Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/561035
ByMonicaRodriguez monica.rodriguez @langnews.com @PomonaNow on Twitter POMONA Withthetouchof Soniya Patidar's finger, the dark table in the Virtual Learning Center at West- ern University of Health Sciences went from black to having the life-sized im- age of a human body on it. Nine first-year students in the university's College of Dental Medicine pro- gram gathered around the Anatomage virtual anat- omy table as Patidar pulled back muscle tissue to re- veal the virtual cadaver's skeletal system, arteries and organs — all with the swipe of her finger. "I had the opportunity last year to work with ca- davers," Patidar said. "Go- ing from them to here is a big difference." Patidar, a first-year stu- dent in Western Universi- ty's doctor of dental med- icine program, worked with cadavers that came to the university through its Willed Body Program as part of her training for her master of science in medi- cal sciences. "I loved my experience with cadavers," Patidar said, but working with the virtual anatomy table "has been a better use of my time." The table allows Patidar and her classmates to ma- nipulate the entire body in ways they can't do with a cadaver. If they make a mistake in dissecting they simply start over, she said. The virtual anatomy ta- ble, combined with other educational tools such as the zSpace 3-D work sta- tion, represents a huge advance in eduction, said Robert Hasel, doctor of dental surgery and associ- ate dean for simulation, im- mersion and digital learn- ing environments under the College of Dental Med- icine. Hasel said that as far as he knows Western Univer- sity is the first educational institution in the United States to bring together all of the these technological resources together to train future health care provid- ers. Such tools represent a huge change in education and will be valuable at all levels of education, from kindergarten to graduate school, he said. "The only thing that lim- its you in the use of this in- strument is your imagina- tion," Hasel said. Cadavers have been used for centuries to educate future health care profes- sional but they are becom- ing increasingly difficult to access and come with large costs, Hasel said. Univer- sity cadaver labs are expen- sive, in part because they must be built to meet spe- cific requirements such as specialized circulation sys- tems. Working with cadavers can also present certain problems if students are al- lergic to the materials used to preserve them. Patidar said working with a cadaver isn't easy. It takes time to cut through tissue to reach an organ or another part of the human anatomy and once found, the students doesn't get a complete view. The virtual anatomy ta- ble makes it possible for students to use more of their time learning rather than dissecting, she said. Cadavers are a resource that students can acciden- tally damage, said Briana Sanders, who as project manager has been develop- ing curriculum with Hasel for the table and other de- vices. Students can dam- age an artery or an organ in the course of dissecting the cadaver. Once that happens "you can never have that (organ) again," Sanders said. That problem doesn't exist with the table, she said. The virtual anatomy ta- ble has the medical his- tories of 300 actual pa- tients. The cases include cancer, lung disease, gun- shot patients and even the case of woman who had a pregnancy in which the fe- tus developed outside the uterus and she died. "We have just about ev- erything you can imagine," Hasel said. Professors can add other patients' computerized to- mography scans and im- ages captured with the use of magnetic resonance imaging so students can learn from other cases, Sanders said. The table has uses be- yond working with stu- dents. It's a valuable re- source to physicians try- ing to explain to patients about their health problem. "It bridges the gap be- tween the doctor and the patient," Sanders said. A device such as the zSpace 3-D work station produces a 3-D hologram of an organ or part of the human body which stu- dents can study, among other uses. Hasel, who has been with the university three years, has been working to bring such equipment to Western University since he arrived. The $70,000 virtual anatomy table ar- rived recently and was pur- chased with the help of a donor. For more than a dozen years Hasel looked for ways to use technology that has often been associated with video games to further ed- ucation. The technology in the Virtual Learning Center can do just that, he said. "This is a revolution. This isn't a paradigm shift," Hasel said. "This is a convergence that's going to bring learning to a much different level." Not only will learning become more efficient, "it's accessible, it's demo- cratic and it's available to the masses," he said. With this equipment a medical school in an un- derdeveloped country with- out enough faculty mem- bers and a shortage of ed- ucational content can train students. Right now the West- ern U. equipment is being used to teach gross-scale anatomy but many faculty members are discovering ways to use the table in the courses. Such equipment is also facilitates bringing that latest information to stu- dents, Hasel said. Studies have shown that when people are using crit- ical-thinking and problem- solving skills that is when they are learning the most as compared with simply reading information or be- ing a passive observer. POMONA Universityreplacescadaverswith virtual anatomy table for students PHOTOSBYJENNIFERCAPPUCCIOMAHER—INLANDVALLEYDAILYBULLETIN First year dental student Soniya Patidar and fellow students learn about anatomy on the Anatomage virtual anatomy table at the Harriet K and Philip Pumerantz Library and Learning Resource Center at Western University of Health Science in Pomona. The virtual anatomy table, combined with other educational tools such as the zSpace 3-D work station, represents a huge advance in eduction. By Candice Choi The Associated Press Mozzarella cheese at Panera restaurants won't be as glaringly white. Banana peppers in Subway sand- wiches won't be the same exact shade of yellow. Trix cereal will have two fewer colors. Food makers are purging their products of artificial dyes as people increasingly eschew anything in their food they don't feel is natu- ral. But replicating the vivid colors Americans expect with ingredients like beets and carrots isn't always easy. In fact, General Mills couldn't find good alterna- tives for the blue and green pieces in Trix, so the com- pany is getting rid of those colors when the cereal is re- formulated later this year. The red pieces — which will be colored with rad- ishes and strawberries — will also look different. The shift away from ar- tificial dyes represents the latest chapter for food col- oring in the U.S., which has had a rocky history. As re- cently as 1950, the Food and Drug Administration said children became sick after eating an orange Hallow- een candy that contained a dye. The agency eventually whittled down its list of ap- proved color additives after finding several had caused "serious adverse effects." Now, more companies say they are replacing arti- ficial dyes with colors made from fruits, vegetables and spices, which are widely considered "natural," al- though the FDA doesn't classify them that way. COLOR THEORY By Lisa M. Krieger San Jose Mercury News PALO ALTO A Stanford team has turned lowly bak- er's yeast into a manufac- turing platform for pain- killing medicines, raising the prospect of better and more reliable drug produc- tion far from rural poppy fields. The scientists, led by chemical engineer Chris- tina Smolke, conducted perhaps the most formida- ble feat of synthetic biology yet: inserting 23 genes from three very different crea- tures — a rat, a plant and a bacterium — into a single yeast cell. This altered yeast then followed its new genetic op- erating instructions as reli- ably as a machine, turning simple sugar into the pow- erful painkiller hydroco- done, the basis of morphine and other valuable pain re- lievers. The technique dupes the yeast cell into thinking it is a colorful opium poppy. "It transforms the pro- cess," said Smolke, an as- sociate professor of bioen- gineering at Stanford. She has created a Palo Alto com- pany called Antheia to com- mercialize the technology. Patents are held by Stan- ford. "It makes something that now takes over a year in just a few days," she said. "It also makes it in an en- closed, carefully controlled reactor, so it's not vulnera- ble to weather or pests or disease." This lab-based approach — readily standardized and reproducible — could be modified to improve pain- killers, perhaps reducing their side effects or risk of addiction, she said. It could also be used to make other medications, she said. "This is only the begin- ning," said Smolke. "We can leverage the technol- ogy to go after a broad ar- ray of medicines, which are developed responsibly and distributed fairly." The invention, described in Friday's issue of the jour- nal Science, is built on this conceptual foundation: Bi- ology is a manufacturing technology. The DNA instruction manual buried inside ev- ery organism — its soft- ware, in a sense — can be replaced with a man-made version. Then these goosed-up microbes are redirected to create not what nature in- tended, but products we want. In Emeryville, Amy- ris Biotechnologies adds genes to E. coli bacteria to make artemisinin, the key ingredient in a lifesaving malaria drug. Other compa- nies are building microbes to create synthetic fuel. What's remarkable about Smolke's work is its success in transferring complex metabolic pathways into microbes, synthetic biolo- gist Jens Nielsen of Chalm- ers University of Technol- ogy in Goteborg, Sweden, told the journal Science. "This is a major mile- stone," he said. Biotechnology policy ex- pert Kenneth Oye of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told Science: "It shows this field is really moving fast." RESEARCH Stanford team turns yeast into painkillers GENERAL MILLS General Mills couldn't find good alternatives for the blue and green pieces in Trix, so the company is getting rid of those colors when the cereal is reformulated later this year. Popular foods taking on new hues without the artificial dyes Endsnoring An estimated 80 million people in North America snore. Taking into account the snorer's spouse and children, as many as 160 million people are negatively affected by snoring. Snoring not only interrupts your sleep cycle, it can also be a symptom of a condition called sleep apnea. Fortunately, there are cost-effective oral appliances for snoring and sleep apnea that dentists can prescribe to their patients. Traditional mandibular advancement appliances, such asSilentNightSlide-Link,TAP,EMA, help reduce or eliminate snoring by moving the lower jaw forward, opening the airway to allow air to flow more freely. CALL DR. RANDAL ELLOWAY IF YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM SNORING OR SLEEP APNEA. HE WILL BE GLAD TO DISCUSS YOUR SYMPTOMS. PROVIDE YOU WITH THE OPTIMUM APPLIANCE TO HELP YOU SLEEP PEACEFULLY AND WITH SECURITY. CALL (530) 527-6777 OFFICE HOURS MON-THURS 8-5 • FRI 8-12. 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