N Equals One

In our previous episode on cancer survivorship, Michelle Brubaker shared her recent cancer journey. In this episode Laurie Knight, a licensed clinical social worker, and Cecilia Kasperick, breast cancer nurse navigator, of the Comprehensive Breast Health Center at UC San Diego Health, talk about how Michelle can move forward after treatment, without having her life defined by cancer. They offer tips for friends and family to help patients transition to survivorship and beyond. To learn more about Michelle's journey, check out her video at health.ucsd.edu/cancerstories.

When a person shows no evidence of cancer, they transition into the phase known as "survivorship." While this is a joyous moment, it can also be emotional, says Michelle Brubaker. Only recently has Michelle transitioned from breast cancer patient to survivor, and there are a lot of questions and feelings she's sorting out. As Michelle shares her story, Laurie Knight, a licensed clinical social worker, and Cecilia Kasperick, breast cancer nurse navigator, of the Comprehensive Breast Health Center at UC San Diego Health, explain survivorship. To learn more about Michelle's journey, check out her video at https://health.ucsd.edu/cancerstories.

In this episode, we talk to Kathryn Gold, MD, a medical oncologist who specializes in the treatment of head, neck and lung cancer, about clinical trials — what they are, why someone might want to participate in one, and how they might get started.

We talk to Mary Hackim and Jan Hebert about their 37 year nursing career at UC San Diego Health. They served in a variety of roles in Women & Infant Services, specializing in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Hear about their personal experiences, challenges and all the technological advancements made over the years that are now giving babies born less than a pound the chance to survive.

In this episode we talk to neuroscience graduate student Alison Caldwell, internet-famous as Alie_Astrocyte on Twitter and Neuro Transmissions on YouTube, about her research, life as a graduate student and why she thinks science communication (#scicomm) is so important.

Congenital syphilis has been on the rise since 2001, with a sharp increase in 2014 across the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although many may not think of syphilis as current public health problem, this is still a very real threat to mothers and their unborn children. Recently awarded a $150,000 grant to further study the underlying causes of this outbreak, Jennifer Wagman, PhD, an assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Health at UC San Diego School of Medicine, discusses some thoughts on why we might be seeing a rise in congenital syphilis and what steps can be taken to help combat this epidemic.

According to the most recent data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline, incidents of trafficking in the United States rose by more than 35 percent in 2016. The thought of human trafficking might conjure images of law enforcement coming to the rescue, but often times help comes from other places. The majority of victims end up in a hospital seeking treatment for conditions related to human trafficking. In this episode, we talk to UC San Diego Health employees Regina Wang, MD, Sarah Williamson, RN, and Karen Mitchell-Keels, RN, who have formed a committee to help educate health care workers about signs that may reveal that a patient is a victim of human trafficking.

In the 2002 science fiction movie "Minority Report," Tom Cruise’s character leads a futuristic police unit that prevents crimes based on mutated humans called "precogs" who "previsualize" crimes via visions of the future. In other words, the precogs predict where and when something bad is going to happen. Far-fetched? Maybe not, at least when it comes to “previsualizing” cancer. Here we talk to computational biologist Hannah Carter, PhD, who can use data from a person’s inherited genome to help predict where their future tumor might show up, how it might behave, and how it might best be treated. For more on her work, read http://ucsdhealthsciences.tumblr.com/post/166848190360/what-a-persons-immune-system-says-about-their

Despite a diagnosis of stage IV pancreatic cancer and ongoing chemotherapy, Mike Levine competed in one of the most grueling of physical competitions: the Ironman World Championship. When Mike's cancer spread to his lungs he began end-of-life planning but a second opinion at Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health gave him one more chance to compete in the sport he loves. In this episode, we talk to Mike, his wife, training partner and doctor about how he does it.

Your genome is like a recipe book with all the recipes that a cell in your body needs to make the proteins it needs to function. Each of your 10 trillion cells has a full copy of the full recipe book. But that’s a problem — how does each cell know which recipes to use and which to ignore? For example, only skin cells need the recipe to make pigment, and they don’t need the recipe for insulin. That’s where epigenomics comes in, providing “post-it notes” in the recipe book, so each cell only uses the recipes it needs. In this episode we talk to Dave Gorkin, associate director of the new Center for Epigenomics at UC San Diego School of Medicine, about all this. He also tells us how our epigenetics can change over time, influenced by environmental factors and in turn affecting our susceptibility to disease.