contracts are being used heavily, and Pratt senior Manmit Singh has been developing them since his freshman year along with some of his peers in the Duke Blockchain Lab. One of his most exciting projects involved developing smart contracts for cryptocurrency-based energy trading on the Ethereum Virtual Machine allowing for a more seamless way to develop energy units.
One example of how this could be used outside of the crypto world is insurance. Currently, when people get into a car accident it takes months or even a year to evaluate the accident and release compensation. In the future, there could be sensors placed on cars connected to smart contracts that immediately evaluate the damage and payout.
Decentralization allows us to avoid using intermediaries and simply connect people to people or people to information as opposed to first connecting people to institutions that can then connect them to something else. This also allows for fault tolerance: if one blockchain goes down, the entire system does not go down with it. Additionally, because there is no central source controlling the system, it is very difficult to gain control of thus protecting against attack resistance and collusion resistance. While risks like the oracle problem need to be further explored, the world and importance of DeFi, as well as smart contracts, is only growing.
It’s 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and Mark McDonough is making a very familiar journey through a very unfamiliar mode. With the light rain pelting down on his gelled hair, he’s walking the 2-mile trek from East Campus to West Campus. The C1 doesn’t run until 8:30 a.m. on weekends, and his job is simply too important to wait for Duke-provided transportation.
Since his third week as a freshman, Mark has held the position of Lab Technician at the Duke University School of Medicine Zebrafish Core Facilities. Through the job, which he earned via the university’s work-study program, Mark has had the opportunity to make his college experience more affordable while completing the behind-the-scenes work that keeps the university’s labs running.
Upon arriving at work every morning, Mark spends anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour cleaning the filters on the fish tanks, after which he removes feces and inserts food. These three tasks are just a microcosm of his duties as a lab technician, but without them, a majority of his assigned fish would die before their biological characteristics could be fully measured.
As a freshman, Mark McDonough (pictured) has had the opportunity to work in a lab that does cutting-edge research.
Mark’s day-to-day responsibilities are similar to those of many lab technicians. Hundreds of Duke’s affiliated research labs make use of living subjects and biological specimens which must be sheltered, fed, and closely monitored. Without the presence of lab technicians, studies involving these subjects could lead to inconsequential or misleading results.
Mark’s supervisor, Z-Core Facilities Manager Karina Olivieri, fully understands the importance of the three lab technicians in her five zebrafish facilities. Says Olivieri, technicians ensure the “health of the fish and quality of their water so that researchers can collect measurements and make valuable insights.” As the demand for zebrafish grows on Duke’s campus, she expects the number of lab technician roles to grow as well. This trend will likely not be unique to Duke.
The zebrafish’s see-through embryo, rapid life cycle, and well-documented genome make it a “model organism” for biological experiments.
Though lab technicians don’t present work at prestigious conferences or see their names printed at the top of cutting-edge research articles, their work is pivotal for ensuring that innovative research can be conducted at Duke and beyond. So in the unlikely event that you recognize a passing stranger as a lab technician, make sure to thank them for their service to the Duke community. They keep the university’s vibrant research scene – and its fish – thriving.
The focal point of this article will be the Energy Conference, which occurred on November 10. If you’re curious about the future of clean energy within North Carolina, my colleague at the Duke Research Blog, Nhu Bui (Class of 2024), wrote a fascinating piece on the Energy Innovation Showcase.
Duke Energy Conference Organizing Team (photo by Jacob Hervey)
Over the course of eight hours, the Conference schedule alternated between a series of keynote addresses and fireside chats. The latter centered around a particular topical focus; each chat involved a faculty moderator and three industry experts whose organizations lie at the cutting edge of the climate transition within the private sector. In addition to the moderator’s questions, conference participants were invited to ask questions about the visions and innovations of their company.
The first fireside chat – Energy Transition Plans, Projects, and Pathways – broadly centered around the decarbonization of the energy industry. The speakers were Mallik Angalakudati, SVP of Strategy & Innovation at Washington Gas, Kirsten Knoepfle-Thorne, General Manager of Strategy at Chevron, and Jon Rodriguez, Energy Business Director of Engine Power Plants at Wartsila. All three acknowledged their companies’ traditional reliance on fossil fuels and stressed the need for emissions reduction moving into the future. The avenues each company was pursuing to reach this end varied considerably from green hydrogen to battery energy storage systems to carbon capture.
The second chat – Renewable Transportation – sought to highlight the latest innovations of firms within the burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) market. The panel consisted of Liz Finnegan (Fuqua ’17), Electric Vehicle Infrastructure and Energy at Rivian, Pei-Wen Hsu (Fuqua ’97), Global EV Marketing Director at Ford, and Kameale Terry, Co-Founder and CEO of ChargerHelp!. From launching new vehicles to servicing software breakdowns at charging stations across the nation, these speakers brought a wealth of perspectives to a high-growth market. They reinforced the certainty and necessity of mass consumer adoption of EV innovations, offering multiple roadmaps for the coming decades in transportation technologies.
Speakers from second fireside chat engaging with audience (photo by Jacob Hervey)
The third chat – Investing in Climate Tech Solutions – addressed the financial side of climate tech solutions. The speakers were Nneka Kibuule, SVP at Aligned Climate Capital, Lisa Krueger, President of US Operations at AES, and Sophie Purdom, co-founder of Climate Tech VC and an early-stage investor. Each speaker targeted climate solutions at different developmental stages, from early-stage ventures to companies ready for their IPOs. Taken as a whole, their firms reflected the robust nature of the financial ecosystem available to aspiring climate entrepreneurs and firms.
The three fireside chats engaged a number of angles through which the private sector can collectively curb climate change. As lab-developed technologies reach sufficient scale, the efficacy of climate solutions depend not solely on the quality of the innovation, but rather the quality of their implementation.
The conference conveniently coincided with the final few days of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland. As policy leaders half a world away wrangled over the minutiae of coal usage and climate financing, it became clear that a different sort of conversation was taking place on our campus. By engaging with the Energy Conference, even the most ardent skeptics of climate change progress would find it hard to deny the tangible shift in priorities that have occurred over the past few years. The prioritization of environmental concerns by the energy industry is now a given. The bigger question to consider is whether their plans and promises are sufficient to avert climate disaster.
Organized by students with support from the Duke University Energy Initiative and the Center for Energy, Development, and the Global Environment (EDGE) at The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University Energy Week brought together business and technology leaders within the energy industry to provide audience members insight into the industry’s future. The focal point of this article will be the Energy Innovation Showcase, which occurred on November 11. If you want a glimpse into the eight hours of energy-focused conversation that happened on November 10, my colleague at the Duke Research Blog, Vibhav Nandagiri (Class of 2025), wrote a fascinating piece on the Energy Conference.
Welcome to the Energy Innovation Showcase (photo by Jacob Hervey)
The evening kicked off with a riveting conversation between Ajulo E. Othow, Esq. (Founder & CEO of EnerWealth Solutions and General Counsel at Carolina Solar Services) and Marshall Cherry (Chief Operating Officer at Roanoke Electric Cooperative), moderated by Duke’s own Dr. Brian Murray (Director of the Duke Energy Initiative and Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions). Othow, Cherry, and Murray discussed the future of energy in North Carolina, from exciting prospects for renewable energy to access barriers in rural regions.
Othow, Cherry, and Murray in conversation (photo by Jacob Hervey)
At the conclusion of the keynote discussion, the evening segued into the tabling session, and the audience was released back into the Hub for two hours of mingling with energy representatives. There were spokespeople from every facet of the industry – development companies like Susteon and Good Solar, suppliers like Leyline Renewable Capital and Piedmont Lithium, and advocacy groups like the NC Sustainable Energy Association and the NC Business Council.
Grace Fernandez, Nicholas MEM/MBA student and co-chair of Energy Week, had her concerns about the whole affair at first. It was the first year that Energy Week was conducted through a hybrid of platforms, after being entirely online last year due to the pandemic. Fernandez said that it was hard to convince people – both Duke students and energy representatives – to come, but through determined calls and emails and targeted social media ads, Fernandez succeeded in her goal of getting a “new audience engaged in energy.”
Turns out, Fernandez had no need to worry about turnout. Some of the attendees included Joy and Tenzin (both Trinity ’22), who were not first-timers at the showcase; they came to enjoy the “interactive” aspect for another year and meet new people who had first-hand experience in the energy industry. Nicholas MEM student Anat is not necessarily studying energy, but still came for the “innovative” aspect – to see how new developments in energy might be more interdisciplinary and interconnected.
The attendees I spoke to took note of the fact that all the organizations present came from around North Carolina. Some, like Nicholas MEM student Chayan, would have preferred representation from further away. But others, like Pratt first-year Jack, from the Durham area, came to the showcase specifically to see what local energy companies are up to and what opportunities they may be offering.
Discussing Carolina Solar (photo by Jacob Hervey)
The spotlight on North Carolina was by design: the organizers of Energy Week had taken a different approach to this year’s showcase, specifically seeking to highlight groups from Durham and North Carolina at large. “I wanted Duke students to be able to see the incredible work happening in our own backyard,” said Trey Signorelli, an Energy Week Showcase co-chair. He commented that many Duke students aim to leave North Carolina and take their talents with them, so he wanted to put on display the many exciting opportunities they already had right on their doorstep.
Duke University Energy Week 2021 coincided with the final few days of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Three thousand miles away, world leaders debated coal usage and policy financing and the future of climate action. But if Thursday’s showcase taught us anything, it’s that if we want to see the future of energy, we don’t have too look far.
In 2011, Dr. Jennifer Doudna began studying an enzyme called Cas9. Little did she know, in 2020 she would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Emmanuelle Charpentier for discovering the powerful gene-editing tool, CRISPR-Cas9. Today, Doudna is a decorated researcher, the Li Ka Shing Chancellors Chair, a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Molecular as well as Cell Biology at the University of California Berkeley, and the founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute.
Doudna was also this year’s speaker for the MEDx Distinguished Lecture in October where she delivered presented on “CRISPR: Rewriting DNA and the Future of Humanity.”
“CRISPR is a system that originated in bacteria as an adaptive immune system” Doudna explained.
Dr. Jennifer Doudna holding the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
When bacterial cells are infected by viruses those viruses inject their genetic material into the cell. This discovery, a couple decades ago, was the first indication that there may be ways to apply bacteria’s ability to acquire genetic information from viruses.
CRISPR itself was discovered in 1987 and stands for “Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.” Doudna was initially studying RNA when she discovered Cas-9, a bacterial RNA-guided endonuclease and one of the enzymes produced by the CRISPR system. In 2012, Doudna and her colleagues found that Cas9 used base pairing to locate and splice target DNAs when combined with a guide RNA.
Essentially, they designed guide RNA to target specific cells. If those cells had a CRISPR system encoded in their genome, the cell is able to make an RNA copy of the CRISPR locus. Those RNA molecules are then processed into units that each include a sequence derived from a virus and then assemble with proteins. This RNA protein then looks for DNA sequences that match the sequence in the RNA guide. Once a match occurs, Cas9 is able to bind to and cut the DNA, leading to the destruction of the viral genome. The cutting of DNA then triggers DNA repair allowing gene editing to occur.
“This system has been harnessed as a technology for genome editing because of the ability of these proteins, these CRISPR Cas-p proteins, to be programmed by RNA molecules to cut any desired DNA sequence,” Doudna said.
CRISPR-cas9 is also being applied in many clinical settings. In fact, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Doudna along with several colleagues organized a five-lab consortium including the labs of Dan Fletcher, Patrick Hsu, Melanie Ott, and David Savage. The focus was on developing the Cas13 system to detect COVID-19. Cas13 is a class of proteins, that are RNA guided, RNA targeting, CRISPR enzymes. This research was initially done by one of Doudna’s former graduate students, Alexandra East-Seletsky. They discovered that if the reporter RNA is is paired with enzymes that have a quenched fluorophore pair on the ends, when the target is activated, the reporter is cleaved and a fluorescent signal is released.
One study out of the Melanie Ott group demonstrated that Cas13 can be used to detect viral RNA. They are hoping to apply this as a point-of-care diagnostic by using a detector as well as a microfluidic chip which would allow for the conduction of these chemical reactions in much smaller volumes that can then be read out by a laser. Currently, the detection limit is similar to what one can get with a PCR reaction however it is significantly easier to run.
Graphical Abstract of Cas13 Research by the Melanie Ott lab
“And this is again, not fantasy, we’ve actually had just fabricated devices that will be sitting on a benchtop, and are able to use fabricated chips that will allow us to run the Cas13 chemistry with either nasal swab samples or saliva samples for detection of the virus,” Doudna added.
Another exciting development is the use of genome editing in somatic cells. This involves making changes in the cells of an individual as opposed to the germline. One example is sickle cell disease which is caused by a single base pair defect in a gene. Soon, clinicians will be able to target and correct this defect at the source of the mutation alleviating people from this devastating illness. Currently, there are multiple ongoing clinical trials including one at the Innovative Genomics Institute run by Doudna. In fact, one patient, Victoria Gray, has already been treated for her sickle cell disease using CRISPR.
Victoria Gray being treated for Sickle Cell Anemia Meredith Rizzo/NPR
“The results of these trials are incredibly exciting and encouraging to all of us in the field, with the knowledge that this technology is being deployed to have a positive impact on patient’s lives,” Doudna said.
Another important advancement was made last summer involving the use of CRISPR-based therapy to treat ATR, a rare genetic disease that primarily affects the liver. This is also the first time CRISPR molecules will be delivered in vivo.
In just 10 years CRISPR-cas9 has gone from an exciting discovery to being applied in several medical and agricultural settings.
“This powerful technology enables scientists to change DNA with precision only dreamed of a few years ago,” said MEDx director Geoffrey Ginsburg, a Professor of Medicine at Duke. “Labs worldwide have redirected the course of research programs to incorporate this new tool, creating a CRISPR revolution with huge implications across biology and medicine.”
Examples of further CRISPR-Cas9 research can also be found in the Charles Gersbach lab here at Duke.
What happens when you give people money? Dr. Aisha Nyandoro and Natalie Foster know: through their research, they’ve seen the impacts of guaranteed income firsthand.
On November 9, as part of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy’s Sulzberger Distinguished Lecture series, these experts discussed their work and what we can learn from it at “What Happens When You Give People Money: The Future of Economic Security for Children and Families.”
Natalie Foster
Foster, co-founder and co-chair of the Economic Security Project, began with the big idea of guaranteed income. Before the pandemic, wealth and income inequality were at all-time highs — disparities that “can be traced back to the origins of racialized capitalism.” But recently, things have gotten even harder. Wages have remained stagnant despite increases in productivity — and despite inflation, making it harder to afford things like rent. Foster denounced the “strong ideology that says that lack of security in this system is a personal failing. That if you can’t pull yourself up, there’s something wrong with you.” There’s something wrong with the system, Foster said. “People are working. The economy isn’t.”
Foster said that even though there didn’t appear to be room in these political conditions to do things differently, she had the “audacity to imagine something else: the ‘adjacent possible.’” She wanted to give cash to people directly, ensuring an income floor regardless of whatever crises that may abound.
Foster worked with the mayor of Stockton, California on the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), which provided 125 Stockton residents with $500 monthly payments for two years.
Dr. Aisha Nyandoro
Foster was connected by a mutual friend to Nyandoro, the CEO of Springboard to Opportunities. Nyandoro had launched The Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which provides low-income Black mothers in Jackson, Mississippi with $1,000 monthly payments for one year.
With The Magnolia Mother’s Trust, Nyandoro sought to shift away from economic policy “rooted in ‘what is,’ and toward ‘what could be.’” This concept has a rich history, she said, and includes the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Panthers. She had a specific ‘what if’ in mind: “What if when Black women told us what they needed, we believed them?” What if we sought to overturn the very structures that keep these people down, and subverted the “paternalistic nature of the social safety net”?
Nyandoro stated that as a researcher, when she has questions, she “goes back to the people.” When she did, she found that although people’s needs were individual, “cash was ubiquitous” — cash was a solution that could address every single one of the problems that she heard. Giving cash directly could help combat a system that “penalizes people for being poor, rather than trying to lift them out of poverty.”
Why low-income Black mothers? Nyandoro explained that in order to do the work of economic liberation, one must identify what’s wrong with the system. In this case, that meant identifying those who are the most negatively impacted by the system, and using what limited resources are available to help them specifically.
Nyandoro turned to her findings: giving people cash works. These mothers are often working tirelessly, holding down two or three jobs and struggling to make ends meet. After receiving the money, people continue to work and often do so at higher rates (a major fear of opponents of guaranteed income). As a result, their income is often doubled — with life-changing results.
Beyond the numbers, Nyandoro emphasized that “we are seeing joy. We don’t talk about joy enough as it relates to Black women.” This money allowed Black women to feel free, to be entrepreneurial: to “dare to dream for the first time — for themselves and for their families.”
She referenced Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s famous speech “The Danger of a Single Story,” explaining that in order to change the narrative, “we need to change the narrator.” It’s time to think about whose voices we center.
In Jackson, Mississippi and Stockton, California, the pair had carried out research about the ‘adjacent possible.’ They’d used cities and states as “laboratories in democracy.” Foster said that their work was paving the way for gradual advances in guaranteed income — slowly, but surely. Then, the pandemic hit.
Suddenly, ideas that had recently been dismissed as too radical were viewed as necessary. Often unable to work, people needed money fast in order to put food on the table and cover their most urgent needs. The federal government rose to the challenge with the American Rescue Plan, providing stimulus checks and pandemic unemployment insurance, plus expanding the Child Tax Credit. “The ‘adjacent possible’”, Foster said, “had become the possible.”
The country saw an “immediate drop in poverty.” The pandemic was revealing, said Foster. It revealed that cash provides time, stress reduction, and resilience. It revealed that cash serves as a tool to create economic security and “build back better.” Above all, it revealed that “poverty is a policy choice that we’re currently making. We could make a different policy choice in order to eliminate it.”
The pandemic also revealed that stimulus checks and the Child Tax Credit were “very popular policies.” Nyandoro has observed support in the form of petitions for monthly cash transfers, the founding of organizations like Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and Guaranteed Income Community of Practice, and the launch of over a hundred guaranteed income pilots of some sort. All these efforts, Nyandoro said, are pushing toward “the same North Star”: centering the needs of families and achieving economic liberation through federal policy.
Foster turned the discussion toward next steps: “these victories have been immense, but could disappear” if the Build Back Better Act does not pass. The Act includes a year-long extension of the expanded Child Tax Credit, a key instantiation of guaranteed income. The Child Tax Credit has bipartisansupport.
If the extension of the Child Tax Credit passes, then according to Foster, guaranteed income is one step closer to becoming a cornerstone of social policy. This would be a “nail in the coffin of the way we’ve done policy for the last fifty years — that you’re only worth what you do in the world. Every human has dignity and worth, and we have the opportunity to build a policy that says just that.”
Nyandoro agreed with Foster. As an anti-poverty advocate, she believes in a world without poverty: a world where “everyone can have a life of dignity for themselves and their families.” She believes that the ‘adjacent possible’ is achievable if “we can move beyond our own individual needs in order to view life as a collective, where prosperity is shared rather than hoarded.” She ended by quoting Toni Morrison: “if you have some power, then your job is to empower someone else.”
Last Friday, the House voted to pass the Build Back Better Act, which now heads to the Senate.
As conversations about the energy transition away from fossil fuels become increasingly important (and time-sensitive), some experts in environmental policy aren’t just worried about the conversations themselves. They’re worried about who has a seat at the table — and who doesn’t.
Sherri White-Williams
On November 8, at “Building a Just Foundation for Our Energy Transition,” a few of these experts — Sherri White-Williamson, Environmental Justice Policy Director at the NC Conservation Network; Josh McClenney, the North Carolina Field Coordinator at Appalachian Voices; and J. Spenser Darden, the Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy — spoke about this and other issues. Thomas Klug, a Research Associate at the Duke Energy Access Project, moderated the panel, which was put together by the Sanford Energy & Environment Club.
Klug asked the panelists to define what a “just transition” really means in the context of the panelists’ work, and whether it differs from a diverse and inclusive transition.
J. Spenser Darden
McClenney answered that a just transition entails recognizing that Black, brown, and indigenous communities, as well as low socio-economic status individuals, have historically faced the worst effects of fossil fuel economies. Living in the “physical and economic traction zones,” they’re the ones that lose jobs — like coal miners, in the case of McClenney’s work with Appalachian Voices.
However, where a diverse and inclusive transition involves “getting people to the table,” just policies will actually reflect the conversations had at the table. An unjust transition, McClenney said, is one where “people clap themselves on the back for doing such a great job having these diverse, inclusive discussions — then make policies that work against their participants.” Ensuring inclusion for communities that have historically been excluded is important, but it’s equally important to make sure the resulting policies are actually inclusive.
Josh McClenney
White-Williams agreed with McClenney — inclusion should never end at “checking the box.” The goal should be to incorporate the input of marginalized voices into resulting policy. White-Williams also added that fairness, while not necessarily guaranteed by diversity and inclusivity, is a key part of a just energy transition.
Spenser stressed the need to move away from “extractive, colonial” ways of thinking about energy and who makes up society, and to instead incorporate indigenous ways of thinking. He stated that diversity and inclusion is reactive: people realize flaws in the way they’ve built something and try to address it later by incorporating new elements. A just system, on the other hand, is built to be “for and by” communities that have been excluded from the very start.
Klug asked the panelists to recount some of the ways they’ve seen organizations, utilities, and decision makers putting the processes required for a just transition into practice.
McClenney spoke of revelations from the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020. Preventing utility shutoffs became critically important: people were losing jobs or forced to stay at home. They couldn’t come up with the money to pay their utility bills. While fighting utility shutoffs with Appalachian Voices, he saw a group of Knoxville organizations, including Knoxville Water and Energy for All, bringing attention to the fact that the shutoffs were not just a COVID problem. For some Black and brown communities, McClenney said, “keeping the lights on had always been an issue.” These grassroot groups’ advocacy expanded beyond the pandemic: they wanted energy and water recognized as human rights.
Klug asked the panelists how they feel about President Joe Biden’s performance with regard to just transitions in the energy sector — specifically, his January executive orders and recent bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
White-Williams cited a major concern with Biden’s policies: they don’t give enough attention to rural issues. In Sampson county here in North Carolina, massive hog farms overwhelmingly surround communities of color. North Carolina’s new Farm Act will allow Smithfield Foods to build a system to trap methane from hog waste to be processed and eventually used as renewable electricity. But residents living near hog farms already experience toxic water, unbearable stench, and heightened risk of other diseases, and this system would likely make the problem even worse. It’s a textbook example of an unjust energy transition. That’s why environmental and civil rights organizations have asked the EPA to intervene — to no avail, at least thus far. (White-Williams is featured in this article about the current state of affairs.) “Rural America is suffering,” White-Williams said. She wants to see federal agencies using their power to ensure a just energy transition.
McClenney echoed White-Williams’ concern about hog farms, adding that deaths have resulted from providing workers with limited information about the conditions they would be working in — especially those who don’t speak English and whose undocumented status puts them in a vulnerable position.
On a different note, he thinks Biden’s expansions to Broadband and clean water are a step in the right direction. He stated that with North Carolina’s House Bill 951, which requires the Utilities Commission to cut emissions by 70% by 2030 (even more ambitious than Biden’s executive order, which seeks to cut US emissions in half by 2030), “there are opportunities right now to effect positive change — we just have to do a good job.” It’s about how we get to that carbon reduction goal.
Klug asked how people at universities — faculty, students, and staff alike — can contribute to this work in policy and in advocacy.
White-Williams told the audience to recognize that “having a degree does not make you an expert when you walk into these communities.” Community members have lived experience: they can tell policymakers and activists what they need, not the other way around. Change should be a partnership, and so should research: “Academics have a research question before they’ve even spoken to anyone.” Instead, “listen and learn from the people who have been there all their lives.”
Spenser invited the audience to think about “who the real experts are” in unique and different ways. Institutions like Duke are often separate from the communities they inhabit, serving as a sort of beacon on the hill. “We need to invert this paradigm,” he said.
McClenney added to Spenser’s criticism of schools like Duke, who “throw food out every day and hold dorm rooms empty during the summer while people go hungry and unhoused.” What’s needed is a fundamental reimagination of the university’s relationship to the community it inhabits. He also added to White-Williams’ point about research: it can be merely “another type of extraction” if not carried out in a just manner.
Klug asked the panelists whether we need to assess the impacts of energy policy differently through the lens of research.
McClenney flagged the words “affordability” and “reliability” in energy research, asking the audience to consider who that applies to. Affordability is not just about how rates compare to New York City or California, but whether someone has to forego insulin or go hungry in order to make a payment. By thinking through these words and what they really mean, we can “begin to understand impacts on a deeper level.”
Spenser implored researchers to use an intersectional lens: instead of considering economic impact and efficiency in isolation, to consider the way in which policies “contribute or ameliorate historic disparities.” In order to truly measure impact, efficacy, and outcome, researchers must be “historically aware and community invested.”
White-Williams agreed with McClenney and Spenser, asking researchers to consider whether policies are a “band-aid or a true fix.” She cited North Carolina’s Weatherization Assistance Program, which allocates tens of millions of dollars toward fixing “patched-up” homes that may have serious underlying problems. She wonders whether it may be better to simply spend the money on programs to place people in housing that is “actually livable.”
Klug opened the panel to questions. One audience member asked the panelists what concrete steps they recommend in order to “harness the power of diversity.”
White-Williams reiterated the importance of working with impacted communities, stressing the need for local leaders who can serve as experts on the needs of the community. Elected officials might “sacrifice the needs of these communities for some other interest,” but local advocates can apply pressure where needed.
Spenser pushed back on the question, stating that instead of urgency and speed, “we need to commit to a longer process” — honoring historical legacies and “spending time helping people understand what the conversation is.”
