1
Genome as Commodity -- http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/diagnostics/genome-as-commodity
[1] M. Anderson, "Genome as Commodity," IEEE Spectrum: Genome as Commodity, spectrum.ieee.org, Jan. 29, 2010. [Online]. Available: http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/diagnostics/genome-as-commodity. [Accessed: Jan. 31, 2010].

in 1990, the Human Genome Project set out to map the approximately 25,000 genes of the human genome. Thirteen years and $3 billion later they succeeded. Now, according to this article published in IEEE's Spectrum publication, you (yes, you!) could potentially get your genome mapped out -- for the right price. The premise is that if you have enough money to buy a sports car in cash, you can find out all the lovely little defects in your genes. Different companies offer different packages: one company, Knome, will map your genome for just under $70,000. Another will do it for the low, low price of $48,000 -- and even throws in a MacBook or MacBook Air on which the genome is stored.

Consider that the price of getting one's complete genome mapped out has decreased by a factor of 50,000 since that first project by the HGP. Analysts say that that price could continue to decline in the coming years -- even down to just $100. The author jokes that you could "easily find out every genetic pitfall about a potential mate right in the middle of your first date." Call me crazy, but I think old-fashioned attraction should be the standard for picking a mate.

If you're an individual who thinks they have a particularly interesting genome (like if you carry some rare chromosomal disorder), the Personal Genome Project may be interested in mapping out your genome -- for free! But here's the kicker: it will be made public for the benefit of science and research.

I can see how a couple, perhaps both carrying some rare and potentially harmful genetic disorder, would be interested in a service like this after just conceiving. But why a full-grown and healthy adult would want to know all the defects in their genetics escapes me. As for me, I'm going to dust off this old copy of Brave New World and give it another read.

#7 List of Research Questions/Problems

T1 Improvement
-How do we accurately simulate an MRI scan?
-What is the typical quality of signal for an MRI scan (signal to noise ratio)?
-Is there an upper limit to how well t1 measurement can be improved?
-Is the limit due to a force outside of our control, perhaps due to the behavior of particles at the atomic level?
-Why is it important to have an accurate scale of measurable t1 values?
-Who will benefit from an effort to improve the measurement of t1?
-How do we make a good compromise between an accurate scan and scan time?
-Could hospitals, clinics, etc. benefit from this technique monetarily?
-Would hospitals, clinics be interested in implementing a system that would improve measuring t1? or is this current state of the art sufficiently good?


Biological Signals
-Why is measuring biological signals accurately important to science and medicine?
-What kinds of amplitudes are we considering when we talk about all the biological signals?
-On what order of magnitude do these signals present themselves? (nanovolts? microvolts? picovolts? volts?)
-What kinds of materials are necessary to measure biological signals accurately? and safely! …to that end: the best way to measure, say, a potential generated by the heart, is by placing two electrodes directly on the surface of the heart. Obviously this is not practical! How do we measure such a signal from a distance (i.e. on the skin) without sacrificing quality?
-What are some of the fastest biological signals present in the human body (that is, which signals are the ones that happen rarely and quickly)?
-Some biological signals must be measured invasively -- can we develop a way to collect data non-invasively?

Mimicking healthy human body systems
-Can an organ system (nervous, cardiovascular, etc.) be modeled as a linear system of transfer functions?
-Can a system be modeled in hardware?
-Can hardware perform the same functions as an organ?
-Could we develop a sort of synthetic blood?
-How do we develop hardware to perform the same function as an organ, but have it be sufficiently 'low-power' so as not to expose an individual to any risk?
-Materials placed inside the body can't be interpreted as 'foreign,' or the body will reject the material. How do we develop a system in hardware that meets this criterion?

#6 Refined List of Research Topics

T1 Improvement
T1 is a time value associated with the time it takes atomic particles within tissue (as it pertains to MRI) to return to an equilibrium state. Although T1 is a time value, it can actually be thought of as representing the density, and therefore the general health of a certain structure in the brain. For example, healthy 'white matter' on the brain surface exhibits a T1 of about 900 ms, grey matter ~1200 ms, and a severely progressed lesion (scar on the surface of the brain often found in individuals with multiple sclerosis) has a T1 of about 4000 ms. The problem with measuring T1 is that the certainty with which a T1 can be estimated severely degrades in quality as the T1 increases. So that is why I said a lesion exhibits a T1 of about 4000 ms, because there's really no resolution to the scale at those high values. An MRI scan is conducted with two parameters: flip angle and repetition time. These two parameters determine how well the T1 can be measured, but each T1 has an optimal set of flip angle(s) and repetition time(s), and each parameter can be greatly varied. So, the question is, how do we determine how many flip angles and repetition times to use to accurately measure the T1 of interested, and which flip angles and repetition times should we use? The answer is good old fashioned number crunching. The program MATLAB can do these kinds of calculations, but a 'simulation' can take days.

Biological Signals
Measuring biological signals is of great importance to the medical field. It is extremely valuable to be able to quantify a value and to be able to analyze it. The problem with biological signals is that they are usually very small in amplitude and the time in which they occur is often very short. The time when a certain signal takes place is called an 'event,' and some methods to measure these biological signals are simply not able to measure these signals accurately and quickly enough due to limitations in the current state of the art. It would be like me telling you that a fruit fly whizzes past your face once every five minutes, and does so in less than second. It may not happen every five minutes, but it will happen at least once in a five minute period. You have no way of knowing when the fly will come by, and when he does, will you be ready with your swatter? As transistors continue to get smaller and smaller, our ability to capture and analyze data will hopefully improve similarly. The ability to 'listen' to these biological signals is of great interest to me.

Mimicking healthy human body systems
The human body is truly an amazing machine. It may even be the most sophisticated and most advanced machine on the planet (OK…not just the human body; indeed, any biological system). Having said this, I liken the efforts of bioengineering to trying to mimic with hardware/software that which was perfectly designed (or not?) by something else. Whether you believe biological systems were 'designed' or not, I think anyone would agree that a biological system is an incredibly complex machine which science and technology has not yet fully come to understand. As science, technology, and medicine progress in the next few years, it will be very exciting to see how artificial organs are designed. Research groups have had much success with designing artificial organs so I'm very excited to see where the field goes in the future. I never say that anything is impossible, but to accomplish anything like these ideas will certainly be challenging.

#5 List of Research Topics

-Optimization of Instruction Set Architectures (collapsing similar instructions, improving speed and performance)
-Optimization of computer performance
-Quantum computing
-MRI improvement
-CT improvement
-combining medical imaging techniques
-Mimicking healthy human body systems with technology (an artificial toxin processor like a liver)
-capacitive sensing
-T1 measurement improvement
-photovoltaic cells
-biological signals -- improving the way they are collected and interpreted
-using biopotentials to do work

#4 Current Major and Career Goals

My major is Electrical Engineering and I am concentrating in Bioengineering Applications. Right now my short-term goal is to complete my Senior Design project successfully. My project involves using a 'number-crunching' program called MATLAB, and I have developed some strong skills with the program. I think I can use this skill to help achieve my career goals.

In 5 years, I hope to be a contributing employee of a large engineering company like Lockheed Martin. I would be working on important projects for the DoD or some other government sector. I think my skill of effectively communicating will serve me well, perhaps in engineering/technical sales. If I can understand a product's value and be able to describe it technically, I think I would do well in a sales-related capacity.

In 10 years, I'll be 32. Wow. In 10 years…I will be 32. Sorry, just had to wrap my head around that one. Maybe by this point I'll have gotten married. By this point I would like to have several projects I've worked on under my belt.

In 15 years, I will be 37. I think I would do well in a management position someday, helping younger engineers get their start in the technical world. I think I could get to a management position by 37.

I will achieve these goals by soaking up every bit of knowledge I can, and to pass it along whenever I can.

#3 One Significant Person or Significant Event

I have to write about the event that has most impacted me -- having to leave Villanova. Although at the time, it was really very traumatic and quite devastating, I wouldn't go back in time to change anything, because it brought to where I am today. It's like how John Locke put it to Sawyer in LOST, when Sawyer asked John why he didn't go and prevent his [past] self from experiencing a large dose of anguish -- I needed that pain.

I remember a pervasive feeling of "What the hell am I going to do now?" I wasn't sure if I would be able to continue my degree anywhere -- without my scholarship, my family simply couldn't afford Villanova's hefty $42,000/year tuition (actually $43,000 for Engineering students). For a long while I thought I could get away with not telling my parents what had happened. That didn't exactly pan out well.

I lived in confusion for a long while. I didn't have the ability to look into the future with any sense of foresight as to what I was going to do. I woke up every day and just dealt with that day. The feeling that I had for a few months until I finally forgave myself is something I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy.

#2B Three Significant Events

The first landmark event that had an impact on my current career goals is not really a specific event; rather, it's a chain of events that let up to one event. When i was in 8th grade, I had a teacher named Dr. Kocis. She had a southern accident, probably from Louisiana. For whatever reason, I couldn't figure how to solve the simplest equations, like, solve for x in x + 5 = 7. I went through the gauntlet of those terrible parent-teacher conferences, usually held once a month, about how I was struggling in math. Dr. kocis even said I wasn't capable of doing the math and that I would probably never understand with my current way of thinking. It's not that i didn't try; I studied endlessly. I survived high school geometry and algebra 2, but then when I got to pre-calculus and had the teacher mentioned in a previous post, I can only describe it as everything 'clicking.' After that I had a fantastic AP calculus teacher, ms. watkins, who encouraged us to really sink our teeth into all the cool things that calculus enables us to accomplish. I whooped the AP test, got an award at graduation, and eventually ran into Dr. Kocis at church. I could have rubbed it in her face, how well I ended up doing in Math, but I just thanked her for sticking with me all that time.

The second event occurred when I was a freshman in college. I had earned a full NROTC scholarship at Villanova University and felt really good about myself. For a while, I did really well at Villanova and really came to like the school. However, things started to go south at one point. Long story short, I lost the ROTC scholarship, and if there was no scholarship, there was no Villanova. I felt so ashamed about what happened, and for a long while I let it consume me. Eventually, I shed all these negative feelings and let my mistakes inspire me to redeem myself. In short, I forgave myself. I came home and attended George Mason and have ever since. What happened devastated me for so long but without it I couldn't have gotten to where I am now.

When i was in high school, I was in a program at PVI called Peer Mentoring. There's a great program there called Options, where students with learning disabilities (Down's Syndrome, Autism) attended 'mainstream' classes with Peer Mentors. They went to many of the same classes as the 'average' student population, they went to the same lunch periods as us, sat at the same tables as us, and so on. I was paired with a young man named Bret. Bret didn't have Down's, and he may not even be autistic, but his social skills were limited. He would have a hard time looking you in the eye or engaging in conversation. I knew there was an incredible personality inside him that just needed a little encouragement, so I worked with him exclusively for two years. I can hardly describe to you the progress he's made -- and still makes -- since the first day I met him. He eventually asked me to be his confirmation sponsor; I was incredibly honored that he would choose me as his 'faith advisor.' Bret has remainded a very close friend of mine. It turns out he has taught me more about this crazy thing called life than I could ever teach him.

Researcher's Autobiography

As a young child, I used to write these imaginative short stories, just for fun. I always had a wild imagination, and I think this helped facilitate my desire to write these stories. I appreciate the actual writing process -- as opposed to the typing process -- because, like the quote on our Groups page, it seems like the hand can have a mind, or an agenda all its own. I have a leather-bound journal my parents gave me for high school graduation, and from time to time I like to record my thoughts in it. Sometimes an entry will be pages long, and sometimes an entry is a sentence, or a word I like, like ephemeral (I like both the appearance and the definition of the word). Sometimes my hand wants to do math, and so it will do math. Once I figured out a way to generate Pythagorean triples (3,4,5 or 7,24,25); that was weird.

Much of the research I've been doing as of late is for my Senior Design project, in which we seek to improve the measurement of an MRI contrast technique called T1. For me to explain what T1 is would involve delving into particle physics, and nobody wants to read about that. Since August 2009 I've read every article, book, and paper I can get my hands on about the topic. A lot of the material I've learned is ancillary and not immediately relevant to our project, but it helps to give me some perspective on what we're doing and why it's important that we do it. As an engineer, background research is extremely important in any design process. After all, how can you figure where you're going if you don't know where you are and how you got there?

I regret to say that creative writing is not a muscle I frequently exercise in my engineering curriculum. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking it would be a good outlet to write for pleasure.

I think what helps me to be successful on writing/research assignments is to plan an outline before I start writing. But, I really like this 'freewriting' process Professor Nichols encourages us to use; often times I find myself concerned with my spelling and grammar as I'm writing, and it distracts from that which I'm actually trying to externalize.

#2A Three Significant People

Dr. Peixoto is a professor of mine who I just had for a Bioengineering class last Fall. Actually, I met her once about two years ago, when I came to speak to her to express interest in the Bioengineering concentration within the Electrical Engineering degree. Actually, at that time, she insisted I call her by first name, Nathalia, something that took some time for me to get used to. I remember even then that she distinguished herself from the typical EE faculty member; she was friendly, spoke easily, was goofy, and smiled a lot. She's originally from brazil, and Portuguese is her first language, but she speaks 4 other languages. She's brilliant. In class, she not only encouraged us to think like engineers but also as humanitarians, entrepreneurs, and businessmen.

Mr. Remold was my pre-calculus teacher in junior year of high school. He was this huge guy, at probably 6' 5", with a personality like a mixture of Matthew McConaughey's character Wooderson in Dazed and Confused and Santa Claus. He was jovial like Santa but really funny and slick like Wooderson. Up until that year of high school, I hadn't really developed a 'knack' for any particular subject, and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do later in life (i.e. college, career). Mr. rembold's teaching style and personality, somehow and in some way, flicked a switch in my brain about Math. Everything just clicked after that. It was the weirdest and most exciting thing, to have all those years in the past that I struggled in math, all the subject matter, suddenly became crystal clear to me. I think he had a huge impact in my decision to choose engineering as a career.

After I developed a knack for calculus/math/solving problems, my Dad was the one that turned me on to the idea of becoming an engineer. He has been a systems engineer at Mitre for over 25 years. I can't speak about the specific environment in which I remember him, because he's my Dad! He's always been there for me, wearing different hats along the way. He was my baseball coach, my basketball coach, and nowadays my career coach. He planted the idea in my head that I was lucky enough to have the mind to solve engineering problems and that I could make a career out of it.

#1 Earliest Memory

I can't remember any further back than what I can recall from that infinitely expansive and gravel playground at Wesley Preschool. Every day on that playground felt so novel, like every day I was a Spanish explorer discovering some uncharted territory. I recall a sort of large, red plaything that looked like a barn. I kissed Anna Zukowski on the cheek up there. She was my first girlfriend, but then I met Karen Sealy. I remember my teacher Ms. Trueblood, and the principal Ms. Rippy.

A typical day would involve me waking up around 8 or 9, and my Mom would have a sippy cup of hot chocolate ready for me, every morning, without fail. I would then go downstairs to our family room, sit on the floor in front of the TV indian-style with my blanket, and proceed to watch Nick Jr. for some time. My favorite shows were Mr. Wizard, Blue's Clues, Eureka's Castle and some freaky show about a Pollywog named Binya Binya.

Then, I remember Kindergarten. I was in "Oretel PM," meaning I had Mrs. Oretel and I went to school at noon. I went to Our Lady of Good Counsel school in Vienna, and stayed there until 8th grade. The same people I made friends with on that first day of kindergarten are some of the same people I hung out with last night. We have a long and storied history at OLGC, replete with all sorts of strange occurences (a border collie wandered into Mass one time) and hilarious adolescent antics (two friends and I leap-frog'd the mile one time; Mrs. Tillett was most displeased).

I remember having particular difficulties learning how to tie my shoe in Kindergarten. My teacher had this sort of kid-friendly and colorful clipboard with shoelaces on it, so as to make the nerve-racking process of having to tie the damn shoelaces in front of our teacher more palatable. I couldn't do it, and I specifically remember that stinging feeling of failure. I sulked home to my Dad, and that Friday night we stayed up til 10 pm (super late!!!) until I learned how to do it.

FIRST POST

I go by the name Michael. Check this photo out -- it's me at age 5 with my sister. I think we were making jello shots, though I could be entirely wrong.

Have you had a good laugh today? If not, go here. Is it wrong to laugh at an other's injury? If it is, I don't want to be right. It's mostly funny for me because of the clown mask.