Jen’s Posterous

Sachin you dirty rascal you....

Interesting that Adam named his healthcare proposal after the Jonathan Swift piece that (in)famously promotes eating your own young...

Gotta love satire in the healthcare startup sphere. Yes, we have developed a rather unique and virulent strain of 'humor' and an unfortunate leaning toward the satirical and facetous.

Try working in our sector for a few years and the gallows humor makes more sense.

Health 2.0 startups do sometimes exhibit carnivorous (and cannibalistic) tendencies, especially if you're viewing them from the inside.

From Swift's "A Modest Proposal"
http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

"”I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...”

Speaking of eating your young - Keas, Adam Bosworth's health concern - is hiring.

Amazing what you can learn about a company from the job ads...

"Computer Jobs Blog » Blog Archive » Job: KEAS medical SW firm in SF seeks Java Web Site Development Engineer"
http://hotjobs.taragana.com/index.php/archive/job-keas-medical-sw-firm-in-sf-seeks-java-web-site-development-engineer/#

So why do I stay in the industry?

"I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich."

Thanks Jonathan. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Photo: Arabidopsis stem-cells (greenish-yellow) surrounded by differentiating cells (red). Niche cells (not seen here) are located beneath the stem cells. Credit: Reddy lab, UC Riverside.

"Plant stem-cells are master cells located at the tip of the stem and are part of a structure called the shoot apical meristem (SAM). Here, the stem cells—all clumped together—divide throughout the life of the plant to give rise to other cells, resulting in the formation of above-ground organs such as leaves, flowers, branches and stem."

Wonder if author is any relation to Prem Reddy, who's revolutionizing hospital acquisitions?

"In 1927 at the age of 32, bankrupt and jobless, living in inferior housing in Chicago, Illinois, he saw his beloved young daughter Alexandra die of the complications of polio and spinal meningitis. He felt responsible, and this drove him to drink and to the verge of suicide. At the last moment he decided instead to embark on "an experiment, to find what a single individual can contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity."

He strove to inspire humanity to take a comprehensive view of the finite world we live in and the infinite possibilities for an ever-increasing standard of living within it. Deploring waste, he explored and advocated a principle that he termed "ephemeralization" — which in essence Fuller coined to mean "doing more with less." Wealth can be increased by recycling resources into newer, higher value products whose more technically sophisticated design requires less material. In practice, it has often meant miniaturization, for example, as when table-model calculating machines were succeeded over time by smaller ones, until the calculator of today fits in one's hand. Fuller also introduced synergetics, which explores holistic engineering structures in nature (long before the term synergy became popular)."

Buy the shirt. http://www.fatamerican.tv/t-shirt-page/buckminster-fuller.htm

Or don't. Commit yourself to doing more for healthcare reform and innovation, with less. What can you build with what you've got, right now?

SXSW wear. Bring your Moleskin notebooks and Apple comps littered w/ web 3.0 fabulous stickrs...

A more plausible explanation is that a common exposure underlies infertility and testicular cancer

Genoanthropology update...

Male 'tribes' of RNA and sex-linked traits (search for "Red Queen" theory - Matt Ridley, etc).

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE51M70D20090223?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100

Ah, the beauty of a simple pie graph, especially when it's programmed to show my daily caffeine intake (gulp)...I'm also testing Google's beta me-trics site, but Daytum has an elegant Airbed & Breakfast-like simplicity that's irresistable.

Personal biometrics are on my top 5 list for disruptive, consumer/patient oriented innovations, along with DTC genomics and other genetic profiling studies (genoanth, etc).

Question is, how do we get people to WANT to enter in this data?

We've got people who are patients with chronic diseases, and also in the top 10 (10-80-10 rule of healthcare) percent of hyperengaged e-patients (if we're being optimistic) on lock, but what about the middle 80?

What kind of tools do we need to create to ensure it's as easy for people to enter personal health narrative nodes as possible?

In part this is a rhetorical question - some of the tools already exist. What would incentivize you to enter personal biometrics?

(And no, helpful friend who responded yesterday during a brainstorming conversation, I do *not* think a unique lewd photo send via email is the right tactic...although we'd get the 18-24 yo male population's participation for sure).

"Despite their forbidding name, natural killer cells are the good guys in the never-ending war against disease."

Job Ad for 'Ninja' aka Natural Killer Cells -
"Wanted: Cells capable of wreaking havoc. Loner types who identify a target and then recruit team members as needed. Must be aggressive yet equally discriminating, able to identify normal, allogeneic tissues on the fly."

Image above from the following article: "Natural killer cells and dendritic cells: rendezvous in abused tissues"

Alessandro Moretta, Nature Reviews Immunology 2, 957-965 (December 2002)
doi:10.1038/nri956

See also: "Some of your body's cells have a 'license to kill'" (PhysOrg.com)
February 22nd, 2009 By Robert S. Boyd in Medicine & Health / Research

About NK Cells (from PhysOrg article):

"These tiny assassins, the immune system's rapid-response team, can quickly spot a dangerous cell, poke holes in its outer wall and release poisons to destroy it. They also alert other immune cells to join the attack."

Like some espionage agents, NK cells have a "license to kill," according to Wayne Yokoyama, an immunologist with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Washington University in St. Louis. The "license" is a molecular tag that allows a killer cell to whack a bad cell.

Although NK cells were discovered more than 30 years ago, they're still not well understood, and they remain an active field of research. Scientists are trying to figure out how killer cells "see" a target cell, how they tell whether it's infected or healthy and how they carry out their lethal task.

"We remain puzzled about where and when NK cells develop," James Di Santo, the director of the immunology department at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, acknowledged in the journal Nature Immunology. "We still have many questions."

Interesting update by Bruce Friedman on Lab Soft News re: Dubai's "Healthcare City" development:
http://labsoftnews.typepad.com/lab_soft_news/2009/02/update-on-dubai-healthcare-city-not-so-good.html

Sounds like a mass exodus. What's next in healthcare will *not come from the super-funded middle east...

Health/medical cyborg anthropology lifehack of the week...

Steps available with photo slideshow and via text (PDF).

Problem - all your info is actually stored ON the drive.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How_To_Emergency_Records_On_USB_Thumb_Drive/