When Science Speaks

In this episode, we speak with Rich Boyer, MD, PhD who is a PGY-4 resident anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Rich has a unique background. He has a PhD in biomedical engineering, and an MD degree, both from Vanderbilt University.

While matriculating at Vanderbilt, he worked with the institution to establish their pioneering MD/PhD Medical Scientist Training degree program.

Rich has invaluable industry experience as well. He worked as an R&D engineer at Baxter International, and then served as co-founder of medical device startup Volumetrix, which was awarded NSF Phase I STTR & NIH Phase I/II SBIR grants for the development of wearable hemodynamic monitors.

Anesthesiologists play a variety of critical roles in a hospital setting, in terms of providing anesthesia support for surgery, as well as critical care and pain management, giving them a broad perspective. He's also a Research Fellow in their Cardiovascular Research Center.

He and his fellow anesthesiologist residents have been doing their intense daily rotations in the ICU as the COVID19 pandemic spiked. Rich first conceived of the challenge while being quarantined after exposure to an infected patient.

A strong team player, he wanted to contribute while in isolation. At first, he thought that he would design a ventilator using his biomedical engineering skills. This evolved into an open call to designers to design medically effective, affordable ventilators. He recruited his fellow residents to join the team, and they launched the CoVent 19 Challenge.

They then assembled a core group of in-kind sponsors to provide a range of tools software, and resources to support the team's efforts, including MCAD and requirements - driven design software, 3D printing, Biomedical Engineering consulting as well as a 24 hour Slack channel for real-time support from a broad range of medical and biomedical engineering experts.

When not in ICU, he and his core team have been managing this global rapid ventilator design challenge, a strong indication of their selfless character. The team set up as a 501(c)(3) non - profit with the intention to share the designs openly in order to make them available wherever they are needed. Just 30 days from the launch of the Challenge, 213 teams submitted designs from 43 countries around the globe.

On 5 May, 7 teams were chosen as finalists after an exhaustive review by a panel of world class experts. Teams range from faculty and alums at Stanford University and Smith College to a teacher and high school students at the Baxter Academy to a lone inventor in the UK, who recently won the Queen's Prize for Innovation.

Each one of the teams has a very compelling backstory and all have very inspiring motivations that compelled them to participate.

The teams will now have about 3 weeks to create a working prototype, before a final winning design will be selected and move into production. They are being given a significant amount of on-going support to complete their designs and bring them to life.

Disclosure: Co-host Mike Grandinetti is a member of the Board of Directors of the CoVent19 Challenge

When shifting from academics to the corporate business world you, need to have a mindset shift that requires you to step out of the Ivory Tower and take a look around to see where else you can provide value. And in order to do that, Abhijit Sanyal says you have to first discover what your value is beyond research and teaching.

Abhijit Sanyal is a Senior Executive with more than 25 years of experience across 300 projects focused on Marketing Strategy, Marketing Science, and Data Science. He is currently a Senior Advisor at Spinnaker Analytics, a firm focused on AI and predictive analytics, and a partner at Sanyal Capital Group, a strategic real estate investment firm.

Abhijit also serves as Faculty and Member of the Data Science and Analytics Advisory Board at Merrimack College. He has been a Founding Member of a media and entertainment startup, Head of the Analytics Function at two boutique healthcare consulting firms, and has also managed teams at IBM and Oliver Wyman Consulting.

Abhijit Sanyal earned his Ph.D. in Marketing and Quantitative Methods at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He earned his MBA in Marketing at the Indian Institute of Management and his Bachelor's degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.

What You'll Hear On This Episode of When Science Speaks

How Abhijit Sanyal made the switch from academics to management consulting

How Abhijit's academic background helped mold his approach in translating data into corporate strategy

Abhijit discusses how AI and machine learning has evolved over the years

The skills postgrads and post-docs need in order to successfully transition from academia to the corporate or nonprofit government sector

Abhijit shares the goals and milestones that he would like to achieve in the field of data science and analytics

Connect with Abhijit Sanyal

Abhjihit Sanyal on LinkedIn

Transitioning from Academics into Corporate Business World

Making the switch from academics into corporate can be daunting but imagine if you have to do it as an immigrant in a country that was currently experiencing a recession. That was how Abhijit Sanyal's journey in the corporate world started because after several trials for an academic position with no success, it was an interview for a management consulting role in data science and analytics that gave Abhijit the position that would change things for him.

It was a big move but he considered the value he could provide from a professional standpoint to the industry and decided that he was in a better position to create change where it was needed the most. He embraced the transition and focused on providing that additional perspective into the data science and analytics industry that he can provide to further it even more.

The Skills You Need to Make the Switch from Academia into the Corporate World

Your journey into data science and analytics will be a lot smoother if you're coming from a computationally intensive field. Beginning your journey by taking as many statistics, predictive analytics, data science, marketing, and finance courses as you can so the jargon of the field will not overwhelm you is crucial to your success.

Abhijit says you should also build a machine learning and data science portfolio using some opensource software and data sources while also grabbing real-world opportunities to enhance your skills and your understanding of the field. This will help you identify your career trajectory and help you determine the roadmap towards your optimal positioning in the field of data science and analytics.

Learn more about Abhijit Sanyal on this week's episode of When Science Speaks.

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How do you bridge the gap between students who do not have the necessary experience and network that will help them get hired after college and companies who are counting their losses and are working to avoid hiring the wrong people? Leah Davidson saw this as a dilemma that persists in society and she has made it her mission to connect students looking to gain real-world experience with companies who are willing to host exciting projects.

Leah Davidson is an entrepreneurial powerhouse with a compelling personal story. She's the co-founder of Canduit, a SaaS platform for experiential learning that matches students looking to gain real-world experience with companies hosting exciting projects. Canduit is currently working with about 30 plus universities in North and Latin America, as well as online education programs, high schools, and camps.

Before co-founding Canduit, Leah was the Strategic Partner Manager at DoorDash where she was responsible for strategy and operational roles. While at DoorDash, she founded Project Dash which used DoorDash's logistics network to minimize food waste and fight hunger.

Leah has served as a United Nations Youth Ambassador which involves various roles for different UN agencies including being a blogger for UNICEF's Voices of Youth Initiative on the Environment and Climate Change. She has also served as a youth expert policymaker for UNESCO on education and sustainable development at a conference hosted in Japan.

Leah earned her Bachelor of Science degree and graduated as summa cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she majored in Economics Management in Global Innovation and minored in English.

What You'll Hear On This Episode of When Science Speaks

Leah Davidson shares how being the first to attend college in her family shaped her time at Wharton and her professional life

How Leah realized the best way to bridge the gap between students looking for experiential learning and companies who wanted to hire the right talent

Leah discusses piloting Canduit's technology in Santiago, Chile

The real-world problems and use-cases that shaped Canduit's target market

Leah shares her perspective on the market outlook for experiential and online learning

How Canduit can support and work with PhDs and postdocs

Leah shares her advice on funding and other resources for young startup founders

Skills Leah has found useful in her leadership role

Connect with Leah Davidson

Canduit

Leah Davidson on LinkedIn

Greg Lewin on LinkedIn

DoorDash

Enabling Academic and Workplace Connection

Finding out what they want to do after years of studying is a struggle for students at any level. And even when they know, getting the job they desire remains elusive to many because they lack the experience and connections necessary to land a job that finds them to be the right fit. On the other hand, employers are working hard to minimize their expenditures for recruitment while at the same time, optimizing their recruitment efforts. They want to make sure they hire the right people but they often lack the tools that can help them find the right talent for the position that they need to fill.

Having been on the student side, Leah Davidson understands the anxiety it creates among her peers, and she learned from her partner, Greg Lewin, that the same woes ail the corporate world. This is why they decided to bridge the gap between students looking to gain experiential learning that they can add to their resume and companies who want to work with the right people for the right job. And so they created Canduit, a SaaS platform that matches students looking to gain real-world experience with companies hosting exciting projects.

More exposure for students in a less confrontational setting

Experience and connection are often necessary to help students land their dream job after the years they spent studying and preparing for their chosen career. It would be helpful for them to be exposed to companies with goals and businesses geared towards the path they want to take because this will do two things: concretize their career trajectory and provide them with experiences that they can add to their resume.

Canduit aims to provide students with an opportunity to gain this exposure in a less confrontational setting. They are able to provide students with real-life experience on what it would be like to work in the industry they are aiming for and can help pave the path towards getting hired by even better companies in the future. According to Leah, it's not always about getting hired by the big names from the get-go, it's more important to be hired by companies who are a perfect fit for your skills and your ideal career path.

As for companies, Canduit is able to give them a roster of candidates who are capable of fulfilling the needs of their company, people with the right technical know-how and a passion to learn the ropes and get the job done. They allow companies to get a glimpse of who to hire based on accurate work samples, which are the number one predictor on job performance. Doing this also takes away the confrontational process of students and employers trying to sell themselves.

Canduit offers both students and companies an opportunity to work together both online and offline, giving them the space they need to build networks, connections, and answering the need to find the right fit for jobs and experiences.

Learn more about Leah Davidson on this week's episode of When Science Speaks.

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Working in close collaboration at the University of Delaware'sDesign Studio, Co-Directors Whitney Sample &Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Jenni Buckley, PhDhave established a partnership based on mutual admirationand respect. While designers & engineers often bring different world views and personalities to their work which creates a level of tension, Jenni & Whitney can finish one another's sentences and often do.

Both of them have deep connections in the medical and healthcare fields. Virtually simultaneously, both were being inundated with requests from medical doctors who were very concerned about the lack of PPE as the pandemic began to escalate. These inquiries served as the catalyst for springing Whitney and Jenni into action. After doing their own research, they realized that many other projects were targeting N95 medical grade masks.

They decided to focus on designing a mask that would serve the needs of essential frontline workers at grocery stores & pharmacies, food delivery, Amazon, UPS & FedEx drivers, and first responders. Whitney sought out inspiration from a number of existing populardesigns and then brought his 30 years of experience to bear to improve upon what is currently available. The end goal – a design that has a properlytight yet comfortable fit, where filters can be readily replaced, and which can be produced affordably at scale and easily stored in a convenient form factor – essentially flat-packed like a military ready -to-eat meals eg., "MRE " The ingenious "HensNest" mask design – in honor of the U. of Delaware mascot the Blue Hens, is best appreciated when you look at the assembly video. It's a tented structure that makes it far easier to breathe. It accommodates a range of recommended filters. Most importantly, it is scientifically proven to be 4-8X more effective than traditional cloth masks. The implication- many lives will be saved as a result of using his superior design as we re-open the US economy.

There are certain clinical nuances in medical and/or scientific communication that gets lost in translation when communications professionals without background on the subject are left to relay these messages on their own. This is why Dr. Austin Lee Chiang Medical made it one of his biggest goals to get more clinicians on social media to talk about their work and to help educate the public. But this requires the ability to distill science for public consumption without dumbing down the information. This line between jargon and layman's term is what science professionals need to tread in order to get their message across the right way.

Dr. Austin Lee Chiang is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Director of the Endoscopic Bariatric Program, and the Chief Medical Social Media Officer at Jefferson Health. He's also the Founding President of the Association for Healthcare Social Media, an advisory board member of the Association for Bariatric Endoscopy, and he is also on committees for the leading national GI societies.

Dr. Chiang is triple board certified in Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, and Obesity Medicine. He completed an Advanced Endoscopy Fellowship at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital before staying on as faculty. Prior to that, he obtained a Master's in Public Health from Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. At about the same time, he trained in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital where he completed the fellowship in Geriatric Endoscopy.

Dr. Chiang received his MD and completed his Internal Medicine residency at Columbia University. Before that, he attended Duke University where he obtained his bachelor's degree in Biology.

What You'll Hear On This Episode of When Science Speaks

Dr. Austin Lee Chiang talks about why he's on TikTok and what he hopes to achieve by joining the platform

How Dr. Chiang distills medical information into the limited time in TikTok videos

How Dr. Chiang comes up with topics for his posts on social media

Things Dr. Chiang hopes to achieve as Chief Medical Social Media Officer at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital

How Dr. Chiang's colleagues relate with him as the Chief Medical Social Media Officer

Should scientific information be shared on Instagram?

Dr. Chiang gives tips on how clinicians and health organizations can get started with using social media and how to choose which platform to use

Connect with Austin Lee Chiang, MD

Sidney Kimmel Medical College

LinkedIn for Austin Lee Chiang, MD

Dr. Austin Lee Chiang on Instagram

Dr. Austin Lee Chiang on Twitter

Dr. Austin Lee Chiang on Tiktok

Health Information Sharing

How much of the health information patients receive during when speaking with a medical practitioner actually sticks with them? Dr. Austin Lee Chiang says that not a lot of information is retained by patients because of the huge mental load it gives, and this opens up patients to the risk of misinformation which can easily be spread through social media. Like wildfire, misinformation can spread so fast and this can lead to bigger problems for the public and for the medical society. This is why Dr. Chiang believes that it's important for health professionals to make themselves visible on social media in order to share information in a manner that can be easily understood yet is still accurate. He himself has been using various social media platforms to reach out to people not only to share his experience as a doctor with those eager to join the medical field but also to share his knowledge with people in a bid to fight the proliferation of misinformation.

Distilling Science for Public Consumption

Granted, there's no hard and fast rule for sharing scientific or medical information in a way the public can understand. For Dr. Chiang, he says that putting yourself in the shoes of patients and the public helps him choose topics to cover in the limited time frame allotted in social media. By trying to see things from the perspective of the audience, he is able to figure out what to share and how to best convey the relevant information in the most comprehensible way possible. However, Dr. Chiang says that although social media is most a lot of humor and fun, health professionals should make sure that they are being thoughtful with how they portray patient interactions and the work that they do to avoid misconceptions and misunderstandings. Optimizing social media advantages is a great tool for health professionals but they should still keep in mind that they are professionals and that what they do is in the service of the public.

Choosing the Topics to Cover on Social Media

Dr. Chiang bases the topics he covers on his social media accounts on his expertise, his experience, and some of the common questions he encounters when dealing with patients. He says that sharing useful and helpful information that the public can easily understand is a responsibility that healthcare professionals should take seriously. Accurate representation of data, information, and healthcare tips is more important than just being fun and relatable. By choosing to go for topics that you have a wealth of knowledge on, you can guarantee that what you share will be what is truly needed by your target audience. Learn more about Dr. Austin Lee Chiang on this week's episode of When Science Speaks.

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The Georgia Institute of Technology is a Top 5 ranked national public research university.

More commonly known as Georgia Tech, the school has long been considered one of the US's premier Institutes of Higher Education focused on educating the next generation of engineers, designers and scientists.

Given its stature, it is only natural that GT has taken on major leadership role in response to COVID19. "The Georgia Tech Community Response to COVID19" https://pwp.gatech.edu/rapid-response/ has been comprehensive.

In this episode, we focus on the dedicated efforts of Chris Saldana, Associate Professor of Manufacturing Engineering, where under his leadership, a wide range of high impact rapid design and prototyping projects are being led. Given the strong sense of urgency, the team is focused on maturing and optimizing readily available "open designs" and tailoring for local needs as required. Chris describes how he and his colleagues and student volunteers have broken down the silos across GT's six colleges and thirty + separate departments to make things happen. He also shares the collaborative, give-and -take nature of working with medical experts who have been very vocal about their exacting requirements to ensure the designs and the equipment they create is able to protect our front line health care workers.

The team is has worked with its' key clinical partner Emory University Hospital, and its manufacturing partner Siemens, to rapidly ramp up to produce hundreds of thousands of critically needed facial shields per week. These are being consumed rapidly at many area hospitals and the plan is to achieve volumes of 1 Million plus as needed

https://pwp.gatech.edu/rapid-response/face-shields/

Video of injection molding face shields

https://pwp.gatech.edu/rapid-response/face-shields/

The team's efforts on this project were recently highlighted in the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000007046207/coronavirus-innovative-equipment.html

The team has also produced "intubation boxes" which are used to protect both patient and health care worker when intubation or extubation, both very high risk medical procedures, are performed. These will be used at area hospitals.

In addition, the team has created a low-cost, highly affordable ventilator that can be distributed to emerging economies of Africa, India and Southeast Asia where extreme affordability is critical. The cost to manufacture these vitally important medical devices is approximately $200 per device.

Lastly, students David Gamero and Zoe Klesmith, working under Chris' direction, has been inspired by an ingenious South Korean patient testing booth design:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-33i9B8m6E

They are creating a design similar to this design derivative that was made for use at Boston's prestigious Brigham + Women's Hospital.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhXOmA4sC3s

Every single one of GT's designs highlighted in this podcast are being made freely available for use by anyone who wants to make use of them. See the yellow "contact us" bar at the bottom of the page. https://pwp.gatech.edu/rapid-response/ for more information.

While our front-line health care workers are certainly heroes, let's not forget to celebrate the heroic efforts of engineers like Chris Saldana and his dedicated colleagues and students, in providing critical equipment in the fight against COVID19. It's tireless and selfless efforts like this that show American innovation, engineering, manufacturing at its best. Well done Georgia Tech!

Scientists and policy makers have a couple of things in common: they dedicate themselves to a cause larger than themselves. Getting results that positively impacts other people or a certain issue is what drives these special people to overcome every rejection and test failures that they come across with. Policy-making isn't the easiest field to enter into but for Mike Stebbins, PhD, it's an incredibly challenging yet very fulfilling thing to be a part of.

Mike Stebbins is the President of Science Advisors, a science and health consulting firm that he founded in 2018 to provide science, technology, and public policy guidance to private companies, philanthropies, and non-profit organizations. He is currently serving on the board of a number of corporations and non-profit organizations including the National Academy of Sciences board on research, data, and information. Mike was previously vice president of science and technology for the Laura and John Arnold Foundation who is responsible for identifying and pursuing opportunities for philanthropic investment in science and technology. Prior to this, he served as the assistant directors for Biotechnology in the Obama White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for seven years where he helped develop eight executive orders and other directives addressing issues ranging from the antibiotic resistance crisis to restoring pollinator health. He was also a former director of biology policy for the Federation of American Scientists where he led its Bio-security project. His public policy experience also includes working as a legislative fellow for US Senator Harry Reid, and as a public fellow for the National Human Genome Research Institute. Prior to his arrival in Washington, Mike worked as the senior editor at Nature Genetics.

Mike earned his Ph.D. in genetics while working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He earned his degree in BS Biology at SUNY Stony Brook.

What You'll Hear On This Episode of When Science Speaks

How Mike Stebbins got involved in public policy and his advice for scientists who would also like to be involved in policy-making

Areas of science policy-making need skill strengthening and development

Why PhDs and Postdocs need to view the transition into public policy as a new discipline

Why persistence is a valuable asset in policy

Mike's major lessons from his time at the White House

Employing the Tom Sawyer technique when driving people towards a goal

The similarities of scientists and policy-makers

How to get relationship-building right in the White House in order to get positive policy outcomes and how to make people passionate about executive actions

How scientists can get people to listen to their findings in the realm of policy-making

Mike's example of how two factions with different opinions can work together

Connect with Mike Stebbins

Mike Stebbins on LinkedIn

Mike Stebbins on Twitter

Mike Stebbins on Medium

Scientists in the world of policy-making

Public policy is a tedious field of challenges where your rejections and failures become an essential part of getting the policies that you want to get implemented to function the way that you have envisioned in your mind. And the reason why a lot of scientists are coming into policy-making is because of the similarities between doing work in the laboratory and in drafting policy. The desire to get solutions for problems that once resolved could potentially make things better for everyone is the driving force for many of these special people to do their job and to do it extremely well.

Mike Stebbins is a renowned geneticist who got involved in policy-making through his work in the White House and his legislative fellowship under US Senator Harry Reid, and as a public fellow for the National Human Genome Research Institute. His top notch advice for scientists who are rearing to enter the hectic and challenging world of policy-making is to view the field with a different perspective. It's an entirely new field that relies heavily on building relations in order to get things done and knowing how to make different people come together towards a common cause is critical to the success of a certain policy.

The value of bringing different people together in policy-making

Mike Stebbins shares his first-hand experience in seeing how policy-making works through his experience working in the field. He has seen how people come together to get to an agreement that can effectively resolve an issue that would become an executive order that gets results such as when he developed executive orders and directives that addressed issues ranging from antibiotic resistance to restoring pollinator health. The key to getting the results he needed to see? Relationship-building.

Getting people to become enthusiastic and passionate about the project that they are working on and getting them to share their expertise and skills to get to a point where all questions have been answered and resolved is crucial in policy-making. Banding people together for a cause greater than themselves and pushing aside other things that they may have invested in to get a policy off the ground is challenging and ultimately very rewarding. Policy-making is a selfless act bound by the desire to improve things and get things done.

Learn more about Mike Stebbins and what he has learned from his time as a policymaker on this week's episode of When Science Speaks.

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Bayer Strategic Consulting is a training and consulting firm that helps scientists and engineers effectively communicate the value of their work to their most important stakeholders using jargon-free and engaging language that gets results. Get a free consultation today to find out what they can do for you and your work.

Transcript

April 8, 2020

Mark Bayer

Thanks everyone so much for being here on this special coronavirus edition of "When Science Speaks." This is Mark Bayer. I'm just so glad that you're here and you're joining us. Today's episode is brought to you by Bayer Strategic Consulting, a unique advocacy and training firm in the Washington DC area that helps scientists and engineers communicate effectively with their most important stakeholders - investors, policymakers and the public. And we're just so fortunate, amid these unprecedented times, to have Mike Grandinetti on the show today. Mike has spent his entire 25 year career immersed in innovation and entrepreneurship, solving these major problems as a serial tech entrepreneur, as a board member, as a professor, as a mentor, as a consultant and he's an internationally recognized expert in innovation and entrepreneurship. He's a contributor at Forbes and Money Magazine and the host of the "Disruptive Innovation" podcast. And I wanted Mike to come on the show today to talk about - to shine a light on - some of these programs, these initiatives that are happening in labs and in neighborhoods all across the country and in some parts of the world to try to respond to the lack of the lack of equipment that we're seeing in a lot of these places. And just the innovation that is out there, this pandemic obviously has caused so much pain and suffering and it's also ignited this entrepreneurism and this creativity around scientists and engineers - this is Mike's domain. So I'm so glad to have you on the show Mike and just really eager for you to share with our listeners what you see out there when you look across the landscape.

Mike Grandinetti

Mark, thank you so much for having me and really looking forward to having a good discussion with you and having a chance to, you know, get some really positive news out to your listeners, right? We've been hearing from many public sources that this will be one of the hardest weeks in US history. And you know, all of the major mainstream news outlets have been mostly discussing pretty grim news. And one of the things that I'd really like to do is I want to share just a series of very inspiring examples of innovation that is taking place across this great country, taking place at academic institutions at research hospitals, in small communities, both in the traditional innovation clusters like Silicon Valley in Boston and New York but also in small town America and what I would say is the response of the Americans citizen has been extraordinary. And so I think the real question, of course, is how did we wind up here?

Mike Grandinetti

And although this is truly a black swan event, right, truly it's a reset button on history. There's no question that there were warnings from prior pandemics and almost pandemics. And there were a lot of plans that were put in place. And a lot of those plans were discarded. So here we are with the most expensive health care system in the world. And we find ourselves today with an incredibly, incredibly depleted National Stockpile, especially when it comes to the most critical types of equipment like ventilators which are truly life and death. And then a lot of this protective equipment which is the difference between a doctor or a health care worker, you know, potentially contacting this virus themselves and not being able to help others or, you know, being so sick that they can pass away.

So, what I'd love to do today, you know, as part of our discussion is to focus primarily on what I'll call the more urgent innovation initiatives that are happening around ventilators around masks and face shields, and some very innovative things that are filling the gap for a lack and some of this PPE you know, because I think these are the things that are just critically needed today. And what I would say is, as I've looked around the country and the globe, there's an endless number of positive stories. And, I know we talked about maybe sharing some other stories on a future podcast and also having the opportunity to have your listeners understand how they may get involved themselves, even from the comfort and the safety. have their own homes. Exactly. But I think today we'll focus largely on sort of the the ventilator and the PP initiatives that are so critically important and so inspiring and what's happened. So why don't we get to it then? So I mean, one of the things that most people may be wondering is how did we wind up in this mess when it comes to a lack of ventilators? And it turns out, right and Pro Publica has done a great job of reporting on this.

Mike Grandinetti

It turns out that several years ago, the Health and Human Services Administration entered into a contractual relationship with a Pennsylvania based ventilator maker and there was supposed to be a significant number of ventilators. This company is known as trilogy and they created the EVO universal ventilator It was developed with US government funds. There was a $14 billion contract that was established with the Health and Human Services Department. But yet not a single one of those ventilators ever was created or made it into the strategic stockpile. Now, this company became a part of Philips, the global, you know, electronics and medical device company. And Philips wound up taking this device or this design, this relatively economic design and actually creating higher end more expensive equipment that they've sold into commercial markets and essentially avoided, you know, fulfilling the contract. And it turns out, contractually, they had a right to do that. So, as we sit here today, I think there are lessons for the future about where, you know, where these strategic stockpiles need to be manufactured, how they need to be managed, but regardless, we are where we are. So what Let's talk about a handful of projects. Right right now there's a projection that we're going to wind up between 750,000 and a million ventilators short of what is needed.

Mike Grandinetti

Now, these are very complex devices. They are truly sophisticated devices. And unlike a lot of the Silicon Valley mindset move fast break things. You can't have that mindset when you build a ventilator. It has to work perfectly. And there needs to be very well trained staff to operate these ventilators into intubate. So one of the first projects that I'd like to shine a light on isn't a student led project coming out of MIT. And not surprisingly, MIT has been an incredibly powerful leader on many initiatives, and we'll cover a few of them, but this is a critical one. So this student group created an emergency ventilator and it's called the E-vent. Project. Now they're trying to do what we'll call frugal design. And they're trying to take advantage of existing equipment. And many of your listeners may have been personally, you know, either intubated or seeing a family member intubated with a bag.

Mike Grandinetti

And the bag is a very, very inexpensive device that is used to help pump oxygen into patient's lungs when they need to be intubated. Right, and they're found in every hospital room, every ambulance on the planet literally. And so what the MIT team did is say let's take advantage of something that's already ubiquitous. And let's make it a key component. And so, you know, this is not the first time that a bag mask valve oriented device was created. And in less than 14 days, they created a prototype of working prototype, right. And the initial intent was that it would be only for true emergency purposes when there was nothing else available. But the belief is that it's actually, you know, much more useful than that. So the, at this point, right, and I think a very important part of the message that I want to send out is that a lot of the projects that I'm going to highlight will be designs that have been tested, and that are available to be used by any healthcare organization, anywhere on the planet. So there's a group of there's a group of manufacturing people right now focused on getting this into high scale production. And the plan is to produce this literally as soon as possible. Now, it leads to a really interesting story of just how remarkable it has been to see the world come together. So of course, and you know this very well given what you do.

Mike Grandinetti

But normally University IP is considered quite sacred. Well, just yesterday, Harvard, MIT and Stanford announced this COVID-19 technology access framework. And so what they're basically doing is we're near as, as a very powerful group of research institutions of global renown. They're establishing a set of licensing principles that are going to incentivize and allow for the most broad and equitable access of, you know, to these University innovations that can be used anywhere in the world. And they're going to allow this to continue for as long as the pandemic exists and for some period thereafter. Okay. And then there's a second initiative called the open COVID pledge. And this is developed by a consortium of scientists and lawyers and entrepreneurs, right, and they're also trying to remove obstacles that would prevent the sharing of IP. So what we're seeing is this massive have global, you know, openness to sharing anything and everything that can help in the fight. And so this is the first example right now, on the other coast, you Cal Berkeley, you Cal Berkeley is also inspired by, you know, a very common device.

Mike Grandinetti

So for people out there if you know what sleep apnea is, it's an increasingly common, you know, ailment and you see so many people today traveling through airports with their c pap and their bipap machines that they bring with them on airplanes, right. So C pap machines are everywhere. And so the you Cal Berkeley team is working on a project which they're calling ventilator s o s. And what they're doing is they are gathering donated c pap and bipap machines, okay, for, you know, for conversion for non ICU patients. So in many ways you could say it would be somewhat equivalent Its capabilities to the MIT event project, right? And it needs to be converted for safe use. So on top of the traditional off the shelf seat pack that you might get from resume or a lot of other people, they put two additional filters, one filter oxygenates air that is delivered to the patient. And then a second filter is being used to filter air that is being released by the patient before being released back into the surrounding environment. So was not to infect, you know, the healthcare workers. And this was something that unfortunately was an issue that was really overlooked in Washington at the you know, the infamous nursing home where the first major cluster really started. So here you have two, very low cost, very easily manufactured ventilator projects, designs that have been released into open source and Where the, you know, where it can fill a critical need, but for all but the most seriously ill patients.

Mark Bayer

Mike just to chime in here. I mean, those machines, as you suggest, are really ubiquitous and people also tend to use them for a while and then when it needs repair or something like that, and then they need another one. So as far as Yeah, all over all over the place. That's, that's an encouraging level as far as getting those out to people who can, can make these adjustments so it can be used for this new purpose.

Mike Grandinetti

Absolutely, because when you think about the seat pet, most health care plans will replace someone keep that machine every five years. And so you can imagine, you know, millions of seat pet machines that have served a useful purpose probably still very functional. Hmm. But you know, like everything else with Moore's Law, there's newer, smaller lighter, right you know, cheaper devices that out there now. So absolutely. And then here's, I think something quite interesting, right? And this is this one is really inspiring to me. So Mass General Hospital, one of the great teaching hospitals in the world associated with Harvard Medical School. They've launched something called the CO vent 19th challenge. And I want to give a shout out to the the initiator in the head of the project. Dr. Richard Boyer, rich Boyer is both a medical doctor and a PhD in biomedical engineering. So this is one well educated man. And I also want to give a shout out to john Stevenson. John, very successful longtime Boston tech entrepreneur who was taken on the job of Chair of the advisory board. And so, what Dr. Boyer recognized right he saw this major gap looming. And this is a this is an anesthesiologist who is working shifts, you know, under horrific conditions right now at Mass General. And in his spare time, to the extent that he has any spare time, he's been working on, you know, creating this global challenge.

Mike Grandinetti

So this is a this is an eight week design challenge to produce rapidly deployable designs for two different kinds of devices. Okay. And so this, to me is about as inspiring as anything that you can imagine. And the goal for this team is to finalize these two designs that can go into full scale production very rapidly. And so the, you know, they're looking at a whole range of designs, and they're trying to really understand, you know, because I mean, everyone's sharing IP right now. So, they're trying to say, Okay, so what are the designs that are going to be able to be, you know, both, you know, just hit all of the right requirements, they're, they're relatively easy to build. They're not insanely expensive. They're relatively easy to operate. And so that's kind of what they're working on right now. So this is a huge design sprint. And you know, it's being run out of Mass General Hospital. So this is, this is something that I think people should be keeping their eye on, because I love the level of collaboration. And you know, and john Stevenson is a great connector to the mechanical engineering world, given what he's done. So he's a perfect person to kind of head up the commercial side of that. Right? So these are these are operations underway for ventilators. And then just it would I don't want to leave out Tesla. So there's a very interesting video for your listeners. Tesla, you know, without being asked, has gone off. And they've also been working on creating their own ventilator. Now, what's interesting about Tesla is they too, are trying to leverage parts that they're familiar with. So since they build cars, they're leveraging a lot of parts that are You know, part of the bill of material of Tesla automobiles because they know these materials, they know how these parts work, how they hold up. So if your listeners are interested, just search on Tesla ventilator, they'll come up with about a three and a half minute video, and you'll see a team of five different Tesla engineers all messed up. And I'll walk you through the schematic and they'll show you a working prototype. But you know, just, you know, it's all hands on deck right now. Yep. So this is kind of the, you know, the first wave. And, of course, what we hear on the news is one of the most critical of all innovation initiatives and I don't want to say that there aren't a lot of other ventilator projects going on, but I think these are some of the most prominent and some of the most promising so yeah, so so inspiring.

Mark Bayer

And you know, Mike, we've had a chance to talk offline about you know, your, your incredible experiencing career all all over the world and and you're seeing you know, Sort of activity now whether it's in Canada, you were talking about a project, you know, there and people changing their, you know, production lines and we've been hearing some of that in the news, but you really, you know, I think that part of this it's so it's unprecedented and it's, it's scary and it's and it's really disrupted completely, you know, the normal way of things even going out of your house which were recommended, you know, not to do on a regular on a regular basis and that can be very disabling for people. And you know, some listeners may be wondering, you know, in the face of this so sometimes a good way to kind of cope with situations like this is is to is to kind of do a deep dive and and to try to figure out well how can I contribute to the solution in a world so right out of control in a way I know we're going to get back and we're gonna, you know, things are gonna get to improve we know that the the experts are telling us that we stick to the plan but in the meantime, You know what some people do wherever they happen to be in whatever their level of expertise happens to be if they're just motivated to want to make a difference, what are some of the things that they should be thinking about?

Mike Grandinetti

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, a lot of these initiatives that, you know, I've talked about and that I will talk about a lot of the innovators I've, I've interviewed sort of to get a little bit more detail and color before we had our discussion today. Most of them are doing this from their homes, and most of them are working out of their home. So the fact that these people are at home has not in any way prevented them from contributing. But you know, for citizens, let me let me share a couple of examples. Right. So one of the great acts of generosity that I've seen, comes from a company known as stratasys. And Stratos is a company that is making. It makes more 3d printers than any company on the planet. And they have donated for the length of the pandemic the their entire service. This Bureau, which means the all of their 3d printing capacity, they have donated, so anybody can send design files. And they will create, you know, these innovation products.

Mike Grandinetti

So speaking to the head of their healthcare business last night on the telephone, they are getting designs from even Cub Scout troops that are, you know, saying that we want to help we're coming up with these designs. So even young kids and citizens are able to work with companies like stratasys or other 3d printing companies and send their designs to be printed, and distributed, right. So that's, that's sort of on a fairly simple level. But on the other hand, there's a lot of organizations that are hosting virtual hackathons. One of the virtual hackathons is being led by tech stars, tech stars, for those who don't know is a global startup accelerator network. They've had about 60 accelerators around the world. And in many ways, are the premier accelerator network, right. And so what they do by day is they bring in entrepreneurs through a very competitive process, and they may wind up in New York or Boston or, you know, Austin, Texas, so they could be in Germany or London. But they also have have another side of their mission, which is what they call Startup Weekend. And Startup Weekend is really a three day hackathon. Well, they're mobilizing their Startup Weekend resources to host up to 60 COVID-19 focused hackathons around the globe. So for those of your listeners who are listening, either in the States or outside the state, just go to tech stars and looked at look for their, you know, COVID-19 Startup Weekend detail should be forthcoming, and listeners can sign up as participants, they can sign up as mentors and they can soar. They can sign up as organizers depending on how much time and experience they have. Another great organization also happens to be associated with MIT. It's called solve at MIT and solve MIT. their day job is to help promote social impact related tech innovation. And on an annualized basis, they'll bring in up to 140 social impact entrepreneurs from all around the world, working on environmental problems and social justice problems and a whole range of other issues. But they have launched a series of COVID-19 related challenges some independently, and some with major sponsors like Microsoft. So the other you know area where your listeners can go and see what's going on. Are you know is to go to the salt at MIT website. Again, I'm only highlighting two. And I know that there are many others, you know, but these are two organizations that have a tremendous amount of horsepower and resources where, you know, if good ideas get developed, they will find their way to having an impact somewhere. So I say these are two that I would suggest that people look at. I'm gonna definitely be participating in both of these on a personal level. I think both of these organizations do incredible work.

Mark Bayer

That is just so so so fantastic, Mike. And what we're going to do is we're going to do a second episode with Mike Grandinetti - we're going to come back next week, we've fast tracked this episode to make sure that we could get this information out to you, the listeners, and our next episode with Mike will actually include - if we can make it happen - some of the actual folks around the country who are working on these projects and can speak specifically to what they're doing. And also talk more about how listeners can get involved. Like I said, regardless of your level of expertise, and Mike alluded to that as well so, really glad, Mike first of all I know you are incredibly busy you're a full force global pandemic and entrepreneurial response team here, and just really making so much of an impact yourself. So thank you, first of all for doing that. And then I also just want to tell you listeners that I appreciate you taking the time to listen to today's episode, we're going to come back with Mike Grandinetti and just a few days next week, hopefully along with some of the champions and the leaders who are putting these projects together, so that we can effectively as quickly as possible, get equipment to the medical personnel in the first responders who needed in this war against the coronavirus. So Mike Grandinetti, thank you so much for being here.

Mike Grandinetti

Mark, thank you for having me - I really enjoyed the chance to chat and look forward to our follow-up discussion. And I wish you and your family, a lot of health and safety and a happy Passover.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mike. And listeners, thank you so much for being here. We will see you next time on the next episode of "When Science Speaks."

Climate change has been impacting our lives for quite some time now and getting everyone on board to help mitigate its effects is becoming more and more important with each passing day. And Dr. Susanne Moser wants to make sure that every person who hears about climate change can feel the urgency in the message they share and inspire them to make better choices in their lives. Her goal is to apply her expertise and experience to help increase resilience, reduce vulnerability, and transform the way humans interact with the environment and each other to sustain a livable planet and live peaceful, satisfying lives.

Dr. Moser is a leading expert on climate change adaptation, science-policy interactions, decision support and communication for social change. She serves as an affiliate faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, research faculty at Antioch University in New England. She is also the Director of Susanne Moser Research and Consulting firm where she conducts original research on a range of social science aspects of climate and global environmental change. She provides training in communicating climate change and writes peer-reviewed journal articles among other related activities.

Dr. Moser has extensive experience working in the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe. She has led and participated in projects to assess the impacts of climate change, examine the vulnerabilities and preparedness of communities and ecosystems, and identify barriers to adaptation strategies to overcome them.

Dr. Moser did her postdoc at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and earned her Ph.D. in geography from Clark University and her diploma in Applied Geography from the University of Trier in Germany.

What You'll Hear On This Episode of When Science Speaks

Dr. Susanne Moser talks about what drew her to study climate change and share its impact

The dilemma of communicating climate change

How Dr. Moser connects with audiences about the reality and seriousness of climate change

Are people willing to make changes in their lifestyles to help address climate change?

How Dr. Moser uses and presents data when she's discussing climate change

Dr. Moser talks about the evolution of her engagement strategies through the years

How the recent heat experienced in 2019 helped in shaping the approach to the climate change discussion

Dr. Moser differentiates the public dialogue and public engagement strategies around climate change in countries like Australia, Canada, Europe, and the US

Connect with Dr. Susanne Moser

Creating a Climate for Change

Creating a Climate for Change on Amazon

Dr. Susanne Moser on LinkedIn

Dr. Susanne Moser

The dilemma of communicating climate change

As we continue to witness and push back on the ongoing assault on science, scientists find themselves in a position where they struggle to explain the importance and urgency of their findings to a broader and more diverse audience. While it might be easy for them to share their findings with peers, it does not necessarily translate in the same way when they are presenting this exact same information to the general public. So how then can studies be put forward in a way that will resonate and can be easily comprehended by people?

Dr. Susanne Moser says scientists need to embrace the fact that it is not just the science that matters to people. By finding out the things that interest their audiences, knowing what makes them tick, knowing the best strategies for engagement, and making the conversation more inclusive, scientists can effectively bridge the communication gap and propel the discussion forward.

Connecting with audiences

Dr. Moser says that when discussing climate change, scientists should expect a diverse crowd to come forward to join in on the conversation. This would include not just those who want to know more about it but also skeptics and people who deny that it exists. Understanding the best ways to include everyone in the conversation that does not make them feel dismissed or unheard is crucial in order for them to connect to the message you're trying to send out.

Finding common ground is a helpful method for presenters to create a genuine connection with their audience. Show them a problem, provide them with possible solutions, and build trust. Because when you've built a certain level of rapport with your audience and have given people a reason to trust you, the likelihood that they will be more accepting of your data and your studies will little to no resistance increases.

The role of data in driving the climate change mission

According to Dr. Moser, the way you present should be dependent not just on your study alone but on the type of audience that you're presenting to. When faced with a high profile panel you want to lead with a narrative that is heavily data-backed, but if you're presenting to the general public, it doesn't have to so heavy on data and jargon. The most important thing is to deliver your message in a compelling and understandable narrative so that they can grasp its urgency and impact in their lives.

In general, Dr. Moser recommends spending 15% of your time on science answering questions such as, "What do we know? How do we know that? What's started to happen?" The reason for this is that it's difficult to argue with obvious and observable facts, giving people more context and allowing them to understand the whole picture in a less complicated manner. This makes it easier for your audience to grasp the idea behind the policies and studies that you're pushing for such as the Green New Deal or the Paris Agreement. By giving them a breakdown of what is happening, what can be done to make it better, and giving them a picture of how it will be once things are where you would like them to be, they will be more inclined to listen and to ask questions that can lead to more fruitful discourses.

Learn more about Dr. Susanne Moser on this week's episode of When Science Speaks.

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In this first episode of a new series on COVID-19 launched as part of the "When Science Speaks" podcast (bayerstrategic.com/podcast), I interview Ali Nouri, PhD, President Federation of American Scientists. Ali is both an expert in infectious diseases and a former high-level policy advisor in the U.S. Senate and United Nations. ​ Episode highlights: ​ FAS has created an "Ask a Scientist" project, a collaboration with The Governance Lab and National Science Policy Network, to build a database where visitors can get their answers on coronavirus answered by a group of scientists. Scientists, medical personnel, and other qualified professionals who want to join the international corps of responders answering these questions can email [email protected]. Interested in the new series? Click here to get bonus material: https://bit.ly/2X5JO5J hashtag#scipol hashtag#scicomm hashtag#science hashtag#podcast hashtag#coronavirus Focused on these highly unusual times, the series will include information and narratives about COVID-19 and also extend beyond just strictly coronavirus topics, understanding we all need breaks from daily data about the virus.