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Poor sleep is tied to Alzheimer’s risk in older women. Kitty Lui, doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of California San Diego, discusses these findings. Faculty Bio: Kitty is a doctoral student at the San Diego State University / UC San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology (Neuropsychology track). She is particularly interested in understanding why women are at elevated risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Her doctoral research has focused primarily on the sex-specific impacts of sleep disturbances on Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers, in hopes that this work could inform intervention and prevention for the disease for each sex. Transcripts: We recently published a study that found sleep complaints may be an important Alzheimer’s disease risk factor in older women with a higher genetic predisposition to the disease. The findings suggest that women with a higher genetic risk for Alzheimer’s who reported poorer sleep also showed greater memory difficulties and more Alzheimer’s-related brain changes.We examined 69 women aged 65 years and older participating in the Women Inflammation Tau Study, an ongoing project at UC San Diego focused on aging and Alzheimer’s disease risk. Participants completed questionnaires about their sleep quality, underwent memory testing and received brain scans that measured tau, a protein that accumulates abnormally in Alzheimer’s disease.We found that poorer self-reported sleep was associated with worse visual memory performance and greater tau accumulation in brain regions affected early in Alzheimer’s disease — but only among women with higher genetic risk. Women with lower genetic risk did not show the same relationship between sleep complaints, memory and tau buildup. The results add to growing evidence that sleep disturbances and Alzheimer’s disease may reinforce one another over time. Previous studies have suggested that disrupted sleep can contribute to the buildup of abnormal tau proteins, while Alzheimer’s-related brain changes may also interfere with healthy sleep patterns. Because women account for nearly two-thirds of Alzheimer’s cases and frequently report poorer sleep quality than men, sleep may represent an important and potentially modifiable risk factor in older women.Self-reported sleep assessments are inexpensive and easy to administer, raising the possibility that sleep complaints could help identify people who may benefit from closer monitoring or early intervention. Improving sleep could become a target for future Alzheimer’s prevention strategies, particularly for women at elevated genetic risk. Overall, it might be important to take sleep complaints seriously for older women as it may be relevant to their brain health. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

One bottle of water can reveal the secrets of an entire ecosystem. Jenny Whilde, adjunct research scientist at the University of Florida, explains how. Faculty Bio: Dr. Jenny Whilde holds a PhD in Animal Behavior, focusing on social group dynamics in zoo-housed animals, including elephants and orangutans. She has many years of experience in scientific writing, editing, and proofreading across a broad range of disciplines including cancer research, marine biology, and behavioral ecology and has contributed significantly to scientific publications, successful grant applications, and mainstream media articles. Transcript: Ireland is a land of storytellers, and it’s not just the people. The rivers, too, have stories to tell. In fact, a single water sample can be used to identify every living thing that has been in the area, including wildlife, humans, and even the pathogens that impact them.The key that unlocks this information is environmental DNA, or eDNA for short. This is DNA that any living organism has shed into its surroundings. It can come from skin cells, pollen, waste matter, even a cough or a sneeze. eDNA that is filtered from a water sample provides a snapshot of exactly what is living in and around the water. Typically, researchers use an approach called metabarcoding to decode eDNA. This is a powerful method if you are looking for a particular set of species, but it finds only what it is designed to find and ignores everything else.Our research team used a different technique, called long-read shotgun metagenomic DNA sequencing. This technique sequences all of the collected DNA from every species, from viruses to vertebrates and everything in between. Our team, led by Professor David Duffy, took water samples from different locations along the Avoca River, in Co. Wicklow, starting near its mountain source right through to where the river runs into the sea.The DNA we filtered from the water samples came from: the obvious, like ducks, sheep, and humans; the more elusive, like leatherback turtles and octopi at the river mouth, and from microscopic invertebrates and even viruses.We could identify the genetic origins of some species, and also found evidence of wastewater pollution. Within 24 hours, it is now possible to obtain a readout of all the eDNA in a water sample from any location, unlocking the secrets of an entire ecosystem. Read More: [The Conversation] - Fishing for DNA – how a cup of river water can reveal secrets about human health, pollution and biodiversity [Oxford Academic] - Long-read nanopore shotgun metagenomic DNA sequencing for river biodiversity, wildlife, pollution, and environmental health monitoring This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

The coffee industry is vital to Ethiopia, but how is it evolving? Walter Mswaka, associate professor of social entrepreneurship at Rollins College, examines the role of cooperatives. Faculty Bio: Walter Mswaka, PhD, is Associate Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. His areas of specialization include: Social Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurial Finance; Business Strategy; and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).Professor Mswaka is an academic and social enterprise practitioner with over 20 years of experience working with social enterprises in various socio-economic contexts around the world. This includes providing practical hands-on support and technical advice to individuals and organizations involved in social enterprise in the UK, Brazil, Nepal, Ethiopia and Zambia, contributing to public understanding of social enterprise and community resilience through research and publications in peer reviewed journals. Transcript: Ethiopia is the largest coffee producer in Africa with over 10 million people involved in the production of coffee. Ethiopian coffee is valued globally and is a vital crop to the Ethiopian people, given the large percentage of households that depend on coffee production and sales.The coffee-marketing cooperatives of Ethiopia represent the very essence of the coffee business in that country, contributing to economic development by increasing incomes and employability, improving living conditions and stimulating grassroots economic activities. However, despite their importance, the cooperatives face challenges of resilience and sustainability. My research has shed new light on how they operate and deliver value, and how they are affected by national, internal and external stakeholders and institutional rules. We examined the operations of three small coffee-marketing cooperatives in southwest Ethiopia, with a focus on their internal governance challenges that include structure, communication and interactions with middlemen. We employed a multiple-case study approach involving face-to-face focus-group interviews with the management committees of the cooperatives--separately from the members, so that we could actually see what’s going on.We looked at five themes that influence operations: structures of governance, incorporating board management identity and make-up; selection of management committee members; the role of board and management committee members; the relationship between board/management committee and members; and board understanding of financial sustainability and influence of external stakeholders.Our findings illustrate that Ethiopian cooperatives are embedded in the communities they serve and provide a platform for members to benefit financially. While current literature suggests that the cooperatives have democratic governance models, closer scrutiny reveals that these organizations have complex governance structures. This suggests the need to understand better cooperative operating environments and the various external influences obtruding governance operations.Our findings have had an impact on both increasing coffee production and increasing the number of women involved in the cooperatives. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Our DNA may hold the key to storing our digital data. Andrew Gu, professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at the University of Missouri, determines how. Faculty Bio: Andrew Gu leads a research lab at the University of Missouri’s College of Engineering that brings together biology, engineering and nanotechnology. His long‑term goal is to understand how life works at the molecular level and to create new tools that help doctors diagnose and treat diseases in a more personalized way. Transcript: When we look at the digital world, one thing is clear: we’re running out of room to store everything we create. For years, I’ve been fascinated by an idea that sounds like science fiction but comes straight from biology. What if we stored our data in DNA — the same molecule that carries the instructions for life?DNA is remarkable. It’s tiny, stable and incredibly dense. In theory, you could pack all the world’s information into something the size of a shoebox. And unlike today’s massive data centers, DNA doesn’t need much energy to keep it safe.But there’s been one big problem. Once you write information into synthetic DNA, it stays there. No changes. No updates. For a modern storage system, that’s a deal breaker.My team and I wanted to fix that. We asked a simple question:Can DNA behave more like the hard drives we use every day — something you can erase and rewrite?And now, we’ve taken a major step toward that future. We developed a method that lets us remove data from DNA and write new data back in. Over and over again.That’s something researchers haven’t been able to do before. And it opens the door to real, everyday DNA based storage — not just long-term archiving.Of course, writing the data is only half the job. You also need a way to read it. So, we’re building a small electronic device that uses a nanoscale sensor.As the DNA passes through it, we capture tiny electrical signals and translate them into digital files. Someday, I hope this whole system will shrink down to the size of a USB drive.To me, DNA storage isn’t just a scientific challenge. It’s a way to build a cleaner, more efficient future for our information hungry world. Read More: [Show Me Mizzou] - Mizzou researchers are developing a rewritable DNA hard drive This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Why is faculty tenure so controversial? Deepa Das Acevedo, associate professor of law at the Emory University School of Law, explores this question. Faculty Bio: Deepa Das Acevedo is a legal anthropologist and Associate Professor at Emory University School of Law. Since 2020, she has been studying faculty tenure as an employment protection, blending legal doctrine with qualitative and quantitative social science. Her 2025 monograph, The War on Tenure, was named one of Forbes’ Top 10 Books in Higher Education, and her commentary has appeared in InsideHigherEd, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and TIME’s Made by History, among others. Transcript: You might have heard of professors having “tenure” and wondered what exactly that is or why anyone cares.Tenure is a type of employment contract that applies to around 20-to-30% of all full-time faculty in the United States. Whereas the average American employee can be fired “at-will” – for good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all – tenured faculty, like all employees who hold “just cause “contracts, can only be fired for cause. In other words, tenure provides a level of job security that’s pretty unusual even if it’s not unique.Partly because of this heightened security, tenure triggers strong concerns about how it might affect faculty behavior. Critics both inside and outside the academy worry that tenure makes faculty lazy, prone to unethical (or even illegal) behavior, and more likely to become ideological renegades. The thinking is: why wouldn’t you do these things if you could get away with them while keeping your job? However, my research suggests that tenure doesn’t have these incentive-distorting effects. I built a national dataset of all individual tenured-faculty-terminations across institution, discipline, and region (within the United States) that happened between 2000 and 2021. It turns out that professors maintain fairly consistent levels of productivity before and after they win tenure, that (at least during the study period) they didn’t often lose their jobs because of their ideological views, and – finally – that there is no reason to think that winning tenure encourages professional or interpersonal misconduct. All this means that tenure isn’t encouraging bad behavior or getting in the way of good behavior as its critics understandably (but wrongly) argue. Read More: [The Chronicle of Higher Education] - Is Any Professor Safe From Being Fired Anymore? [Inside Higher Ed] - Fighting Back Against ‘The War on Tenure’ [Time] - What Academic Tenure Is Really About [Cambridge University Press] - The War on Tenure This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Should AI be a friend or foe in higher education? Julia Khrebtan-Horhager, professor of communication studies at Colorado State University, considers this question from a teaching perspective. Faculty Bio: Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager is Professor of Communication at Colorado State University and Director of Education Abroad programs in Europe. She is the recipient of three International Communication Association Top Paper Awards and the CSU College of Liberal Arts Best Teacher Award.Her research focuses on intercultural communication, political science, international relations, global conflict, and media studies.She is the author of two books, Communicating the Other across Cultures and Migrant World Making, and has published widely in leading academic journals and edited volumes.She is multilingual and works across academic and public-facing contexts in Europe and the United States. Transcript: Scriveners. We no longer remember who they were, because of the printing press. We barely remember typewriters, because of computers. And now… artificial intelligence.This is not just another technological shift. It is a rupture.Emerging research shows that AI generates knowledge at unprecedented speed and scale. It also brings risks: misinformation, confirmation bias, hallucinations, social isolation, and surveillance.Among students, we already see deskilling. Writing without assistance – an essay, a letter, even an argument – is becoming less common.From an intercultural perspective, AI is not neutral. It learns from datasets shaped by unequal histories, power structures, and global representation gaps, and reproduces them.In classroom experiments, students ask AI to describe global conflicts or demographic groups, then compare outputs with lived narratives. The results are striking: AI “knowledge” often becomes stereotype, simplification, or erasure. AI does not merely reflect the world: it reshapes it. Yet, there is another side.AI can expand creativity, accelerate discovery, refine language, and deliver answers in seconds. What once took hours or weeks is now instant. It generates ideas, translates languages, and structures thought.Knowledge is no longer only accessed: it is produced in real time. This may be the most technologically empowered generation we have seen.So, is AI a dark knight or a savior? A friend or a foe?It is both. And neither.It is inevitable.We cannot stop it, but we can decide how to engage it. The task is not to fear or embrace blindly, but to guide, question, and train it.Because the real question is not whether AI will change the world: it already is.It is whether we will master it, or be mastered by it.So… we must learn to train our AI dragons. Read More: [University of Michigan Press] - Communicating the Other across Cultures This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

With money, trust is key. So how did Benjamin Franklin stop counterfeiters when paper money was so easy to fake? Khachatur Manukyan, research associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, looks into the past to find out. Faculty Bio: Khachatur Manukyan is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Nuclear Science Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame. His research combines materials science, chemistry, and advanced characterization techniques to study energy materials, nuclear materials, and historical artifacts. His recent work has used modern analytical methods to investigate the materials and manufacturing technologies behind coins and paper money, revealing previously unknown details. Transcript: As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, many people are reflecting on the ideas and individuals that shaped the nation. Less attention is paid to one practical challenge faced by the American colonies: creating money that people could trust.In the eighteenth century, shortages of gold and silver coins forced colonial governments to rely on paper currency to support trade, public projects, and economic growth. Unlike coins, however, paper bills could be copied, altered, and counterfeited.Recent scientific analysis of hundreds of surviving colonial paper money notes reveals that Benjamin Franklin approached this challenge as both a printer and an inventor. Long before modern security threads, holograms, or microprinting, he developed a collection of material-based security features designed to make paper money more difficult to imitate.Using advanced scientific methods, researchers examined the inks, fibers, fillers, and printing techniques used in eighteenth-century currency. The study showed that Franklin incorporated colored fibers into paper, used specialized carbon-based pigments, added translucent mineral particles, created distinctive watermarks, and produced detailed impressions directly from natural leaves. These features created notes that were difficult for counterfeiters to reproduce.Many of these details are nearly invisible to the naked eye, yet they become clear through modern scientific analysis. The findings reveal that Franklin understood a principle that remains central to currency design today: trust can be engineered directly into a material’s physical structure.By helping people distinguish genuine notes from counterfeits, these innovations strengthened confidence in a financial system that supported a growing colonial economy.Three centuries later, the challenge remains the same. Whether protecting colonial banknotes or modern currency, the goal is to create something valuable that is also difficult to fake. Read More: [The Conversation] - We analyzed paper money printed by Ben Franklin to uncover his anti‑counterfeiting techniques and materials innovations [PNAS] - Multiscale analysis of Benjamin Franklin’s innovations in American paper money This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Why do some bumblebee larvae become queens while others do not? Etya Amsalem, associate professor of entomology at Penn State University, looks for the answer. Faculty Bio: Etya Amsalem is an Associate Professor of Entomology at Penn State University. She earned her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Zoology from Tel Aviv University, Israel, and completed postdoctoral training at Penn State University and the University of Haifa, focusing on chemical communication, insect genomics, and bee health. Her research examines the evolution and mechanisms of social behavior in insects, integrating approaches from chemical ecology, evolutionary biology, functional genomics, behavior, and physiology. Transcript: When we think about a bee colony, we often imagine a queen ruling her kingdom. But in some social insects, the colony functions less like a monarchy and more like a self-organizing society. A defining feature of social insects is the division of labor between females. Queens and workers often share the same DNA, yet develop into individuals with very different roles. Queens are large, long-lived, and reproductive, whereas workers are smaller and typically nonreproductive. But what determines which larvae become queens? My colleagues and I investigated this question in bumblebees, seasonal social insects that are also vital pollinators. A single queen starts a colony in the spring and produces hundreds of workers that rear her offspring. Later in the season, workers begin laying their own eggs, while the colony starts producing new queens. To understand how the same DNA produces both workers and queens, we manipulated juvenile hormone levels in workers and larvae and tracked the movement the labeled hormone. Juvenile hormone regulates reproduction and development across insects, but it was unclear who controls caste development and how these signals reach larvae. Workers treated with juvenile hormone produced larger offspring and more queens. In contrast, treating larvae directly did not produce queens and often caused workers to eliminate them. We also found that larvae respond only during a brief developmental window. Most importantly, we discovered that workers transfer juvenile hormone to larvae during feeding, providing direct evidence that workers regulate queen development through hormone transfer. These findings reveal a bottom-up rather than top-down system. As workers mature, their hormone levels rise, increasing the amount transferred to larvae. Collectively, these interactions determine which larvae become the next generation of queens, showing that the colony’s future is shaped not by the queen alone, but by the workers themselves. Read More: [ScienceDirect] - The making of a queen: Hormonal regulation of female caste in the social bee Bombus impatiens This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

Being an influencer has become a popular career goal for young people. Matt Simoneau, professor of career and technical education at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, explores why. Faculty Bio: Dr. Matt Simoneau is a professor of Career and Technical Education at the University of Wisconsin–Stout. His research explores how young people develop career aspirations, with a particular focus on the influence of social media, career education, and vocational pathways. He collaborates with researchers in the United States and Norway to study how students imagine their futures and how schools can better support career development. His work has been featured in The Conversation and has been presented at national and international education conferences. Transcript: When a second grader in Norway drew a YouTube logo instead of writing down a career, my colleagues and I asked why. The child simply replied, “Because YouTubers are famous and make lots of money.”We expected that answer to be unique. It wasn’t.When we asked second graders in Wisconsin the same question, many gave remarkably similar responses. They also wanted to become YouTubers or social media influencers.Since 2021, my colleagues and I have been studying how children and teenagers in the United States and Norway imagine their futures.What we found surprised us.More than 60 percent of the middle and high school students we surveyed said social media influenced their career aspirations. For many young people, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram have become powerful sources of career information, second only to family members, teachers and friends.Social media isn’t always a negative influence. Some students told us they discovered careers like marine biology, filmmaking or engineering through videos they watched online.The challenge is that schools often rely on career assessments and planning programs developed before social media transformed how young people learn about work. Many students described these activities as repetitive or disconnected from the careers they were actually considering.One student even called a required career survey a “waste of time” because it recommended becoming a truck driver after she had already been accepted into nursing school.Young people are clearly thinking about their futures. But increasingly, those futures are being shaped not only in classrooms and counseling offices, but also through the content they scroll past every day.Understanding where students get their career ideas may be just as important as helping them decide where those ideas should lead. Read More: [The Conversation] - From Norway to Wisconsin, children want to be social media influencers when they grow up This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

How has our society’s view of hunger and response to it changed over time? Claire Strom, professor of history at Rollins College, explores the history. Faculty Bio: An agricultural historian, Claire Strom is a history professor and the Rapetti-Trunzo Chair of History at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. Her areas of specialization include: Agricultural history; the American South; and the progressive era. She is co-author of the 2024 book Empty Plates: A History of Hunger Relief covering a worldwide review of hunger relief over the centuries until the 1960s, then delving deeper into U.S. domestic hunger relief and the national food bank movement through to present day. Strom earned her PhD from Iowa State University. For more than a decade, she served as editor of the Journal of Agricultural History. Her Professional Organizations include: Southern Association of Women’s Historians Southern Historical Association Agricultural History Society. Among her Awards and Honors: The Gladys Baker Lifetime Achievement Award, Agricultural History Society, 2021. Transcript: A deep dive into the history of hunger reveals that the lack of adequate food is ubiquitous in human history. No society has existed without hungry people. Methods of addressing hunger are equally old and have varied greatly over time. In England, during the reign of Elizabeth I, relief became a governmental responsibility with little sympathy for the able-bodied poor. This notion migrated from England to Colonial America, where some communities paid families to take in paupers, even auctioning them off to the lowest bidder. The Enlightenment and social Darwinism of the 18th and 19th centuries heightened beliefs that poverty was a moral failing, leading to the incarceration of many paupers in workhouses. The intense poverty and hunger of the Great Depression muted condemnation of the poor and increased governmental social programs. The years after World War II continued this expansion of governments’ involvement in their citizens’ welfare, with the development of the idea of universal human rights, in which food figured significantly. In the US, this culminated in reforms of the Great Society, including the Food Stamp Act of 1964.In 1967 businessman John Van Hengel opened the first food bank, relying on surplus food from fields and packing sheds. Food banks spread throughout North America and the world in the subsequent decades. And, by the 1980s, with the retreat of government from social justice, food banks and their corporate donors became increasingly important in combating hunger. Second Harvest, renamed Feeding America, has surveyed hunger in the United States since 1993, offering longitudinal data. The agency’s studies show that the problem of hunger is worsening, not improving. Such findings leave many food bank employees conflicted, stating that they recognize the need to feed the hungry but hope that government and corporate interests would devote more attention and resources to ending poverty itself. Read More: [Rollins] - Strom Publishes Book on History of Hunger Relief [Rollins] - Strom Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from the Agricultural History Society This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

The fourth wave of the opioid crisis may be receding, but progress is still uneven overall. Joseph Friedman, resident physician at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, examines this. Faculty Bio: Joseph Friedman, MD, PhD, MPH joined UC San Diego School of Medicine as a Psychiatry Research Medical Resident from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he completed his MD and PhD in Social Medicine. Before that, he undertook a master’s in public health and a three-year data science fellowship at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. His research combines epidemiological and anthropological approaches to studying substance use, drug overdose, mental illness and other socially-bound causes of mortality and morbidity. He has a particular interest in the US-Mexico border region, and has spent several years living and working in Tijuana, Mexico. Transcript: After years of record-breaking increases, drug overdose deaths in the United States fell sharply between 2023 and 2024. In our new study, we found that the national overdose death rate declined by almost a quarter, driven largely by decreases in deaths involving illicit fentanyl.These findings represent a significant turning point in the overdose crisis. Researchers often describe the epidemic as unfolding in four waves: prescription opioids, heroin, fentanyl and, most recently, fentanyl combined with stimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine. For the first time, we observed declines in deaths involving both fentanyl and stimulants, suggesting that the fourth wave of the crisis may also be beginning to recede.This is a historic shift. After years of watching overdose deaths climb higher and higher, it is encouraging to see evidence that the trend is moving in the opposite direction. At the same time, the findings offer important reasons for caution. Deaths involving methamphetamine and cocaine without fentanyl continued to increase and accounted for a growing share of overdose fatalities. If these trends continue, stimulants may soon surpass opioids as the defining addiction-related public health challenge in the United States. We also found that xylazine, a veterinary sedative increasingly found in the illicit drug supply, was involved in a growing proportion of overdose deaths.The study also highlights persistent inequities. Although Black Americans experienced the largest decline in overdose death rates between 2023 and 2024, their rates remained substantially higher than the national average. American Indian and Alaska Native populations continued to experience the highest overdose death rates of any group we examined.The recent decline in overdose deaths is encouraging, but it does not mean the crisis is over. Sustaining this progress will require continued investment in addiction treatment, harm reduction and overdose prevention, while ensuring that the communities most affected by the epidemic are not left behind. Read More: [Wiley] - Charting the decline of the fourth wave: US overdose deaths by race, ethnicity and substance involvement This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Houston Methodist Research Institute Week: Are you a pickleballer? Andrew Lee, professor of neuro-ophthalmology, looks at the rise of the sport and the injuries that come with it. Faculty Bio: Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery at Houston Methodist. Dr. Lee received his first faculty appointment in 1994 as an Instructor in the Department of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Dr. Lee joined Houston Methodist Hospital and Research Institute in 2009 and is currently Chair of the Blanton Eye Institute at Houston Methodist Hospital and Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery at the Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Lee is interested in optic nerve disorders and, in particular, tumors of the optic nerve. He is involved in ophthalmic graduate medical education and in the teaching and assessing of the ACGME competencies.He serves on the editorial boards of 12 journals including the American Journal of Ophthalmology, Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, and Eye and is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Academic Ophthalmology. Dr. Lee is a recipient of the Honor Award, Secretariat Award, and Senior Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Resident training is a particular interest of Dr. Lee. He has published several papers on teaching and competency testing methods in ophthalmology residency programs. Transcript: Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports in America, attracting millions of players with its easy-to-learn rules and social appeal. But as participation rises, so does an important health concern that many players may not consider: eye injuries. This study looked at national patterns of eye injury related to not just pickleball but also dodgeball, and kickball in the U.S. with emphasis on incidence, demographics, injury mechanisms, and diagnoses. Using data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, we analyzed eye injury cases reported between 2014 and 2023. We found thousands of sports-related eye injuries during that period, including more than 3,800 cases linked to dodgeball, more than 2,500 linked to pickleball, and more than 1,500 linked to kickball. One of the notable findings was the difference in who was getting injured. Pickleball-related eye injuries primarily occurred in older adults, while dodgeball and kickball injuries were most common among younger teenagers. Across all three sports, the leading cause of injury was direct impact from the ball. The most common diagnosis was a corneal abrasion, or a scratch on the surface of the eye. However, pickleball injuries were more likely to involve falls and orbital fractures, which are breaks in the bones surrounding the eye. We observed a significant increase in pickleball-related eye trauma over the past decade, reflecting the sport’s growing popularity nationwide. The good news is that many of these injuries may be preventable. Protective eyewear can provide an additional layer of safety and help reduce the risk of serious vision-threatening trauma. As more Americans embrace recreational sports to stay active and healthy, awareness of eye safety is becoming increasingly important. Our findings highlight a simple message: protecting your vision should be part of the game plan. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Houston Methodist Week: A simple blood draw alongside imaging could benefit cancer patients in the future. Maen Abdelrahim, chief of gastrointestinal medical oncology, explains why. Faculty Bio: Dr. Abdelrahim earned his PharmD, followed by a PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology, and subsequently an MD from Texas A&M University. He completed his residency at Baylor College of Medicine and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at Duke University.As Chief of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at Houston Methodist Neal Cancer Center, Medical Director of the Cockrell Center for Advanced Therapeutics (CCAT) Phase I Program, and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, Dr. Abdelrahim is leading efforts to shape the strategic direction of GI and transplant oncology. He integrates cutting-edge clinical trials with patient-centered care to drive transformative outcomes. Under his leadership, CCAT has established a robust pipeline for early-phase clinical trials, including novel CAR T cell therapies for gastrointestinal cancers such as cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) and colorectal cancer (CRC). He oversees the design, scientific review, and execution of these trials while fostering multidisciplinary collaboration and innovation across oncology and research teams. Transcript: For patients who’ve had a liver transplant to treat liver cancer, one of the biggest fears is recurrence, the cancer returning. Our team set out to see whether a blood test could help us catch that earlier, and with fewer invasive procedures. The test is called circulating tumor DNA, ctDNA. It picks up tiny fragments of cancer DNA that tumors shed into the bloodstream. We made this test personalized: we first analyze each patient’s own tumor tissue to identify its unique genetic fingerprint, then we design a blood test that watches for that exact fingerprint after transplant. In our study, we followed 38 liver transplant recipients with hepatocellular carcinoma or cholangiocarcinoma, two of the most common forms of liver cancer. We tested these patients with ctDNA alongside our usual surveillance tools: imaging scans and standard tumor-marker blood tests. Over the course of the study, we confirmed cancer recurrence by imaging in six patients. Three of them also had a positive ctDNA result. And importantly, when the ctDNA test came back positive, it was right, we saw no false positives, meaning a positive result reliably confirmed real recurrence. I led this study alongside my colleagues, here in our GI oncology program. We believe catching recurrence sooner can change outcomes for transplant patients, who often have limited treatment options once cancer returns. This is the first study to test this approach prospectively, and we’re continuing to study it on a larger scale before it becomes standard practice. But it points to a future where a simple blood draw could work alongside imaging to give our patients, and their doctors, more confidence, and maybe more time. Read More: [Houston Methodist] - Using ctDNA to Detect Recurrence & Guide Management of Hepatocellular Carcinoma This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Houston Methodist Week: Is epilepsy more prevalent in certain regions of the country? Weichuan Dong, assistant research professor of cardiology, examines whether it is. Faculty Bio: Dr. Weichuan Dong is a scientist in spatial epidemiology, population health, and machine learning, with a focus on how environmental and social factors shape chronic disease risk and outcomes. Dr. Dong’s work integrates large-scale clinical data, advanced AI/ML methods, and geospatial analysis to generate insights that support better prevention, diagnosis, and care delivery.Dr. Dong has led and contributed to multidisciplinary projects across cardiology, cancer, neurology, and public health, partnering with clinicians, data scientists, and industry collaborators. His research has resulted in high-impact first-author publications (e.g. JAMA Neurology, JAMA Network Open, Annals of Surgery, JNCCN, CEBP, Cancers, and Nature Scientific Reports), national media coverage, and translational findings that inform healthcare systems and policy discussions.Dr. Dong’s long-term goal is to bridge data science, healthcare, and real-world impact—advancing precision population health by turning complex datasets into actionable, scalable, and equitable solutions. Transcript: For decades, we’ve known about America’s “Stroke Belt”—a region in the South where stroke is especially common. But until now, we didn’t know whether epilepsy showed a similar pattern. Our research analyzed health records from nearly five million Medicare beneficiaries across the United States. By combining data with advanced geographic mapping, we created the first nationwide map of new-onset epilepsy in older adults. What we found was striking. Epilepsy was not evenly distributed across the country. Instead, we identified an “Epilepsy Belt” stretching across parts of the South, including Louisiana, Mississippi, eastern Texas, and central Oklahoma, where older adults were much more likely to develop epilepsy. Epilepsy risk later in life is shaped not only by biology, but also by the environments in which people live. Communities with higher epilepsy rates also tended to have more insufficient sleep, more days of extreme heat, lower levels of physical activity, and limited access to health care. That does not mean these factors directly cause epilepsy. Many cases are related to stroke, brain injury, or other neurological diseases. But understanding why certain communities carry a greater burden may help identify where earlier detection, diagnosis, and targeted prevention efforts are needed most. As our population ages and extreme heat becomes more common, understanding how communities shape brain health will become increasingly important. By revealing where epilepsy is most common—and the conditions those communities share—we hope to help public health leaders target resources where they can make the greatest difference. Read More: [JAMA Neurology] - Incidence and Risk Factors of Epilepsy Among Older Adults in the US Medicare Population [Houston Methodist] - Discovering America’s ‘epilepsy belt’: First-of-its-kind national study reveals US regions with high epilepsy rates among older adults This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org

On Houston Methodist Week: What are free radicals, and how are they affecting our cells? John P. Cooke, professor of cardiovascular sciences, discusses this. Faculty Bio: Dr. John P. Cooke is the Chair of the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences at the Houston Methodist Research Institute, Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Regeneration, and Medical Director of the RNA Therapeutics Program in the Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center in Houston, Texas.He trained in cardiovascular medicine and obtained a Ph.D. in physiology at the Mayo Clinic. He was recruited to Harvard Medical School as an assistant professor of medicine. In 1990, he was recruited to Stanford University to spearhead the program in vascular biology and medicine, and was appointed professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, and associate director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute until his recruitment to Houston Methodist in 2013.Dr. Cooke’s research program is focused on vascular regeneration, vascular cell identity and cell fate. The Cooke group aims to understand the mechanisms underlying epigenetic plasticity that are required for functional adaptation to cellular challenges. Innate immune signaling causes global changes in the expression and activity of epigenetic modifiers with metabolic coupling that favors an open chromatin configuration. The translational output of this work is vascular regeneration via therapeutic transdifferentiation using small molecules or mRNA. Transcript: Every day our cells are under attack from an enemy within – reactive oxygen species, also known as free radicals. Free radicals are generated by cell metabolism, by the very nature of burning calories. The DNA in a single cell takes tens of thousands of hits per day. The good news is that our cells have outstanding DNA repair systems that fix the damage. They have to fix the damage, as the DNA is the code for the identity of the cell, and for its functions. In a surprising twist, we found recently that one such DNA repair protein is the enzyme called telomerase. You may know it! Telomerase repairs the ends of the chromosome. These ends are a bit like the ends of a shoelace, holding the chromosome together. As cells divide, the telomere gets shorter, and at some point, the cells can’t divide anymore and become aged. Telomerase can repair the ends so that the cells can keep going. Recently, we found that telomerase can also repair DNA damage throughout the length of the chromosome. We found that telomerase could repair the DNA damage caused by free radicals generated during aging. Then we gave telomerase a tougher test. Could telomerase repair DNA damage due to radiation. We treated human skin cells, and human skin, with mRNA encoding telomerase. We saw that telomerase was generated by the skin cells and protected them from radiation induced DNA damage. That protection prevented radiation-induced aging and death of the skin cells. This work indicates that the unexpected effect of telomerase to repair DNA throughout the length of the chromosome can protect human cells from free radicals, aging, and radiation. Read More: [Houston Methodist] - New study shows mRNA therapy could protect patients from radiation-induced skin damage caused by cancer treatment This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org