Computer Science

Healthcare at Home

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 17:40:00 +0000

Healthcare at Home Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/01/2020 - 11:40

Christie Sounart

�� Boulder computer science assistant professor Mirela Alistar wants to make healthcare more personal. Her work with microfluidic biochips is getting us there. Here, the director of the ATLAS Institute’s Living Matter Lab discusses her biochips, in-home testing and melding science with art.

What brought you to ��?

I was ready to start my own research group, so I embarked on an exciting journey of applying to more than 100 universities for a faculty position. While interviewing all over the world, I was impressed with the interdisciplinarity of ATLAS Institute, with ��’s ambition and drive to support young faculty and with Boulder’s natural beauty and progressive culture. Needless to say, choosing �� Boulder was the easiest decision I ever made.

What is your main intention with the Living Matter Lab?

As the name says, I am interested in living matter, especially in its non-human form. In the Living Matter Lab, we explore the connection between humans and the life around us by focusing on personal healthcare. Specifically, we are investigating how far we can push healthcare into the hands of people by the means of technology. To do this, we develop biochip instruments that can be used at home by people for various medical applications.

Can you describe these instruments?

Biochips are small electronic devices that manipulate droplets of fluids by executing bio-protocols — programs that move, split and mix droplets containing chemical compounds (reagents). Biochips automate processes traditionally performed in wet labs. The key advantage of biochips is that they are adaptable, thus capable of running different bio-protocols. Instead of going to a specialist, a patient can download a bio-protocol.

Why do we need biochips?

Microfluidics is the engineering that figures out how to manipulate fluids in very small amounts, at micro level. You see, fluids at large scale — the coffee in your cup, the water coming from the tap — behave very differently than when in very small amounts. To give you an idea of how small we are talking, the size of a rain droplet is about 20 microliters [one-millionth of a liter] and that is around the maximum size approached with microfluidics. Such tiny amounts of fluids are hard to manipulate because they have a strong surface tension that has to be overcome. Biochip instruments are able to manipulate such droplets in the picoliter [a trillionth of a liter] range.

What sort of tests might people perform with these?

Biochips have been shown to be able to perform basic tests, such as detecting the glucose levels on physiological fluids such as blood, saliva, urine and serum. We are working on developing a procedure that allows biochips to test for bacterial and viral infections.

Mirela Alistar

Could these biochips detect coronaviruses or other viral infections?

I am working on developing biochips that can perform ELISA [enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay], a standard procedure used to detect viral infections. ELISA is currently used as one of the methods of testing for [the novel] coronavirus. We do hope during the next year we will have a biochip that can run ELISA, and that means it will be able to detect various viral infections. I am also aware and even had collaborated with other research labs working on the same problem. However, even if any of us are successful in developing such biochips, they will still need quite a few years of development until approved to be used as a diagnosis tool.

What do you see them being used for the most initially?

I foresee a progressive roadmap for biochips, where they first will be adopted by doctors as an effective way of performing quick tests, an essential step in differential diagnosis. Then, I see a lot of potential for biochips to be used in mobile settings, such as during traveling or outdoor activities. Finally, biochips will empower patients to perform selected tests at home, as part of their decision whether to see a doctor.

How could these change our healthcare system?

Similar to how mobile computing has enabled over 60% of the population to solve a wide range of problems by means of software, I believe that biochips will change how people interact with a wide range of healthcare processes. In the long run, I believe biochips will lead to democratizing healthcare, and to a process that moves away from the current ‘one size fits all’ concept towards more personalized care.

Are there non-health uses for these biochips?

Yes, for example, researchers at University of Washington forked one of our older biochip devices and are using it for DNA computing. That means they embed DNA inside the droplets and use the droplet mixing and splitting to perform operations on the information contained in the DNA. I am also aware of people that replicated our biochips to use them for perfume mixing. One of the students in my class is designing a biochip that tells the time, basically a clock with fluids.

What other things are you working on right now?

Apart from personal healthcare, we have a second angle to approach our work in the Living Matter Lab. This angle is an artistic one, where we explore and design interactions and tangible interfaces between humans and non-human life. Examples of current projects include designing an escape room where humans and dinoflagellates [algae] collaborate to find the exit, developing do-it-yourself spirulina bioreactors for at-home use and inventing biomaterials that allow kids to grow their own toys and people to ‘cook’ their own clothes.

What do you do outside of your work?

I am focused right now on building a strong community in Boulder that engages in sci-art and bio-art. I would love to see science, technology and art coming together in interactive installations and performances available to the public at large.

Interview condensed and edited.

Illustration by TheiSpot/ Keith Negley

�� Boulder computer science assistant professor Mirela Alistar wants to make healthcare more personal. Her work with microfluidic biochips is getting us there.

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Fanfiction Rising

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 07:00:00 +0000

Fanfiction Rising Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 02/01/2020 - 00:00

Lisa Marshall

How the once-obscure literary genre is giving voice to the voiceless and inspiring a new, more diverse generation of computer scientists.

Casey Fiesler was a precocious 14-year-old with, as she recalls, “not much of a social life,” when she switched on her parents’ boxy IBM PC, logged onto AOL for the first time and slipped into the comforting rabbit hole that is fanfiction.

The year was 1996, and she’d already been unknowingly writing “fanfic” for years — dreaming up new adventures for her favorite characters from The Baby-Sitters Club books and quietly scrawling them in her spiral notebook. But with her discovery of new online message boards in which fans share and review remixed versions of their favorite literature, her solitary pastime took an exhilarating turn.

“I realized that there were other people out there doing this too, and they were sharing their stories with each other,” recalls Fiesler, who went on to devour Star Trek fanfiction during undergrad, remained a prolific Harry Potter fanfic writer through law school and credits the experience for inspiring her to become a social computing researcher. “I felt like something clicked into place for me. Through sharing my stories, I found my community.”

Today, the once-obscure fanfiction subculture has evolved into a literary genre in its own right, with the fast-growing fanfic website Archive of Our Own (AO3) now boasting more than 5 million stories posted by 2 million registered users and drawing 200 million views per month.

In August, AO3 won a prestigious Hugo Award for science fiction, a milestone some view as validation that fanfiction — long looked down upon by literary critics — has finally arrived.

Casey Fiesler

Now a �� Boulder assistant professor of information science, Fiesler has shifted her focus from writing it to studying it, exploring what she sees as a powerful role the unique genre can play in helping isolated teens, LGBTQ youth, people with disabilities and other marginalized communities find their voice.

“Fanfiction is fundamentally about writing outside the lines of traditional media, so it often becomes a place to increase representation of people we often don’t see in stories,” she said, pointing to fanfiction in which Kirk and Spock are lovers or in which all the characters at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts have physical disabilities. “It’s about speculating over how things could be different and pushing back against harmful stereotypes.”

And despite its reputation as a den of scandalous adult content (yes, there is some of that too) it’s one of the least-toxic corners of the internet, Fiesler contends.

“It’s a hugely positive community compared to many of our more negative online spaces,” she said. “There’s a lot we can learn from fanfiction.”

From Sherlock Holmes to Fifty Shades of Grey

As far back as the 1880s, frustrated Sherlock Holmes devotees, anxiously awaiting the next installment, would often write their own.

But many trace the true birth of fanfiction to the 1960s, when Star Trek fans — mostly women who felt left out or misrepresented in the series — would create self-published hand-stapled “fanzines” and distribute them at fan conventions.

The internet fueled further growth, providing would-be authors a way to easily test their writing chops outside the cutthroat publishing world. Because they were portraying characters that people already cared about, they often found a large, ready-made audience awaiting their work.

Fanfiction is one of the least-toxic corners of the internet.

“I would write something, and within an hour have 100 people telling me I am brilliant. It was very validating,” recalls Fiesler.

According to the new book Writers in the Secret Garden: Fanfiction, Youth, and New Forms of Mentoring (for which Fiesler wrote the foreword), fanfiction writers were contributing 80,000 new narratives per month to the site fanfiction.net by 2013. By comparison, 3,600 traditional books were published per month that year.

Today, the flourishing community is more diverse than ever. According to recent survey data from Fiesler’s research group, the vast majority are women, only 25 percent identify as heterosexual, and the way they practice their craft is equally eclectic.

Some pluck characters from popular works like The Hunger Games, Marvel comics or Breaking Bad and place them in an alternate universe (a modern-day coffee shop; a distant planet). Others fill in scenes that never happened or develop characters that had only minor roles in the original. In the case of E.L. James’ blockbuster Fifty Shades of Grey, which originated as fanfiction, the author took Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series and gave it an erotic twist.

“It’s about spending more time in the worlds you love and exploring characters beyond the page,” said Fiesler.

Giving Voice to the Geeks

Brianna Dym

Fiesler believes fanfiction is beginning to emerge from the shadows in part due to what she calls “the mainstreaming of geek culture.” Even she would have been reluctant to discuss her love of fandom a decade ago; today, comic book conventions are cool, superhero movies are dominating the big screen and fantasy TV shows like Game of Thrones are the subject of water-cooler conversations.

But she and her students are most interested in what the genre does to support groups that, even today, don’t see themselves in mainstream literature.

“You can make everyone have a disability, or everyone be queer or everyone be a person of color — just something different than the stencil we so often see,” said Brianna Dym (PhDInfoSci’22), a PhD student in Fiesler’s lab who’s leading research about how marginalized communities utilize fanfiction, funded by a $250,000 National Science Foundation grant. “That can be a very empowering act.”

Growing up queer in remote Alaska, Dym herself found her way to fanfiction as a way to connect with other LGBTQ teens. Through 56 interviews for her research so far, she has found that for many, fanfiction sites serve as a safe, anonymous space — away from critical eyes — where they can explore their LGBTQ identity.

“You can make everyone have a disability, or everyone be queer or everyone be a person of color.”

“They might find stories about Captain Kirk marrying Spock after he retires or Hermione Granger realizing she’s in love with Fleur Delacour, and they might recognize something about their own identity within those characters,” she said. “The stories become a community resource, and their authors mentors to help guide readers through the coming out process.”

Fanfiction has also become a rich resource for youth with autism, with numerous Harry Potter fanfics featuring autistic wizards describing what it feels like to be diagnosed, experience sensory overload or know that they’re different.

“People will often reach out to the writer and say ‘Hey, this is really amazing. It reminded me of what I’m going through,’” said Dym, who believes fanfiction can serve as a valuable tool for therapists.

A New Generation of Coders

Fiesler said there’s another often-overlooked reason to celebrate fanfiction.

At a time when only one in five computer scientists are female, and even fewer work in open-source development, it’s inspiring a new generation of women to get interested in the field.

In order to create Archive of Our Own, its all-female team of founders had to learn to code and plan, build and design the platform from scratch, creating a welcoming online space where users could find what they were looking for (or avoid what they don’t want to see) amid an ever-changing collection of stories derived from more than 30,000 original works.

“AO3 is successful as a platform in part because the people who use it are the ones who built it,” said Fiesler.

She uses that example often with her students, stressing that if they feel excluded or offended by existing online offerings, they can learn the tools to build their own.

In doing so, as in writing fanfiction, they’ll be able to write their own story.

“There have been times when, as a woman, I’ve felt out of place in science fiction communities, gaming communities or computer science communities,” said Fiesler. “Fanfiction is a place where everyone can come as they are.”

Illustration by Hanna Barczyk