SSB Probe 2024-2025 Newsletter #1 - September
Message from the Editors
Hi everyone! We’re Probe, the journal of Stanford Students in Biodesign (SSB). Our goal is to be an accessible source of information about medical and healthcare innovation at Stanford and beyond. We publish a bi-weekly newsletter (which you’re reading right now), long-form articles, and art about topics in biomedical science and health innovation.
Have a topic you’d like to see covered? We’d love to hear from you – please contact the Probe chairs with tips for future articles and newsletters. Thanks for reading!
Best,
Nipun Gorantla, Dhruv Kapadia, Rohan Movva
SSB Probe Co-Chairs
Upcoming Events
Autumn Quarter enrollment has already started! Looking for some extra classes? Check out these Biodesign and Health Technology classes:
CS 522: Seminar in Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
HRP 285: Global Leaders and Innovators in Human and Planetary Health: Sustainable Societies Lab
BIOE 273: Biodesign for Digital Health
BIO 109A: The Emergence of Digital Biology and Precision Health
BIODS 216: Generative AI and Medicine
MED 286: Health Information Technology and Strategy
OTOHNS 206: Augmenting Human Senses: Enhancing Perception with Technology and Bioscience
Advances in Mass Spectrometry Enabled Drug Discovery Symposium: October 29 from 8am to 5:35pm
RSVP here.
At this event, the Stanford Cancer Institute will host experts in both academia and industry to explore ongoing efforts in drug development. It will explore chemoproteomic techniques and mass spectrometry instrumentation alike in their detection of interactions proteome-wide. This event is open to Stanford faculty, students, and postgraduates!
What We’re Reading
Cognitive behavioral therapy used to treat depression shown to alter important neural circuits
Author: Dhruv Kapadia
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a widely-used psychological treatment for depression that focuses on changing negative thought patterns. However, it remained unknown whether these changes due to therapy had lost-lasting effects on brain circuitry. A recent team of Stanford Medicine researchers, led by Xue Zhang, PhD, Leanne Williams, PhD, and Jun Ma, MD, PhD, have found that CBT tailored to the specific depression types can in fact significantly improve brain circuits related to mood regulation, leading to symptom reduction.
The study revolved around 108 adults diagnosed with both major depression and obesity, conditions often linked to issues in the brain’s cognitive control circuit. 59 received problem-solving therapy in addition to their standard care (medications and doctor visits) while the remaining 49 received only standard care. The participants then completed a task known to engage the cognitive control circuit while in a fMRI scanner. The researchers found within 2 months of the study that only the group receiving therapy had decreased brain activity correlated with enhanced problem-solving ability, which might be a testament to the brain’s increased ability to process information more efficiently via therapy. This might enable doctors to match patients with therapies that are most likely to help them based on their particular neural response. “It’s definitely advancing the science. But it’s also going to transform a lot of people’s lives,” Zhang said.
Aging tied to clusters of biomolecular shifts in 40s and 60s
Author: Dhruv Kapadia
Aging is known to be a complex biological process defined by changes in molecular systems, leading to decreased function over time. Researchers at Stanford Medicine have recently been able to characterize key biomolecular shifts that occur during our 40s and 60s, marking distinct phases in the aging process.
The team, led by Xiaotao Shen, PhD, and Michael Snyder, PhD, analyzed thousands of different molecules in 108 people and tracked their composition over time. They found that rather than age-related changes occurring gradually over time, there were specific clusters of molecular changes, including increasing and decreasing microbiome makeup, in two distinct time periods: the mid-40s and early 60s. Future research will explore what drives these changes and how we can take advantage of this understanding to promote healthier aging.
Contact the Editors
Reach out with any article suggestions, feedback, or if you’d like to guest-write a piece for Probe!
Nipun Gorantla: nipung@stanford.edu
Dhruv Kapadia: dkapadia@stanford.edu
Rohan Movva: movva@stanford.edu
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Learn more about Stanford Students in Biodesign here.