ACS AMA Hi Reddit! My name is Donna Huryn. I am a medicinal chemist at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Pharmacy and have an adjunct appointment at the University of Pennsylvania’s (Penn’s) Chemistry Department. I received my Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at Penn, then spent the first part of my career as a medicinal chemist in the pharmaceutical industry, working on inventing drugs to treat HIV, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other CNS disorders. In 2004, I moved to academia. Currently we work on medicinal chemistry projects focusing on new treatments for cancer and kidney disease. I am PI of the University of Pittsburgh Chemical Diversity Center – we are a member of NCI’s Chemical Biology Consortium (https://next.cancer.gov/discoveryResources/cbc.htm). This consortium brings together experts in multiple disciplines to focus on drug discovery for cancer, with the goal of advancing compounds into Phase I clinical trials. Our group in Pittsburgh contributes our medicinal, synthetic and computational chemistry expertise to various projects; other centers bring expertise in biological assays, biophysics, pharmacokinetics and animal models, among others. I also am one of the Associate Editors of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters (http://pubs.acs.org/journal/amclct), which publishes short, urgent communications in all areas of medicinal chemistry. Ask me anything about medicinal chemistry / drug discovery in academia. I’ll be back at 12pm EDT (9am PDT, 4pm UTC) to answer your questions. [EDIT] - Hello Reddit! Thanks for the great questions so far - looking forward to a stimulation hour [EDIT] - Thanks Reddit! It was a great hour. I am signing off now, but will try to come back to answer a few other questions later in the day.

*** THIS AMA IS NOW OVER, BUT I WILL CHECK BACK FROM TIME TO TIME TO ANSWER ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED. I WISH YOU CLEAR SKIES ON AUGUST 21! *** I hope you’ve got plans to experience the total solar eclipse that will cross the United States on August 21. It will be a mind-blowing, awe-inspiring, not-to-be-missed spectacle! I’ve been chasing total eclipses since I saw my first, in Aruba, in 1998. It was such a moving, addictive experience that I just had to repeat it. (You can read about my obsession/hobby here and here.) I also became fascinated with the history of eclipses, which led me to write my new book, American Eclipse: A Nation’s Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World. My book tells the true story of the total solar eclipse of July 29, 1878, which crossed America’s western frontier, from Montana Territory to Texas. In the nineteenth century (and even today), total eclipses were keenly important for astronomers, enabling them to probe the outer reaches of the sun and the inner reaches of the solar system. In 1878, many of the era’s great scientists traveled to Wyoming and Colorado to conduct their studies in the midday darkness. American Eclipse focuses on three remarkable individuals. Thomas Edison, age 31 and a recent celebrity due to his invention of the phonograph, traveled to Wyoming with a new device (the tasimeter) to study the sun’s corona. James Craig Watson, an astronomer at the University of Michigan, used the eclipse to search for a mysterious planet called Vulcan, which scientists believed circled the sun within the orbit of Mercury. And Maria Mitchell, professor of astronomy at Vassar College, used the eclipse for political/social purposes. She assembled an all-female expedition to Denver, to demonstrate to a skeptical public that women could equal men as scientists. I love to talk about solar eclipses! Ask me about the eclipse of 1878, the upcoming one on August 21, or anything else. I can also offer eclipse-viewing advice. I recently gave a TEDx talk about eclipse chasing, and it’s now online here. And I wrote a blog post about the August 21 eclipse for Scientific American here. I should also mention that my friends at NOVA PBS will be producing a live broadcast on Facebook during the eclipse from Irwin, Idaho. It’ll be hosted by science journalist Miles O’Brien—follow them on Facebook to get more information and updates. —David

That’s all we have time to answer now! Thanks for all your pulsar related questions. You can stay up-to-date on the mission here: https://www.nasa.gov/nicer. And learn more technical information about NICER here: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/nicer/. Pulsars are rotating “lighthouse” neutron stars that began their lives as stars between about seven and 20 times the mass of our sun. They spin hundreds of times per second, faster than the blades of a household blender and they possess enormously strong magnetic fields, trillions of times stronger than Earth’s. For the first time, NASA has a mission to study pulsars using X-ray technology to uncover mysteries of the cosmos while paving the way for future space exploration. This two-in-one mission is called NICER-SEXTANT and it’s currently aboard the International Space Station. NICER (the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) uses 56 telescopes to study the structure, dynamics and energetics of these spinning neutron stars. What makes up their cores is not known, but if these super-dense objects were compressed much further they’d collapse into black holes. SEXTANT (the Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology) uses NICER’s observations to test - for the first time in space – technology that uses pulsars to create a GPS-like system. This technology could support spacecraft navigation throughout the solar system, enabling deep-space exploration in the future. More background: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-continues-to-study-pulsars-50-years-after-their-chance-discovery Read about five famous pulsars from the past 50 years: https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/163637443034/five-famous-pulsars-from-the-past-50-years ­­­­ We are: · Dr. Keith Gendreau – NICER Principal Investigator, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian – NICER Science Lead, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Craig Markwardt – NICER Calibration Lead & Neutron Star Scientist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Luke Winternitz – SEXTANT Systems Architect, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Jason Mitchell – SEXTANT Project Manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Rita Sambruna – NICER Program Scientist, NASA Headquarters · Dr. Stefan Immler – NICER Deputy Program Scientist, NASA Headquarters · Dr. Slavko Bogdanov – Pulsar/Neutron star Scientist, Columbia University Communications Support: · Aries Keck – NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Clare Skelly – NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Claire Saravia – NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Dr. Barb Mattson – NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Sara Mitchell – NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Don’t forget to follow the NICER mission at www.nasa.gov/nicer and @NASAGoddard on Twitter and Facebook!

Tomorrow marks 5 years since the Curiosity rover’s dramatic landing on the red planet! The rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite onboard Curiosity is the most complicated instrument NASA has ever sent to another planet. SAM is designed to measure the composition of the atmosphere and solid samples inside Gale Crater on Mars, and help scientists assess the habitability (could a certain place support life?) of environments recorded in in rocks in Gale Crater. The SAM team has made many amazing discoveries, including finding evidence of a habitable environment – a place that life (think tiny microorganisms, not dinosaurs) could have survived if it had been in that spot on Mars, millions of years ago. SAM also detected the first organics (building blocks of life) on Mars, known to have originated on this planet. We’re a group of scientists and engineers from the SAM team, ready to answer your questions about Mars and SAM. We’ll be online from 1:00 to 2:00 pm EST and we will sign our answers. Ask us anything! Paul Mahaffy, SAM Principle Investigator, Director of Solar System Exploration Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Charles Malespin, SAM Deputy Principle Investigator, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Jen Stern, Planetary Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center James Lewis, Postdoctoral Fellow, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Brad Sutter, Planetary Scientist, NASA Johnson Space Flight Center Greg Flesch, Instrument Engineer, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Peter Martin, PhD student, CalTech/NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Doug Archer, Planetary Scientist/NASA Johnson Space Center We have now been on Mars for 5 years - WOW. The first year after landing we actually played the Happy Birthday song using our SSIT (solid sample inlet tube). You may find this link interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxVVgBAosqg EDIT It has been great answering your questions, we are signing off now!

We are members of Livermore Computing (LC) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California. LC is home to some of the world’s fastest supercomputers, including Sequoia, the 4th fastest in the world. Scientists use our High Performance Computing (HPC) machines to run physical simulations: from geology, astronomy, and cardiac arrhythmia, to the US nuclear stockpile and other problems of national interest. We bring in the machines, keep them running fast, and provide scientists with the tools they need to run these simulations. We have varying roles in system administration, software development, data archiving, visualization, operations, facilities management, user interfaces to the center and data, user support, and research. Our developers lead and contribute to many open source projects: From Linux kernel infrastructure like file systems, such as Lustre and ZFS on Linux; to industry spanning cluster management tools, such as SLURM, Flux, and pdsh; and beyond to all aspects of scientific and cluster computing with spack, STAT, and SCR. For more info about our various open source efforts, visit https://software.llnl.gov/. For more information about our center, visit https://hpc.llnl.gov/. So if you have a question about any part of running or using supercomputers at HPC centers, we’ll be back at 1 pm ET, feel free to ask and we will answer as many questions as we can! EDIT: Good Morning from the West Coast! We see that everyone has started asking fantastic questions! We will start answering some questions! EDIT 2: Thanks for all the great questions. We hope to come back soon. Next time, we plan to try to answer your questions in parallel! Learn more, contact, or apply to join us here: https://computation.llnl.gov/. Our thanks to Reddit and r/Science for providing us with the opportunity to have this AUA! We leave you with a photo of some of us in front of Sequoia today! Have a nice day everyone! :)

Hi Reddit, My name is Samuel Kou and I am a Professor of Statistics at Harvard University. My research interests include infectious disease tracking and forecasting, big data analytics, mathematical modeling in biology, and development of statistical methodologies. I recently published an article titled Advances in using Internet searches to track dengue in PLOS Computational Biology. In the article, we presented a mathematical model that uses Google search data and government-provided clinical data to track dengue fever. The accurate tracking of dengue fever by our model in multiple countries shows that Internet search information, properly utilized, can help governments and health officials track infectious diseases, which is particularly important for countries with less advanced clinical based surveillance systems. I will be answering your questions at 1pm ET. Ask me Anything!

Hi Reddit, I am Michaeleen Doucleff, a global health reporter for NPR, and I am joined by Rick Ostfeld and Felicia Keesing – disease ecologists from the Cary Institute in New York and Bard College, respectively, who have worked on Lyme disease for more than 20 years. In March, I reported a story for NPR on Lyme disease and tick-borne diseases in the U.S. The premise: Ostfeld and Keesing predict that 2017 will be a particularly bad year for Lyme. But they’re testing a way to stop it. Lyme is already on the upswing. From 2001 to 2015, cases in the U.S. have more than doubled, and they’ve spread around the Northeast and northern Midwest. Ask us anything. We’ll be here from 1PM to 3PM ET to answer your questions about how tick-borne diseases spread, why they’re spreading and what scientists are doing to stop it. Looking forward to hearing from you!

I am Karim Brohi, a trauma surgeon and director of the Centre for Trauma Sciences at Barts Health and Queen Mary University & London. The Centre for Trauma Sciences has a broad research into all areas of trauma care. My research especially focuses on how the body responds to critical injury and how this understanding can lead to new survivors. And I’m Martin Schreiber, MD, the Chief of the Division of Trauma, Critical Care & Acute Care Surgery at Oregon Health & Science University. I am the head of the Trauma Research Laboratory at OHSU and we focus on resuscitation, novel blood transfusion strategies and cellular therapies in trauma. We (Karim and Martin) recently co-edited the PLOS Medicine Special Issue on Trauma. In the collection we also published a paper on how the body’s immune system responds to critical injury in the first 2 hours after injury. This is a difficult time window to study in trauma but we found it holds very specific signatures of how the body responds in the early activation of inflammation (which is the first stage of healing). We also found that some patients had a different response in certain cell death and survival pathways that were associated with them developing organ failure later in their clinical course. Organ failure is a common complication of trauma patients with a high associated death rate in its own right. It appears this immediate post-injury period is critical to understanding the response to trauma and therefore is likely to be a critical period for interventions that may improve survival and reduce complications. And I’m Tim Billiar, Chair of the Surgery Department at the University of Pittsburgh and current President of the SHOCK Society, USA. My research focuses on how trauma, which induces a sudden and massive activation of the immune system, leads to an abnormal immune response in some individuals. This is important because this dysregulated immune response after severe injury has been linked to dysfunction of organs such as the lungs and an increased susceptibility to infections. My colleagues and I (Tim) recently published a perspectives article titled “Time for Trauma Immunology” in PLOS Medicine as well as the results of a study in humans and mice titled “IL33 Mediated ILC2 Activation and Neutrophil IL5 production in the Lung Response After Severe Trauma: A Reverse Translation Study from and Human Cohort to a Mouse Trauma Model” in the same journal. In the perspectives piece we make the argument that trauma should be viewed like many other major disease processes that result from a dysregulated immune response (e.g. autoimmunity); as a specialized area under the broader field of immunology. We posit that this way of looking at trauma would bring the tools and expertise of the rapidly advancing field of immunology to the study of severe injury. In our experimental study, we reverse translate observations made in a large cohort of injured humans into mice genetically engineered to study the IL33-Innate Lymphocyte Cell type 2 axis. We show that an immune pathway discovered for its role in allergic airway diseases appears to contribute to acute lung injury after trauma. This study supports the idea that the study of trauma is ripe for sophisticated immunologic studies based on observations made in injured humans. We will be answering your questions at 1pm ET – Ask Us Anything!

Hi reddit! My name is Ralph Vetters, and I am the Medical Director of the Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center, a program of Fenway Health. Hailing originally from Texas and Missouri, I graduated from Harvard College in 1985. My first career was as a union organizer in New England for workers in higher education and the public sector. In 1998, I went back to school and graduated from the Harvard Medical School in 2003 after also getting my masters in public health at the Harvard School of Public Health in maternal and child health. I graduated from the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center in 2006 and have been working as a pediatrician at the Sidney Borum Health Center since that time. My work focuses on providing care to high risk adolescents and young adults, specifically developing programs that support the needs of homeless youth and inner city LGBT youth. I’m Jenifer McGuire, and I am an Associate Professor of Family Social Science and Extension Specialist at the University of Minnesota. My training is in adolescent development and family studies (PhD and MS) as well as a Master’s in Public Health. I do social science research focused on the health and well-being of transgender youth. Specifically, I focus on gender development among adolescents and young adults and how social contexts like schools and families influence the well-being of trans and gender non-conforming young people. I became interested in applied research in order to learn what kinds of environments, interventions, and family supports might help to improve the well-being of transgender young people. I serve on the National Advisory Council of GLSEN, and am the Chair of the GLBTSA for the National Council on Family Relations. For the past year I have served as a Scholar for the Children Youth and Families Consortium, in transgender youth. I work collaboratively in research with several gender clinics and have conducted research in international gender programs as well. I am a member of WPATH and USPATH and The Society for Research on Adolescence. I provide outreach in Minnesota related to transgender youth services through UMN extension. See our toolkit here, and Children’s Mental Health ereview here. I also work collaboratively with the National Center on Gender Spectrum Health to adapt and expand longitudinal cross-site data collection opportunities for clinics serving transgender clients. Download our measures free here. Here are some recent research and theory articles: Body Image: In this article we analyzed descriptions from 90 trans identified young people about their experiences of their bodies. We learned about the ways that trans young people feel better about their bodies when they have positive social interactions, and are treated in their identified gender. Ambiguous Loss: This article describes the complex nature of family relationships that young people describe when their parents are not fully supportive of their developing gender identity. Trans young people may experience mixed responses about physical and psychological relationships with their family members, requiring a renegotiation of whether or not they continue to be members of their own families. Transfamily Theory: This article provides a summary of major considerations in family theories that must be reconsidered in light of developing understanding of gender identity. School Climate: This paper examines actions schools can take to improve safety experiences for trans youth. Body Art: This chapter explores body modification in the form of body art among trans young people from a perspective of resiliency. We’ll be back around noon EST to answer your questions on transyouth! AUA!

ACS AMA Hi—we’re Raychelle Burks and Brandon Presley. We recently attended the 2017 IUPAC General Assembly and World Chemistry Congress, held July 8-14 in São Paulo, Brazil, as part of the U.S. Young Observers program. I’m Raychelle Burks, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. I’m an analytical chemist with crime lab experience and am focused on creating low-cost colorimetric sensors for detecting chemicals of forensic interest, including explosives and illicit drugs. My group utilizes smart phones, along with image analysis, to maximize the field readiness of developed sensor systems for potential use by crime scene analysts, law enforcement, and military personnel. I earned my B.S. in chemistry from the University of Northern Iowa, my M.S. in forensic science from Nebraska Wesleyan University, and my Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. I’m also passionate about science communication and serve on the advisory board of Chemical & Engineering News and UnDark Science Magazine. I’m Brandon C. Presley, a Ph.D. candidate studying analytical chemistry at Temple University. I earned my bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 2010 from Temple University. I am employed as the Team Leader in the Abuse-Deterrent Formulations department at NMS Labs where I manage technical projects and conducts in-vitro testing for major pharmaceutical organizations. I’ve worked previously as a forensic chemist and bench chemist in clinical and forensic toxicology; I was also employed as a chemist at Intertek Testing Services. I have served at Temple University as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and joined the adjunct chemistry faculty in 2017. I was recently recognized as a Future Faculty Fellow by Temple University. I’m a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and an Associate Member of the Division of Chemistry and Human Health in the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). My research interests include determining the metabolic profiles of novel drugs of abuse as well as determining Quantitative Structure-Retention Relationships (QSRR) of various classes of compounds. IUPAC is the global authority on chemical nomenclature and terminology—including naming of new elements in the periodic table—as well as setting other standards for measurement and other critically-evaluated data. Established in 1977 to foster interactions with internationally acclaimed scientists, the IUPAC Young Observer Program sends U.S. Observers under the age of 45 from industry, academia, and national laboratories to the IUPAC World Chemistry Congress and General Assembly, held every two years. The program aims to introduce the work of IUPAC to a new generation of researchers and to provide them with an opportunity to address international scientific policy issues. To help support participation of U.S. Young Observers, ACS is helping us share our experiences, learnings, and how the Congress and GA are helping to advance our scientific interests, priorities, networks, and careers. Learn more about our and our fellow Young Observers’ experiences in this blog post . Ask us anything about being an IUPAC Young Observer, using technology for science communication, presenting at international chemistry conferences, or balancing a career with pursing advanced education. We will be back at 12:30 p.m. EDT (11:30 a.m. CDT, 9:30 a.m. PDT, 4:30 p.m. UTC) to answer your questions. 12:30pm We’re here to answer questions until 1:30pm ET! 1:30pm Thanks, y’all! We’re signing off!

This week we will be hosting a series of AMAs addressing the scientific and medical details of being transgender. Honest questions that are an attempt to learn more on the subject are invited, and we hope you can learn more about this fascinating aspect of the human condition. However, we feel it is appropriate to remind the readers that /r/science has a long-standing zero-tolerance policy towards hate-speech, which extends to people who are transgender. Our official stance is that derogatory comments about transgender people will be treated on par with sexism and racism, typically resulting in a ban without notice. To clarify, we are not banning the discussion of any individual topic nor are we saying that the science in any area is settled. What we are saying is that we stand with the rest of the scientific community and every relevant psych organisation that the overwhelming bulk of evidence is that being trans is not a mental illness and that the discussion of trans people as somehow “sick” or “broken” is offensive and bigoted1. We won’t stand for it. We’ve long held that we won’t host discussion of anti-science topics without the use of peer-reviewed evidence. Opposing the classification of being transgender as ’not a mental illness’2 is treated the same way as if you wanted to make anti-vax, anti-global warming or anti-gravity comments. To be clear, this post is to make it abundantly clear that we treat transphobic comments the same way we treat racist, sexist and homophobic comments. They have no place on our board. Scientific discussion is the use of empirical evidence and theory to guide knowledge based on debate in academic journals. Yelling at each other in a comments section of a forum is in no way “scientific discussion”. If you wish to say that any well accepted scientific position is wrong, I encourage you to do the work and publish something on the topic. Until then, your opinions are just that - opinions. 1 Some have wrongly interpreted this statement as “stigmatizing” mental illness. I can assure you that is the last thing we are trying to do here. What we are trying to stop is the label of “mental illness” being used as a way to derogate a group. It’s being used maliciously to say that there is something wrong with trans people and that’s offensive both to mental illness sufferers and those in the trans community. 2 There is a difference between being trans and having gender dysphoria. Lastly, here is the excerpt from the APA: A psychological state is considered a mental disorder only if it causes significant distress or disability. Many transgender people do not experience their gender as distressing or disabling, which implies that identifying as transgender does not constitute a mental disorder. For these individuals, the significant problem is finding affordable resources, such as counseling, hormone therapy, medical procedures and the social support necessary to freely express their gender identity and minimize discrimination. Many other obstacles may lead to distress, including a lack of acceptance within society, direct or indirect experiences with discrimination, or assault. These experiences may lead many transgender people to suffer with anxiety, depression or related disorders at higher rates than nontransgender persons. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), people who experience intense, persistent gender incongruence can be given the diagnosis of “gender dysphoria.” Some contend that the diagnosis inappropriately pathologizes gender noncongruence and should be eliminated. Others argue that it is essential to retain the diagnosis to ensure access to care. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is under revision and there may be changes to its current classification of intense persistent gender incongruence as “gender identity disorder.”

ACS AMA Hi Reddit! My name is Neelesh A. Patankar, and I am the Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence and Associate Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University. Following my Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at University of Pennsylvania, I was a post-doctoral associate with Prof. Daniel D. Joseph at the University of Minnesota until 2000. I then joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University as an Assistant Professor in 2000, and have been a Professor since 2011. My research area is developing computational methods for immersed bodies in fluids and applying them to problems in biology (fish swimming, esophageal transport, rat whiskers) and engineering (vehicle aerodynamics). I have also been active in designing rough surfaces for non-wetting, super-wetting, anti-icing, and novel phase change properties. My group has published a series of papers on the thermodynamics of phase change on rough surfaces. Topics include keeping surfaces dry under water (see a short video here), restoring underwater superhydrophobicity, changing the boiling curve by extending or delaying the Leidenfrost regime, and the thermodynamics of sustaining vapor, “non-condensable” gases, and superheated liquids in roughness pores. I also recently acted as a scientific consultant for an ACS Reactions video on the Leidenfrost effect. The broader research vision is to engineer metasurfaces, that is surfaces that exhibit novel interfacial interactions during heterogeneous phase transition (e.g. condensation, boiling, freezing). Potential application areas include boiling and condensation heat transfer (e.g. in power plants), anti-icing, anti-fouling, and atmospheric water harvesting, among others. I will be answering your questions on the topics of rough surfaces for non-wetting, super-wetting, or novel phase change properties at 11am EDT (10am CDT, 8am PDT, 3pm UTC) -ACS edit text formatting 08:45 ET