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What can philosophy teach us about chemical reactions?

Admin — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:49:57 +0000

What can philosophy teach us about chemical reactions?

Published:

Why do chemical reactions occur? Are molecules stable entities or constantly changing components in a dynamic system? These questions are best answered not by science, but by philosophy, says Dr Ross Stein. As an enzymologist, Ross studies chemical reactions with the aim of developing new drugs to treat diseases. And as a philosopher of science, he uses ideas from metaphysics to explore why these chemical reactions occur.

Talk like a philosopher of science

Chemical reaction — a process in which chemical bonds break and new bonds form, transforming one molecule into another

Enzyme — a protein that speeds up chemical reactions in living organisms without being used up itself

Metaphysics — the branch of philosophy that explores the fundamental nature of reality and asks why things happen

Philosophy of science — the study of how science works, including how scientific knowledge is developed and how scientific explanations can be understood

Process metaphysics — the philosophical view that change is a fundamental feature of reality, so entities such as molecules are constantly changing rather than remaining fixed

Substance metaphysics — the philosophical view that entities such as molecules are naturally stable, with change occurring because of external influences

Every second, countless chemical reactions take place inside your body. These reactions allow you to breathe, digest food, produce energy and fight disease. Understanding exactly how these reactions occur is essential for developing new medicines, but have you ever thought about why chemical reactions happen in the first place?

Dr Ross Stein is an enzymologist for a pharmaceutical company, where he investigates how enzymes speed up chemical reactions. Alongside his career in enzymology, Ross has a personal interest in philosophy. As an independent scholar, he explores metaphysics – the branch of philosophy concerned with the fundamental nature of reality – and applies this knowledge to understand more about chemical reactions.

How and why do scientists study chemical reactions?

“The chemical transformation of one molecule into another involves breaking chemical bonds between the atoms of a molecule and forming new bonds between these atoms to create new molecules,” explains Ross. For example, when methane burns in oxygen, the carbon-hydrogen bonds in methane molecules and oxygen-oxygen bonds in oxygen molecules break, before new carbon-oxygen bonds form to produce carbon dioxide and hydrogen-oxygen bonds form to produce water. For this transformation to occur, several conditions must be met. “A molecule must gain enough energy, that energy must be directed towards specific chemical bonds, and the reacting molecules must be correctly positioned,” says Ross.

One of the main ways scientists investigate enzymes is by measuring how quickly they carry out chemical reactions and how factors such as temperature or pH affect these reaction rates. This knowledge is particularly valuable because many diseases involve enzymes that work too quickly or too slowly, so drugs work by interacting with enzymes to change their rates in the body. Ross’s work as an enzymologist is helping scientists to understand diseases and develop new drugs to treat them.

What is metaphysics?

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that asks fundamental questions about the basic nature of reality. Ross’s interest in metaphysics complements his scientific research into enzymes. “While science investigates how a phenomenon occurs, metaphysics asks why it occurs,” he explains. “For example, scientific studies explain how chemical reactions occur, while metaphysical investigations explain why. What must reality be like for the chemical transformation of molecules to occur?” To explore this question, Ross draws on two approaches to metaphysics: substance metaphysics and process metaphysics.

How does substance metaphysics explain chemical reactions?

The word ‘substance’ has a special meaning in philosophy that differs from its everyday use. It can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and his concept of ousia, a Greek word often translated as ‘substance’ but more accurately meaning ‘entity’. According to substance metaphysics, entities such as atoms, molecules, cells and organisms are naturally stable, and change is something that happens to them because of external influences.

“Substance metaphysics views molecules as inherently static – much like the ball-and-stick models of molecules used in chemistry classes,” says Ross. “This is at odds with what chemistry actually teaches us.” Substance metaphysics states that as energy is added (e.g., if the temperature is increased), a molecule will transform into another stable molecule. According to Ross, this view does not fully reflect what modern chemistry tells us because it treats chemical reactions as something that happen to molecules, rather than as part of their natural behaviour.

How does process metaphysics explain chemical reactions?

Process metaphysics can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who famously said that you can never step into the same river twice because it is constantly changing. Rather than seeing stability as the natural state, process metaphysics argues that entities are always changing and that stability is only temporary.

“Process metaphysics views molecules as inherently dynamic, with continuous internal motions that include rotations around chemical bonds, and torsions and vibrations of these bonds,” says Ross. “The structure of the molecule is not fixed but comprises an ensemble of many structures.” Process metaphysics views molecules as part of a larger reacting system that includes the solvent and other molecules in solution. It states that as energy is added, internal motions in the molecules become more pronounced until the reacting system progresses to a new state.

Download the article

Reference
https://doi.org/10.33424/FUTURUM720

Link to the activity sheet

As a scientist, Ross investigates how chemical reactions occur. And as a philosopher, he asks why they occur. © Shaiith/Shutterstock.com

Philosophers of science ask questions such as ‘What is science?’ © Triff/Shutterstock.com

Ball-and-stick models are used to explain the structure of molecules, which assume that molecules are static entities, as taught by substance metaphysics. © alice-photo/Shutterstock.com

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle developed the concept of substance metaphysics.
© thelefty/Shutterstock.com

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously said that you can never step into the same river twice because it is constantly changing. © declarmat/Shutterstock.com

Ross works as an enzymologist to investigate how enzymes influence chemical reactions in the body, as this knowledge will help scientists develop new medicines. © THICHA SATAPITANON/ Shutterstock.com

Ross believes that this dynamic view is more consistent with what contemporary chemistry teaches because it sees chemical reactions as part of the ongoing behaviour of the reacting system. “I view the chemical transformation of molecules from the point of view of process metaphysics, where the molecule is part of a chemical reactive system which includes the molecule, solvent and other molecules in solution,” he says.

How has philosophy influenced Ross’s science?

Although Ross’s study of philosophy is separate from his day job as an enzymologist, it has influenced the way he approaches his scientific research. His knowledge of process metaphysics helps him understand why chemical reactions depend on the dynamic nature of enzymes. “My study of philosophy has made me a more critical thinker and made my scientific writing clearer and more precise,” he says. “Philosophy stresses sound and logical arguments to support a specific position, which has carried over into how I think about scientific problems.”

As the study of knowledge and existence, philosophy helps us ask deeper questions about why the world works the way it does. How could you benefit from an understanding of philosophy?

Dr Ross Stein

Independent scholar

Fields of research: Enzymology; philosophy of science

Research project: Exploring what metaphysics teaches us about chemical reactions

About philosophy of science

“Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy that investigates the foundations, methods and purpose of science,” says Ross. “Rather than doing science, it steps back to ask what science actually is, how it works and whether it reveals the true nature of reality.”

Philosophers of science explore questions about how scientific knowledge is developed, how scientists investigate the world and how we understand scientific explanations. “Topics include the scientific method (How is science done?), questions about realism (Are molecules real? How can we know they exist?), and ideas about the laws of nature,” says Ross.

For Ross, science and philosophy provide two ways of understanding the same reality. Science helps explain how phenomena occur, while philosophy helps us think about why they occur and what reality must be like for them to happen. “The sort of metaphysics I practise insists that whatever philosophical stance I take, it must be consistent with the findings of science,” he says.

Studying philosophy can also help scientists develop important skills in critical thinking. Philosophy encourages people to question their assumptions and clearly explain why they believe what they believe. “The chief skill lies in being able to propose an explanation for something and then defend the explanation with clarity, backing up every assumption with sound arguments,” says Ross.

Pathway from school to philosophy of science

At school, build a strong foundation in science subjects such as physics, chemistry and biology. Ross also recommends developing a broad education in subjects such as history and literature, as philosophy is focused on ideas and these subjects will help you explore how ideas develop and influence the world.

Some universities offer undergraduate programmes in philosophy of science. If this is not available, you could study a degree in philosophy while taking science courses, or vice versa.

Ross recommends gaining experience in philosophy of science by conducting research projects with professors in the field.

Explore careers in philosophy of science

Many philosophers of science are academic researchers who work at universities to philosophically study scientific questions while also teaching students.

You could work as a scientist for a company, like Ross, and apply your knowledge of philosophy to your scientific research.

Learn more about careers in the field from the Philosophy of Science Association: philsci.org

Meet Ross

I’ve been interested in science and math for as long as I can remember. As a teenager, my other main interests were music (I played the trumpet in the school band and a rock group, and I had a pretty good album collection) and reading science fiction. I didn’t do organised sports, but I played baseball and football with my friends.

My inspiration to become an enzymologist came from the biochemistry course I took during my junior year of college. The course was taught by an enzymologist, and I was lucky enough to work as a technician in his lab during my junior and senior years. This experience, along with his encouragement, set me on the course to become a scientist.

I’ve always been of a philosophical bent; I had considered studying philosophy in college. But it wasn’t until 25 years later, when I found a copy of The Reenchantment of Science by process philosopher David Griffin in a used-book store, that my interest in philosophy was fully awoken. I bought the book, read it, and was hooked!

Through The Reenchantment of Science, I discovered process philosophy, with its emphasis on the centrality of change and flux in nature. I immediately saw how the metaphysical teachings of process thinkers might help me understand, at a deeper level, the mechanisms of chemical reactions. It seemed that process philosophy could allow me to move from understanding the how of chemical reactions to exploring the why – the metaphysical principles that underpin the chemical transformation of molecules.

Even after all these years, I still enjoy being in the lab doing experiments as an enzymologist. Part of what I enjoy about philosophy is the broad, open-ended problems and questions it presents. These broad ideas complement the more narrow, practical thinking of my role as an experimental scientist.

Without question, my favourite philosopher is Alfred North Whitehead, the ‘father’ of process philosophy. His writing can be very difficult, but it is worth the effort.

Outside of my work as an enzymologist, much of my free time is devoted to reading and writing philosophy. I also continue to play the trumpet in a community band and a small jazz combo. And whenever I can, I enjoy listening to live music.

Ross’s top tip

Read constantly and broadly, and think critically by recognising and questioning every assumption.

Do you have a question for Ross?
Write it in the comments box below and he will get back to you. (Remember, researchers are very busy people, so you may have to wait a few days.)

Learn how team of philosophers and neuroscientists is exploring how animals experience pain:

futurumcareers.com/animals-in-pain-who-feels-what

The post What can philosophy teach us about chemical reactions? appeared first on Futurum.

How did a high school science project uncover a potential new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease?

Admin — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 13:05:58 +0000

How did a high school science project uncover a potential new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease?

Published:

It was an 8th Grade biology lesson that inspired Claire Su, a high school student at BASIS Ahwatukee in the US, to conduct her own scientific research project. After learning about the gene that causes people to perceive the taste of brussels sprouts differently, she decided to investigate the links between this gene and Alzheimer’s disease. Mentored by scientists at Arizona State University, Claire not only discovered that supertasters have a lower risk of Alzheimer’s, but she also found that a drug currently used to treat diabetes could be repurposed to prevent cognitive decline.

Talk like a computational neuroscientist

Allele – a variation in a gene

Alternative allele – an allele that is different to the reference allele in the human reference genome

Alzheimer’s disease – a progressive brain disorder that causes cognitive decline

Cognitive decline – the loss of cognitive abilities such as thinking and memory

Genotype – the alleles that a person has for a particular gene (e.g., the taster genotype defines which TAS2R38 alleles a person has, categorising them as a supertaster, nontaster or heterozygote)

Heterozygote – a person whose TAS2R38 gene contains both the reference allele and the alternative allele

MGAM – the gene that produces an enzyme to digest starch

TAS2R38 – the gene that influences a person’s ability to taste certain bitter compounds, such as those found in brussels sprouts

Do you like brussels sprouts? These vegetables famously divide opinion over whether they are delicious or disgusting. If you can’t stand brussels sprouts, you aren’t being a fussy eater – you probably have a genetic disposition to find the taste unpleasant.

“The TAS2R38 gene is a taste receptor that affects people’s sensitivity to bitter compounds, such as those in brussels sprouts,” says Claire Su, a high school student at BASIS Ahwatukee in the US. “If someone has the supertaster variant of the gene, they can perceive bitter taste compounds and so may have an aversion to foods containing these.” People with the nontaster variant are unable to taste the bitter compounds in brussels sprouts, and heterozygotes’ taste perceptions lie between supertasters and nontasters.

What inspired Claire to research taste genes?

Claire first learnt about supertaster genes in her 8th Grade biology class. “I was curious whether perceptions of taste might connect with memory, since I had heard that taste and smell are often connected with cognitive abilities,” she says. “I wanted to study if there was a connection between TAS2R38 and Alzheimer’s disease.” And so, in 9th Grade, Claire joined a science fair club where she was mentored by scientists from Arizona State University who supported her as she conducted her own scientific research project.

How did Claire investigate links between taste genes and Alzheimer’s?

Claire analysed data from over 2,000 people who had taken part in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). First, she examined their genetic data to determine their taster genotype (whether they were a supertaster, nontaster or heterozygote) by examining the alleles in three locations on the TAS2R38 gene. Supertasters have two copies of the alternative allele in the first and third location, while nontasters have two copies of the alternative allele in the second location, and heterozygotes have one alternative allele and one reference allele.

Claire then compared these people’s taster genotypes with their Alzheimer’s biomarkers. This included numerical scale ratings, such as their Clinical Dementia Rating, as well as imaging data collected from brain scans, such as the presence of amyloid and tau proteins that build up in the brain during cognitive decline.

“I found that alternative first and second TAS2R38 alleles are positively correlated with biomarkers for cognitive decline, while an alternative third allele is negatively correlated with cognitive decline,” Claire says. “As supertasters have alternative first and third alleles, the positive and negative effects counteract each other, resulting in a slower rate of cognitive decline compared to nontasters, who only have alternative second alleles. Thus, my results showed that TAS2R38 supertasters displayed a lower risk of Alzheimer’s.”

Download the article

Reference
https://doi.org/10.33424/FUTURUM719

Link to the activity sheet

An 8th Grade biology class inspired Claire to investigate the links between taste genes and Alzheimer’s disease.

Claire presents her research to scientists at an academic conference.

Next, Claire analysed genotype data from over 900 people who had taken part in the Religious Orders Study and Memory and Aging Project (ROSMAP). “I connected genotype data to the expression of nearby genes in the genome to find a potential molecular mechanism behind the association,” she explains. She discovered that the TAS2R38 gene variants themselves do not directly impact the risk of Alzheimer’s. Instead, Claire found that they act as expression quantitative trait loci, meaning they mediate the expression of nearby genes, and she identified the MGAM gene (which produces an enzyme to digest starch) as being affected. “I found that the supertaster variants are associated with a lower expression of MGAM in the Alzheimer’s-affected brain regions, and vice versa,” she says, indicating that a higher expression of MGAM is linked to cognitive decline.

Finally, Claire analysed data from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) to investigate whether MGAM-inhibiting drugs could reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. “MGAM is a target for diabetes treatment and drugs inhibiting its expression have already been developed, which allowed me to investigate how the drug could affect the susceptibility to Alzheimer’s,” she explains. Claire found that people taking MGAM-inhibiting drugs do indeed have slower rates of cognitive decline, suggesting that these diabetes drugs could be repurposed for treating Alzheimer’s. Claire’s mentors are now exploring her findings further through animal model testing, with the aim of evaluating their potential for translation into clinical practice.

What next for Claire?

Since completing her science fair project, Claire has written up her findings and, with the support of her mentors, published them in an academic journal so that scientists and doctors around the world can learn from her work. But this wasn’t always an easy journey. “The research experience was hard at first because I knew very little about coding and data analysis when I began, but I have now become fluent in these skills,” Claire says. “There were always setbacks, such as when results weren’t statistically significant or when my code disappeared and I had to redo whole portions of the project.” However, the joys have greatly outweighed the challenges. “The moments when I got significant results really excited me!” says Claire. “During the gene expression analysis, it was fascinating to learn about lots of genes that I’d never heard of before.”

Now in 12th Grade, Claire is looking forward to going to college to study cognitive science. “I’m drawn to understanding human thought and how people see the world differently,” she says. “I want to continue doing research as I’m constantly reminded about what a big and unexplored world the human body really is and how research can help improve diagnosis and treatment of diseases.”

Claire’s story highlights how curiosity born from a science lesson can lead to remarkable new scientific discoveries, as what began as a high school science project has resulted in a potential new treatment for a devastating disease.

Claire Su

BASIS Ahwatukee, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Field of research: Computational neuroscience

Research project: Investigating the links between the TAS2R38 taste gene and Alzheimer’s disease

Research paper: TAS2R38 taster variants-linked MGAM expression in Alzheimer’s disease: a novel target for precision drug repurposing. Su et al. (2026) doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2026.1768436

Do you have a question for Claire?
Write it in the comments box below and she will get back to you. (Remember, researchers are very busy people, so you may have to wait a few days.)

Learn how neuroscientists are investigating the link between the gut microbiome and Alzheimer’s disease:

futurumcareers.com/exploring-the-link-between-the-gut-microbiome-and-alzheimers-disease

The post How did a high school science project uncover a potential new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease? appeared first on Futurum.

Classroom resources for the new school year

Admin — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:35:00 +0000

Classroom resources for the new school year

Do you need free and engaging educational resources to use in your classroom?

We’ve got you covered!

As the new school year gets up and running, why not explore our free educational resources and share them with your students? At Futurum, we work with researchers and academics from all disciplines to create classroom resources. Each article explains the researcher’s work and provides advice for students interested in pursuing a career in their field. Our articles are accompanied by activity sheets which contain talking points to encourage students to discuss, analyse and evaluate the research project, along with practical, hands-on activities that can be done in the classroom or set as homework. Some resources also include animations, podcasts and PowerPoints.

Whether you teach maths, biology, history, music or anything else, we’ve got resources for you! Here is a selection of our subject-specific resources published over the past year:

Maths

Statistics – Dr Catia Scricciolo is developing statistical methods to counteract the problem of noise in scientific data. Show your students how maths can be used to support real life science projects.

Applied mathematics – Professor Jeff Anderson is developing an open-access learning curriculum to create rich applied learning experiences for his students. His article discusses all of the different careers available to those who study maths!

Mathematical modelling – Professor Mark Boyce is modelling wildlife populations to help inform management decisions. His article shows how maths can be used to help solve some of our most pressing issues.

The beauty of maths – Assistant Professor Pierre-Olivier Parisé has developed a method to visually render fractal objects, showcasing the beauty of these intriguing patterns. Inspire your students by showing them maths like they’ve never seen it before!

English

Comprehension – All our articles can be used for comprehension reading exercises. Each article is accompanied by an activity sheet that contains talking points to encourage students to reflect on what they have read.

Publishing – Dr John Maxwell and Alessandra Bordini are studying, archiving and sharing the work of Aldus Manutius, a renaissance scholar and printer who revolutionised book design and publishing.

Science fiction – After learning about Dr Andrea Alamia’s work in neuroscience, students are encouraged to write a science fiction short story that explores his research.

Biology

Evolution – Dr Kate Ostevik is investigating the process of speciation using sunflowers. Why not use this real-world example to teach your students about evolution?

Immune system – Dr Steven Kerfoot is studying the interactions between B cells and T cells in the immune system and exploring how malfunctions can lead to the development of autoimmune diseases.

Ecology – Dr Camilla Filgueiras and her students have been developing new technologies to shine a light on the hidden world of soil ecology. Show your students how they can get involved in real-world research!

Molecular biology – Professor Patricia Kane is investigating how V-ATPase dysfunction may lead to neurodegenerative disease. Encourage your students to use their biology skills to make a difference in the world!

Chemistry

Biomaterials – Dr Andrea Carlini and her research team are designing structurally-responsive polymer probes to help doctors track and treat diseases. She also encourages students to join chemistry clubs to gain hands-on experience.

Direct air capture – At the RECARB hub at Monash University, researchers are looking for innovative ways to recycle and reuse carbon. Show your students how chemistry can help solve one of the world’s biggest challenges!

Chemical engineering – How can chemistry help make the textile industry more sustainable? Explore the research of Dr María González Alriols and Dr Mirari Antxustegi Bengoetxea to find out!

Physics

Nuclear fusion – Dr Kurt F Schoenberg is a nuclear physicist who believes that nuclear fusion will become viable within the next few decades. Do your students agree?

Atmospheric physics – As an atmospheric physicist, Dr Naruki Hiranuma hopes to improve our understanding of atmospheric ice and cloud formation and refine the physics theories that explain how clouds and precipitation form.

Engineering – Benedict Späth is designing new batteries to help the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Show your students how physics can be used to solve problems.

Geography

Geology – Dr James Mungall and his team are using remote sensing tools and laboratory techniques to discover potential new copper mining sites, and developing new ways of deciding which rocks may be useful for copper extraction.

Geotechnical engineering – How can we predict where falling rocks will end up, and why should we care? Professor Nick Hudyma and his team are conducting geotechnical experiments to better predict rockfalls.

Natural disasters – Dr Christin Salley is investigating how community resilience can support disaster preparation and response. Investigate what happens when human and physical geography come face to face.

Oceanography – Dr Juliana Marson uses mathematical models to understand ocean currents and track icebergs. Show your students how geography can help them travel the world!

History

Archaeology – Professor Karl Knappett leads a team of archaeologists who are piecing together ancient Greek pottery fragments. Your students will discover how archaeologists learn about ancient societies through artefacts.

Changing cultural attitudes – How have opinions about feminism changed throughout history and around the world? Dr Maha F. Habib explores the writings of two Egyptian women to examine how colonialism shaped their countries attitudes towards women.

The history of science – Dr Matteo Sporanzo analyses medieval manuscripts to investigate how culture shaped scientific ideas and priorities. What can your students learn from his historical research?

Modern Languages

Comprehension – Many of our research articles and activity sheet have been translated into other languages, including Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Swahili, Mandarin and Arabic. This makes them ideal resources for language lessons and means they are accessible for speakers of other languages.

Art

Arts-based knowledge mobilisation – Professor Elaine Power and the Hungry Stories team use art to share stories about food insecurity. Ask your students how they would use art to create change.

Sculpture – After learning about Dr Chinyere Knight’s research in mycology, challenge your students to create a 3D model of a slime mould!

Graphic novels – After learning about Dr Ariangela Kozik’s research in microbiology, encourage your students to create a graphic novel based on what they’ve learnt.

Textiles – Dr Karin Högberg and Nils Lindh have designed an innovative new sanitary pad designed to be durable, hygienic and easy to clean, providing dignity for women and girls who desperately need it.

Citizenship

Youth empowerment – The YES programme supports and empowers young people through community engagement. Inspire your students to engage with local community groups and make change.

Sociology – Dr Michelle Maroto is one of the researchers leading the Great Canadian Class Study, a large-scale project using surveys, interviews and other tools to understand the links between economic, social and cultural factors within Canada’s diverse population.

Economics – Do your students have dreams of owning their own homes? Professor Rachel Ong Viforj is a housing economist who informs and advises policymakers with the hope of helping young people buy their first homes.

Computer Science and Technology

Artificial intelligence – AI is everywhere and, for better or worse, it is here to stay. In this resource, researchers from the London School of Economics discuss issues surrounding artificial intelligence and its effects on society.

Software engineering – Dr Masud Rahman is investigating how artificial intelligence is changing how software engineers fix bugs. His article is full of extra resources for your students to explore.

Robotics – Dr Hao Zhang is exploring how robot teams can become more resilient, intelligent and cooperative by learning from human teamwork. Inspire your students to follow their dreams and design their own robots!

Music

Ethnomusicology – Music is a central part of almost all human communities. Professor Marcia Ostashewski founded the Centre for Sound Communities to explore the stories that connect people to their music, their communities and their identities.

Music education – COVID-19 is likely to have affected your students lives in many ways, including how they engage with music. Dr Ardelle Ries is investigating how the pandemic affected children’s attitudes to singing, and what this means for their development.

Bioacoustics – How can music feed in to other subjects that your students study? Dr Lucille Chapuis studies how fish communicate using sound, and how they are affects by human-made noise.

Physical Education

Nutrition – How does nutrition affect the performance of student athletes? Dr Tamara Cohen and her student Alysha Deslippe have developed an app that could help your students make better decisions about what to eat.

Recreation and leisure – Professor Heather Mair is studying the social role of curling clubs and exploring the impact of curling on well-being. Challenge your students to investigate the impact of extra-curricular activities at your school.

Teacher CPD

Two-eyed seeing – In many classrooms, STEAM subjects are primarily taught through Western or mainstream scientific approaches. That’s why IndigeSTEAM Society is supporting teachers in adopting Two-Eyed Seeing – a framework that brings together Indigenous/traditional and Western/mainstream ways of knowing to create more meaningful, culturally-responsive learning experiences.

Metacognition – Led by Professor Mariëtte van Loon, a research team in Switzerland is investigating how metacognition affects a student’s ability to learn. Discover how you can adapt your teaching style to better support this vital cognitive faculty.

Need more inspiration?

If you want more classroom activities for different subjects, check out these ideas from last year: https://futurumcareers.com/classroom-resources-for-the-new-school-year-4

The post Classroom resources for the new school year appeared first on Futurum.

How can we monitor disease in real time?

Admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:41:29 +0000

How can we monitor disease in real time?

Published:

What if we could detect diseases before they made us ill and monitor their progression in real time? Well, at the University of California Santa Barbara in the US, Dr Andrea Carlini leads a research group that is creating chemical probes that can do just that. These structurally-responsive polymers change their shape when they interact with biomarkers of disease, opening up new possibilities for smart biomaterials and wearable sensors.

Talk like a biomaterials scientist

Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) – highly reactive molecules containing oxygen or nitrogen that are naturally produced by the body but can be harmful when they build up

Biomarker – a measurable indicator that gives scientists information about a biological process, such as a disease or a response to treatment

Peroxynitrite – a disease-specific biomarker, which is a particularly harmful and highly reactive type of RONS that can damage DNA and proteins

Polymer – a long, chain-like molecule made from many smaller molecules

Piezoelectrics – materials that convert mechanical stress into electrical signals (and vice versa), commonly used in self-powered digital sensing devices

Imagine a device that could monitor your health and tell when you’re getting sick before you even start to feel unwell. With such a device, you could take proactive steps to stop the illness progressing and your doctor could monitor treatments in real time. At the University of California Santa Barbara, a research group led by Dr Andrea Carlini is creating new chemical sensors that can detect and monitor diseases. Their aim is to combine these sensors with wearable and implantable devices to improve healthcare.

What are reactive oxygen and nitrogen species?

“Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, or RONS, are highly reactive chemicals that our cells produce naturally,” explains Andrea. “In small amounts, they help cells communicate and fight infection.” However, if too many RONS are produced, they can damage proteins, fats and DNA. This is known as oxidative stress and it happens in many diseases including cancer, heart disease, injuries and brain disorders.

“My lab studies RONS because they act like early warning signals,” says Andrea. “By measuring when and where they appear, we can track how a disease starts, progresses and responds to treatment.” Instead of only seeing the damage after it happens, Andrea and her team are creating sensors that track RONS so that they can watch how diseases progress in real-time.

What is peroxynitrite?

Peroxynitrite is a particularly harmful type of RONS made up of three oxygen atoms and one nitrogen atom. Healthy tissue produces very small amounts of it, but stressed, inflamed or diseased tissue produces a lot. This makes peroxynitrite a useful biomarker – something that we can measure to track a disease.

“The challenge is that peroxynitrite is short-lived, highly reactive and hard to see directly,” says Andrea. “Despite these challenges, scientists already have some useful methods for detecting it.” Some methods detect the damage peroxynitrite leaves behind, such as modified proteins, while others use fluorescent molecules that light up when they react with it. “Although these approaches are useful, most only provide a short snapshot,” says Andrea. “The traditional chemical probes used to detect peroxynitrite are small, so they are quickly consumed or cleared from the body, making it difficult to continuously track how a disease changes over time.”

What are structurally-responsive polymers?

Andrea and her team use structurally-responsive polymers covered in these chemical probes to detect and monitor peroxynitrite. The polymers are chemically modified so that their structure changes when they react with this harmful RONS. For example, like the traditional small-molecule probes, Andrea’s polymers produce an optical signal when they react with peroxynitrite, allowing the team to see where a disease is actively progressing.

But the team’s structurally-responsive polymers have one ability in particular that makes them more effective than small-molecule probes. When they react with peroxynitrite, they change shape and size, growing into larger, more durable molecules. Because these polymer sensors are larger than small-molecule probes, they can survive in the body for much longer, allowing for continuous monitoring rather than just a single snapshot.

“Imagine a material that travels through the bloodstream as a tiny particle so it can easily reach diseased tissue,” says Andrea. “Once it arrives, it reacts with peroxynitrite, changes colour and grows into a much larger structure, like a sponge or gel, allowing it to stay in place longer.” This type of material is known as a self-reporting biomaterial because it reports on its own behaviour. As these smart biomaterials continue to react with peroxynitrite, they continue to change colour, reporting back to the scientists and doctors observing them.

But Andrea’s team are hoping to create devices that can do more than just monitor and report on disease progression. “We want to combine smart biomaterials with wearable and implantable devices so doctors can receive real-time digital information about how a patient’s body is responding to treatment,” says Andrea. “Our long-term goal is to create materials that not only detect disease, but also deliver medicine and communicate directly with healthcare technologies.” These materials would be able to provide smarter solutions to some of the most challenging problems in biomedicine that cannot be solved by passive materials.

A team effort

Designing structurally-responsive polymers is a complex process, and like all science, is not something that can be done alone. Andrea’s team contains many scientists and researchers, all of whom contribute to the group’s goals.

“I joined Andrea’s team because I wanted to research piezoelectric polymers,” says graduate researcher Rachel Zhang. Piezoelectric polymers change shape when they are subjected to an electric field, making them flexible and ideal for creating biomedical devices. These materials can translate the biological and chemical responses of Andrea’s peroxynitrite-responsive polymers into electronic data that can reveal insights about disease progression, even when we can no longer see them. “I had never heard of piezoelectricity before I met Andrea, and I still think it’s a really neat phenomenon,” continues Rachel. “My goal is to make better flexible piezoelectric materials for biomedical uses.”

“The group’s interdisciplinary environment has allowed me to expand my research beyond traditional polymer synthesis and explore applications in wearable sensors, skin-interfacing devices and biomedical materials,” says project scientist Dr Shivshankar Mane. “The opportunity to design advanced polymeric systems with direct societal impact continues to inspire and motivate my work every day.”

“While we do study the fundamental chemistry and behaviours of biomaterials, it is all through the lens of how this can be applied to complex biochemical problems that are related to human health and well-being,” says graduate researcher Emile Morin. “This has led to collaborations with other labs which accelerate our progress on exciting projects.”

Dr Andrea S. Carlini

Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California Santa Barbara, USA

Field of research: Biomaterials

Research project: Creating structurally-responsive polymers that contain arrays of chemical probes to detect, monitor and treat disease

Funders: US National Science Foundation (NSF); Hellman Family Foundation; University of California Santa Barbara; Harold J. Plous Award

About biomaterials

“The field of biomaterials brings together chemistry, biology, engineering and medicine to solve real healthcare problems,” says Andrea. “We can create materials that detect disease, deliver medicines, repair damaged tissues or even communicate with electronic devices.” The next generation of researchers in this field will have the opportunity to develop smart materials that continuously monitor health and provide individualised treatment. “This is a field in which you can invent technologies that directly improve people’s lives,” enthuses Andrea.

Biomaterials needs to be an interdisciplinary field because it aims to solve complex problems within the human body, which is itself a very complex thing. “A material that works perfectly in the laboratory may behave very differently inside the human body,” explains Andrea. “That’s why biomaterials scientists must be creative, patient and willing to learn from unexpected results. Every unexpected result is a clue, and learning to follow those clues is what makes you a better scientist.”

“As a biomaterials scientist, no two days are exactly the same,” continues Andrea. “That’s one of my favourite parts about the job.” While Andrea develops new research ideas and designs experiments, her students carry out the hands-on work, from synthesising molecules and making polymers to testing new materials. “Research is driven by troubleshooting, so active troubleshooting often reshapes our plans and sends us in exciting new directions,” says Andrea. “My high school calculus teacher once told me, ‘Success is 10% smarts and 90% drive.’ That mindset has guided my career. In research, persistence and curiosity are often more important than having all the answers.”

Download the article

Reference
https://doi.org/10.33424/FUTURUM723

Link to the activity sheet

Andrea’s polymer probes enter cells and are activated (shown through a colour-change and shape-change response) when they detect peroxynitrite that diseased cells produce.

Emile works with fellow lab mate An to purify their probes using flash chromatography.

Shivshankar starts a chemical reaction in front of his fume hood.

The Carlini Group celebrating Rachel’s and Emile’s Fellowships with a night of painting in 2024.

In 2025, the annual Carlini Group Camping Trip took place in Yosemite.

All images © Carlini Group

Pathway from school to biomaterials

“Build a strong foundation in chemistry and biology,” says Andrea. “Take polymer chemistry and biomaterials courses whenever they’re available.”

“Don’t wait until graduate school to get involved in research,” says Andrea. She recommends joining a chemistry or materials club, looking for research opportunities at local institutions and applying for internships.

Explore careers in biomaterials

Andrea recommends exploring articles that interest you from the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Materials Research Society.

“Studying biomaterials can open doors to careers in academic research, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and sustainable materials, where scientists and engineers develop new technologies that improve both human health and the environment,” says Andrea.

Meet the team

Dr Shivshankar Mane

As a teenager, I was deeply influenced by my father, who was a school teacher. Watching his dedication to educating students inspired me to pursue a career where I could both discover new knowledge and share it with others. I developed a strong interest in science because I was always curious about how things worked and enjoyed experiments that connected classroom concepts to everyday life.

Working alongside researchers from diverse scientific backgrounds encourages creative problem-solving and accelerates the translation from fundamental science to practical applications. Andrea’s lab provides an ideal platform to pursue research that addresses real-world challenges in healthcare.

Be curious, build strong scientific fundamentals and gain research experience early. Biomaterials is a rapidly evolving and highly interdisciplinary field, so being open to learning across chemistry, biology and engineering can create many opportunities. Finally, communicate your science effectively and pursue questions that genuinely excite you, because passion and curiosity are powerful drivers of a successful scientific career.

Emile Morin

Growing up, I spent my summers working on palaeontological sites digging up fossils in Montana or wolf-watching in Yellowstone. Through these experiences, I became fascinated with the natural world and took as many STEM classes as possible in my undergraduate studies.

When I first started working with this group, it was just myself, Professor Carlini, and a group of undergraduate students. The process of starting projects from scratch and building them into successful research ideas gave me a real understanding of how continuous hard work pays off.

Get involved in a lab as soon as possible. Being exposed to the scientific way of thinking, regardless of the exact topic, will help build your understanding. If you approach any research with an attitude of curiosity, you’ll find value in the work. Also, interdisciplinary collaboration has become essential as cutting-edge research requires expertise across several fields of study.

Rachel Zhang

As a teenager, I wanted to be a diplomat. That’s very different from what I’m actually doing now! But one thing that has stayed the same is that I’ve always wanted to be of service to the world and to help people. Through my research, I get to work on solving real-world problems that will help others.

After grad school, I plan to teach as a professor. I want to help more people gain a good understanding of science and chemistry, because I believe that education is empowerment.

Research can be frustrating because the results don’t always match your expectations. It can be difficult to remember that a ‘bad’ result still tells us something we need to know to reach our goal. During these moments, my lab mates’ encouragement and my professors’ support keep me motivated.

Stay curious! Not just about the science, but also about the career possibilities out there. You don’t know what you don’t know, and there’s so much more out there than you might realise.

Do you have a question for Andrea, Shivshankar, Emile or Rachel?
Write it in the comments box below and they will get back to you. (Remember, researchers are very busy people, so you may have to wait a few days.)

Learn about how doctors can monitor health in real time:

futurumcareers.com/how-can-wearable-sensors-help-monitor-health-and-tailor-drug-treatments

The post How can we monitor disease in real time? appeared first on Futurum.

How can lifestyle exercise interventions be tailored to treat patients with heart failure?

Admin — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:34:07 +0000

How can lifestyle exercise interventions be tailored to treat patients with heart failure?

Published:

Heart failure is a debilitating condition that can seriously reduce a person’s ability to carry out everyday activities. At Wake Forest University School of Medicine in the US, cardiologist Dr Anthony Peters has designed a clinical trial to investigate how to improve exercise therapy for patients with heart failure. He is exploring whether combining exercise, behavioural coaching and peer support can help patients become more active and improve their quality of life.

Talk like a cardiologist

Cardiometabolic dysfunction – a group of conditions affecting the heart and metabolism, including obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure

Cardiovascular fitness – how efficiently the heart and blood vessels supply oxygen to the body during physical activity

Cardiovascular disease – a general term for conditions that affect the heart and blood vessels

Ejection fraction – the percentage of blood the heart pumps out with each beat

Frailty – a medical condition often seen in older adults that involves reduced strength, endurance, and physical resilience

Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) – a type of heart failure where the heart pumps normally but is too stiff to fill properly between beats, along with changes in other organs throughout the body

Supervised exercise training – a structured exercise programme led by health professionals, often involving aerobic and strength exercises

Heart failure affects more than six million people in the US and is one of the leading causes of hospitalisation and death among older adults. “My goal is to develop and test innovative exercise interventions for patients living with heart failure, a common and debilitating disorder,” says Dr Anthony Peters, a cardiologist at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

It was Anthony’s work treating people with heart failure as a clinical cardiologist that inspired him to conduct research into how to improve outcomes for his patients. Around half of all patients with heart failure have a condition called heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, or HFpEF, and the number of people diagnosed with HFpEF is increasing as populations age and conditions such as obesity and diabetes become more common.

What is HFpEF?

Heart failure is a form of cardiovascular disease. Unlike some other forms of heart failure, the heart of a person with HFpEF can still pump out a normal proportion of the blood it contains (its ejection fraction is preserved). The problem is increasingly understood to be a systemic problem (i.e., throughout the body), including that the heart muscle becomes stiff, making it harder for the heart to fill with blood between beats, along with changes in other organs throughout the body. As a result, the body receives less oxygen-rich blood, leaving patients breathless and fatigued.

“HFpEF is a complex, multi-organ disorder with contributions from ageing, physical inactivity, and cardiometabolic dysfunction,” says Anthony. “People living with HFpEF often experience swollen legs, difficulty breathing, and extreme tiredness that can make everyday activities increasingly difficult.”

Why is HFpEF difficult to treat?

Although medications are available for HFpEF, relatively few of them substantially improve a patient’s ability to exercise, which is often one of the symptoms that most limits their independence and quality of life. In the absence of effective drugs, doctors often prescribe supervised exercise training for their patients with HFpEF.

“Supervised exercise training definitively improves exercise capacity in patients with HFpEF and is recommended in clinical guidelines for heart failure management,” says Anthony. Traditional supervised exercise programmes usually involve about 45 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise (e.g., walking, cycling) three times a week, sometimes combined with strength training (e.g., lifting weights, squats).

However, while supervised exercise programmes can be highly effective, they can also be difficult for patients to maintain over the long term. Attending regular exercise sessions may become challenging because of transport difficulties, competing responsibilities, or a lack of ongoing support after the programme ends.

How is Anthony increasing the effectiveness of supervised exercise training?

Anthony’s research aims to overcome the challenges many patients with heart failure face during and after supervised exercise training. To do this, he is conducting a clinical study called Blended Onsite and Offsite Structured exercise Training and coaching, or BOOST. Rather than simply asking whether exercise helps patients with HFpEF, Anthony’s study investigates how exercise programmes can be designed so that patients continue being active after the supervised sessions end.

“We are currently in the design and feasibility stages of BOOST,” says Anthony. “The pilot results will establish the safety and feasibility of group-mediated exercise interventions, supported by remote monitoring technology and behavioural change theory.” These initial findings will provide important preliminary data that Anthony will use to help him design and conduct a larger-scale clinical trial to fully investigate the impacts of exercise therapies for older patients with HFpEF. “We will test the hypothesis that novel, targeted exercise intervention approaches can produce improved clinical outcomes and more durable responses to exercise,” he says.

How does the BOOST programme work?

“The 12-week BOOST programme aims to increase aerobic activity to achieve cardiorespiratory benefit while maximising the likelihood of sustaining these behaviours long term,” explains Anthony. To achieve this, BOOST combines group educational sessions, one-to-one coaching, supervised group exercise, and self-guided exercise at home. The programme encourages participants to find forms of exercise they enjoy while building supportive social connections and increasing their confidence in exercising independently. It also aims to remove the barriers that many people face when trying to engage with exercise (e.g., lack of transportation to exercise classes) and hopes to initiate behaviour changes that result in patients embedding physical activity in their life. As the programme progresses, participants gradually transition from regular in-person sessions to exercising more independently, with continued coaching to help them sustain both their physical activity and the social connections they have built.

Download the article

Reference
https://doi.org/10.33424/FUTURUM716

Link to the activity sheet

Anthony reviews cardiovascular imaging results with doctors in training.

Anthony discusses study results with his colleague.

Anthony meets with his administrative team to plan the week.

Anthony presents his team’s research at an academic conference.

This educational material has been produced by Wake Forest University School of Medicine in partnership with Futurum and with grant support from The Duke Endowment. The Duke Endowment is a private foundation that strengthens communities in North Carolina and South Carolina by nurturing children, promoting health, educating minds and enriching spirits.

Let us know what you think of this educational and career resource. To provide input, simply scan the QR code or click here.

How is Anthony measuring the benefits of BOOST?

To understand the full impact of BOOST, Anthony and his team are examining a broad range of physical, cognitive, and social outcomes to determine how the programme affects cardiovascular health and overall well-being. Participants complete tests of walking ability, cardiovascular fitness, grip strength, and physical performance, alongside assessments of frailty, cognitive function, social connectedness, and heart failure-related quality of life. These measurements are collected before the programme begins and again at the end of the 12-week intervention by assessors who do not know which intervention participants received, helping to ensure unbiased results.

“We hope to address key knowledge gaps in the treatment of the severe exercise intolerance experienced by the large and growing population of older patients with HFpEF,” says Anthony. Thanks to the work of cardiologists like Anthony, people with heart failure can be hopeful for a brighter future in which they can live a higher quality of life.

Dr Anthony Peters
Assistant Professor, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, USA

Field of research: Cardiology

Research project: Investigating how to create exercise interventions for patients with heart failure

Funders: Clin-STAR; Wake Forest Pepper Center; Clinical and Translational Science Institute; Cardiovascular Sciences Center; American Heart Association

About cardiology

Cardiology is the branch of medicine that focuses on diagnosing, treating, and preventing diseases of the heart and blood vessels. Cardiologists care for people with a wide range of conditions, from high blood pressure and heart rhythm disorders to heart failure and heart attacks. Many also carry out research to develop better ways of preventing and treating cardiovascular disease.

Anthony combines patient care with scientific research. “I love my work!” he enthuses. His role varies from treating patients in hospital and running outpatient clinics, to analysing data and publishing new results. Clinical practice and research often go hand in hand, as caring for patients helps cardiologists identify important unanswered questions, while new research findings help doctors provide the most up-to-date treatments. “The best research questions arise from my clinical work – from seeing patients every day and working with clinicians dealing with particular challenges,” says Anthony. “On the flip side, our research and knowledge of recent findings keep us on the cutting-edge of clinical care.”

As cardiovascular diseases continue to evolve and populations continue to age, cardiologists are facing new challenges. Anthony believes dealing with the growing burden of obesity and cardiometabolic disease, alongside harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence in healthcare, will be key priorities for the next generation of cardiologists.

Pathway from school to cardiology

“Establish a foundation in the sciences and, beyond that, pursue what brings you joy and excites you!” says Anthony. “This will lay the true foundation for a career in medicine.”

At school, biology, chemistry, and physics are key subjects for anyone interested in studying medicine and understanding how the human body works. Anthony also recommends studying subjects such as business, health administration, or economics, which will help you develop an understanding of how healthcare systems operate.

To become a clinical cardiologist, you will need to study medicine at college or university, followed by specialist training in cardiology.

To become a research cardiologist, you could study medicine, biomedical science, or biology at college or university, followed by postgraduate research.

Explore careers in cardiology

Careers in cardiology include clinical roles diagnosing and treating patients with cardiovascular disease, and research roles studying and developing new treatments for these conditions. You could also choose to combine both roles, like Anthony.

Learn more about the cardiology research being conducted at Wake Forest University School of Medicine: school.wakehealth.edu/departments/cardiovascular-medicine

The American College of Cardiology provides information about cardiovascular research, training pathways, and career opportunities: acc.org

Meet Anthony

As a teenager, I was interested in sports and science. These may have aligned through spatial reasoning and physics, and that translates to what I do today – heart failure physiology!

I was inspired to be a clinician-researcher in cardiology because I wanted to help individual patients at the bedside while also improving the care of patients with heart failure around the world through my research. I was inspired to work diligently to help others by my parents and family, who set an example for me each day and made sacrifices to enable me to pursue my dreams.

I was motivated to work with older patients with HFpEF because, as a clinician, I regularly encountered older patients with multiple co-morbidities (other health conditions in addition to their primary diagnosis), often led by heart failure. These people often suffered from severe exercise intolerance and frequent hospitalisations.

I became focused on improving the care of these patients through my clinical and research work, and I was particularly drawn to studying heart failure in older people by the challenges of working with these patients with multiple co-morbidities complicated by age-related changes.

When I’m not working, I enjoy spending time outdoors with my wife and three children, coaching soccer, or trying new restaurants.

Anthony’s top tips

Keep an open mind and trust your experiences and instincts to guide you to a career that will be the best fit for you. And ask lots of questions along the way!

Do you have a question for Anthony?
Write it in the comments box below and he will get back to you. (Remember, researchers are very busy people, so you may have to wait a few days.)

Anthony’s colleague is exploring how exercise can protect our brain health:

futurumcareers.com/gerontology-with-dr-tina-brinkley

The post How can lifestyle exercise interventions be tailored to treat patients with heart failure? appeared first on Futurum.

Empowering students to Xplore careers

Admin — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:35:01 +0000

Empowering students to Xplore careers

Published:

By helping all educators and learners to access quality STEMM resources, Harvard Online’s LabXchange aims to empower students to make informed decisions about their futures. Its CareerXplorer platform enables just that, providing interactive career simulations that show students what STEMM roles actually involve – and where young people’s interests could take them. Christopher Burnett, LabXchange’s Digital Content Specialist, tells us about this unique tool – and the fun students can have exploring it!

What is LabXchange’s mission?

To paraphrase Dr Robert Lue, LabXchange’s founder, we believe that everyone, everywhere, should have an equal opportunity to succeed in science. For us, that has meant curating a catalogue of high-quality learning and teaching resources that educators and learners of all ages can access for free, regardless of their physical location, personal connections or background.

Why has LabXchange established CareerXplorer?

We want every student to know that there is a place in science for them. Too many learners are exposed only to traditional career paths in science, and if they feel that they do not fit neatly into one of these roles, they abandon a future in science altogether. We want to empower students to make fully informed decisions about their futures!

CareerXplorer facilitates the discovery and exploration of a diverse range of careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM), bridging the gap between school curricula and career skills. In an interactive and engaging way, students are able to learn about unique science careers and directly connect their abilities and interests to relevant career skills. This, in turn, helps them chart an actionable path toward achieving their target career.

How was CareerXplorer developed?

Career exploration has existed as a natural extension of STEMM learning since LabXchange launched. As we set out to build a library of science resources, we made sure to include videos featuring researchers in their labs, biographical narratives from a range of scientists, and content spanning topics from cellular biology to data science. Now, with CareerXplorer, we take it a step further and connect these resources directly to the corresponding career skills.

From the start, close collaboration with STEMM professionals has been crucial to the development of CareerXplorer. To really be useful to learners, the tool needed to be robust, informative, trustworthy and accurate. The only way we could reach that high standard was by working directly with industry experts, who review and validate every career profile. Our career simulations are similarly developed with the guidance and real-world expertise of industry professionals to ensure authenticity and accuracy.

Download this resource

Equally important, of course, has been working with learners and educators, who have provided feedback at every stage of CareerXplorer’s development. We have interviewed career counsellors to understand common challenges and questions, worked with educators to co-develop teaching resources that align with common curricula and educational standards, such as the US’s Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and we have consulted with students to learn what it is they really want to get out of a career exploration tool.

Why is it important that CareerXplorer is interactive and exploratory?

Our goal with CareerXplorer was to make a tool that students would actually enjoy using! When learners only read about a career, they get a surface-level understanding of it – a basic description, a salary range, a sterile list of duties. But reading that a biological technician “supports lab research” does not actually help the learner understand whether they would personally enjoy culturing cells, running data analyses or managing a lab. Rather than presenting learners with broad generalisations about careers, CareerXplorer relies on interactive career simulations to allow learners to evaluate their genuine interest in a career by exploring what someone in that role actually does on a day-to-day basis.

Another key principle of CareerXplorer – which echoes LabXchange’s broader mission – is that a hands-on approach allows learners to explore a career without requiring prior experience, special technical equipment or professional connections. For learners in underserved communities who may not have access to real-world internships or a network of STEMM professionals, this is especially beneficial.

What insights do the CareerXplorer career simulations provide?

LabXchange has been building virtual lab simulations and interactives for over six years, and the CareerXplorer team has worked hard to ensure that the career simulations build on our extensive experience and learnings.

These simulations place learners directly into realistic, relatable workplace scenarios, where they engage with the same equipment, tasks and decisions that STEMM professionals encounter in real life. In the biological technician simulation, for example, learners are tasked with conducting an experiment to identify a coral reef-friendly sunscreen. Through the simulation, they learn about culturing cells, collecting data and interpreting their results. These are all things that a real biological technician might do in their work.

Empowering students to test drive a role gives them valuable insight into what the career really looks like and how much (or how little!) they may enjoy engaging with the day-to-day tasks. Most importantly, the beginner-friendly and risk-free environment of a simulation encourages students to really explore careers for their own benefit and curiosity, rather than for a grade or another external pressure.

What role do STEMM professionals play in CareerXplorer?

STEMM professionals have played a massive role in ensuring the authenticity of CareerXplorer’s career profiles and simulations. CareerXplorer is designed to reflect the reality of what STEMM professionals encounter in their daily work, and input from experts allows us to highlight the skills that are the most important for learners to focus on developing. Alongside their direct feedback, STEMM professionals have also shared their personal stories in the form of interviews, which go into more detail about their unique educational journeys and provide insight to learners interested in pursuing that career.

How is CareerXplorer helping teachers to support their students?

CareerXplorer’s career profiles put all the relevant information in one place, allowing educators to direct curious learners to explore careers that pique their interest. At the same time, each of our simulations comes with a standards-aligned teaching guide offering detailed suggestions for classroom use, including timing, discussion prompts and project-based activities that connect the simulation to relevant subject content. Each guide also includes a customisable learner-facing worksheet.

Apart from testing out the career simulations, we would encourage readers to simply spend some time exploring the career profiles, especially the interactive duties guide and education pathways elements.

The duties and skills guide identifies the five most frequently performed duties by someone in the role, with each duty broken down into specific skills. The skills are linked to relevant learning resources on LabXchange, so students can learn more about a skill – or even directly practise it.

The education pathways feature allows students to visualise the most common educational paths taken to reach a career. Different careers have different educational requirements, yet there are often many ways to get from Point A to Point B. This is all laid out in an interactive interface in which learners can see degree and experience requirements, relevant subjects, recommended extracurricular activities and internships, and courses that are important for pursuing the career.

What has CareerXplorer achieved, so far?

CareerXplorer is still in its beta phase, and we are actively gathering feedback on all aspects of the tool. The comments that we have received from educators, career counsellors, learners and industry professionals so far have been overwhelmingly positive and incredibly helpful to us as we continue to improve CareerXplorer. Educators value having all the information in one place, which makes it easy to share with their students, and learners appreciate the authentic insights into real careers.

Building these interactive career simulations involves extensive collaboration between many different people – instructional designers, educators, graphic designers and STEMM professionals, to name just a few – to ensure that the simulations are accurate to the career, pedagogically sound, mentally engaging and simply fun!

What does the year ahead look like for CareerXplorer?

In the year ahead, we will be focused on releasing new career profiles to flesh out our catalogue. With over 18 profiles currently available and more than 20 in the works, we are excited to continue expanding the range of careers represented on CareerXplorer. Because every profile is reviewed and validated by career experts in their respective field, it is not a quick process – but a very important one to conduct thoroughly.

Additionally, we aim to create more robust connections between career skills and relevant learning resources on LabXchange. If a learner is interested in becoming a biological technician, we want them to be able to practise micropipetting or using a microscope, which are skills that are already available in simulations on LabXchange.

Finally, we want to gather more feedback. Educators, learners, career counsellors, STEMM professionals and others interested in science career development are encouraged to try out CareerXplorer for themselves and reach out to us with their thoughts.

About LabXchange

LabXchange is an initiative of Harvard University’s Vice Provost for Advances in Learning. It is a free online learning platform home to over 34,000 digital learning and teaching resources in subjects spanning science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). Launched in 2020 with support from the Amgen Foundation, LabXchange develops digital educational content, including virtual lab simulations and interactive animations, and collaborates with more than 200 science education organisations to curate a catalogue of high-quality resources that are entirely free to use for learners and educators across the globe.

Connect with LabXchange and CareerXplorer

careerxplorer.labxchange.org

linkedin.com/company/labxchange

youtube.com/c/labxchange

instagram.com/labxchange

uk.pinterest.com/labxchange

facebook.com/labxchange

x.com/LabXchange

Do you have a question for Chris?

Discover why careers education is so important for young people:
www.futurumcareers.com/our-aim-is-to-champion-young-people

The post Empowering students to Xplore careers appeared first on Futurum.

How does the human respiratory tract microbiome affect our health?

Admin — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 13:29:11 +0000

How does the human respiratory tract microbiome affect our health?

Published:

Your mouth, lungs and airways are home to billions of bacteria and other microbes that make up your respiratory tract microbiome. When it is well balanced, this community of microorganisms helps to keep you healthy and protect you from disease. Dr Ariangela Kozik from the University of Michigan in the US studies the bacteria living in our airways to learn more about them and how they influence our health. By following her curiosity and asking the right questions, she has shed light on a century-old biological paradox and transformed our understanding of the human respiratory tract microbiome.

Talk like a microbiologist

Commensal – an organism that lives in or on a host and benefits from the relationship while the host is neither helped nor harmed

Inflammation – an immune response that helps the body heal injuries or fight infections, causing swelling and pain

Microbiome – the community of microorganisms and their genes living on and in the human body

Next-generation sequencing – a high-speed laboratory technique that allows scientists to read the genetic code of a sample

Obligate anaerobe – an organism that cannot survive or grow in oxygenated environments

Symbiont – an organism that lives in a close, long-term biological interaction with another organism of a different species

You might not realise it, but trillions of microorganisms are living on your skin and inside your body. For example, your respiratory tract – your mouth, nose, airways and lungs – houses a community of microorganisms that plays a complex role in maintaining, and sometimes endangering, your health.

“Up until recently, we thought that healthy lungs were sterile and didn’t contain any bacteria,” says Dr Ariangela Kozik from the University of Michigan. “However, thanks to advancements in next-generation sequencing, we now know that there is a vibrant and diverse microbiome throughout our airways.” This microbiome – made up of bacteria, fungi and viruses – plays an important role in training our immune system and protecting us from disease. “Evidence suggests that people who have chronic airway diseases, such as asthma or cystic fibrosis, have different microbial communities in their airways compared to healthy people,” continues Ariangela. “We’re still figuring out how changes in the respiratory tract microbiome lead to disease and mapping out the relationships that promote our health.”

Which microorganisms does Ariangela study?

“Throughout history, microbiologists have been focused on infectious diseases,” says Ariangela. “Knowing everything that there is to know about the microorganisms that infect and harm us can help us treat disease.” However, only a tiny fraction of the microbial life on Earth is harmful to humans. We know far less about the microbes that are not a threat to us, even those that are living in our bodies. “I am interested in figuring out what these other bacteria are doing,” says Ariangela.

Microorganisms that are not pathogens but have long-term interactions with us are known as symbionts. “Although they might seem less interesting at first, many of these microorganisms have long-term relationships with us and our bodies,” says Ariangela. “It is important for us to understand what these microorganisms are doing in our bodies and how they might impact our health in unexpected ways.”

What is Prevotella?

Ariangela is particularly interested in a genus of bacteria called Prevotella. The first member of this genus, Prevotella melaninogenica, was first discovered over 100 years ago (although it was called something else at the time). It wasn’t until 1990 that P. melaninogenica and other bacteria like it were grouped together as Prevotella. This genus has been reclassified and refined as genomic sequencing techniques have improved. “Prevotella are commonly found in the human respiratory tract microbiome, but when I tried to find out more about their function, there wasn’t a lot of information out there, which surprised me,” says Ariangela. “So, I decided to tackle this challenge in my own research and learn more about these commensal bacteria.”

For a long time, Prevotella have been classified as obligate anaerobes – organisms that cannot grow or survive in oxygenated environments. “That didn’t really make sense to me,” admits Ariangela. “If it really is an obligate anaerobe, then how can it survive in our lungs where there is always oxygen? Right off the bat, I knew that there was something interesting to be figured out.”

How did Ariangela solve the Prevotella problem?

Ariangela conducted experiments to test how P. melaninogenica coped with varying levels of oxygen exposure. “We grew cultures of P. melaninogenica in specialised growth chambers, each with a different oxygen concentration,” she explains. “We found that it was able not only to survive but also to grow in concentrations of up to 5% oxygen.” At 8% oxygen, P. melaninogenica stopped growing, but it did not die and was able to recover when returned to an environment without oxygen.

“Our results revealed a few new things,” says Ariangela. “Firstly, Prevotella has been misclassified and is not an obligate anaerobe, and secondly, this means it must have some really cool mechanisms for surviving in oxygenated environments.” Although we need it to live, oxygen is actually highly toxic to most cells and can damage DNA. “All organisms need a way to deal with the harmful effects of oxygen, but we don’t know what these mechanisms are in Prevotella,” explains Ariangela. “In my lab, we are just at the cusp of discovering these mechanisms and figuring out how Prevotella survives in the human respiratory tract. We are really excited because we have so many unanswered questions that we can now try to answer.”

What questions is Ariangela asking next?

“I’m really interested in understanding how the members of the respiratory tract microbiome interact with our immune system, especially in chronic respiratory conditions where you have cycles of inflammation,” says Ariangela. “I’m also interested in the variation in how patients with chronic respiratory diseases respond to treatment.” For example, asthma can be treated by lots of different steroids and therapies, but they do not all work well for everyone. “We don’t really know what’s behind this variability yet,” says Ariangela. “Since we do know that our respiratory tract microbiomes vary from person to person, I want to find out whether differing relationships between the microbes and the immune system can influence the way a person responds to certain therapies or drugs.”

In order to answer these larger questions, Ariangela and other microbiologists need to learn more about the specific organisms, like Prevotella, that make up the respiratory tract microbiome and the roles they play. “It’s like being the new manager of a soccer team who knows who their players are, but doesn’t yet know each of their strengths, weaknesses and specialities,” says Ariangela. “My goal is to fill in some of these knowledge gaps so that we can step back and really understand what the organisms in our bodies are doing.”

Download the article

Reference
https://doi.org/10.33424/FUTURUM713

Link to the activity sheet

Kelyah Spurgeon MS; PhD student in the Kozik Lab.

The Kozik lab works with bacteria and human cells to understand how they interact.

Prevotella melaninogenica at 12,000x magnification, taken by a scanning electron microscope.

The Kozik lab works with bacteria and human cells to understand how they interact.

Kozik Lab Postdoctoral Fellow and PhD students Spring 2026 (top to bottom): Dr. Kozik, Claire Smith, Dr. De’Jana Parker, Souzane Ntamubano, Kelyah Spurgeon, Sophie Pickelner, Claire Albright

Dr Ariangela Kozik

Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, USA

Fields of research: Microbiology; microbiome research; bioinformatics; immunology

Research project: Investigating commensal bacteria in the human respiratory tract microbiome

Funders: US National Institutes of Health (NIH); National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS); University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School

Website: sites.lsa.umich.edu/koziklab

About microbiology

Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, how they live and how they interact with their environments. “It is a diverse and varied field that impacts not just health and medicine but also ecology and the environment,” says Ariangela. “There are so many sub-disciplines to explore depending on where your interests and curiosity lead you.”

Ariangela has also been interested in how the concept of race has been misused in microbiome research, exacerbating discriminatory views and a misunderstanding of scientific knowledge. “In biomedical studies, we collect demographic information about participants,” she explains. “In many studies, researchers will analyse their data based on factors such as race and ethnicity, asking questions like: Do we see differences based on race?”

This is problematic because the concept of race is based on social constructions rather than biological realities. Using social categories, such as ‘Black’, ‘White’ or ‘Asian’, to explain biological findings can lead to serious misunderstandings and undermine meaningful research. “When we rely too much on those categories to ask our questions and do our statistical tests, we’re collapsing the totality of human diversity into these very rough, imprecise terms that aren’t based on good science,” explains Ariangela. “When doing microbiome research and trying to understand biological phenomena, it is important not to make assumptions based on misguided applications of social categories.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ariangela co-founded the Black Microbiologists Association (BMA). “I was fielding a lot of questions from family and friends about the information that was available,” she says. “Because of some of the completely unethical things that have happened to various groups of people in the name of science and medicine, there is often still a lack of trust about where to get accurate, reliable information. We wanted to be a source of information for people who didn’t know who to trust.” The BMA is also a community space where microbiologists can connect with and support each other through the challenges of a career in science.

Pathway from school to microbiology

At school, build a strong foundation in subjects like biology, chemistry and physics. Computing skills and an understanding of statistics are also helpful.

Getting hands-on experience in a lab is a great way to learn more about the field and figure out if this career is right for you. Taking part in summer schools is a great way to do this before you go to college or university.

At university, courses in microbiology, immunology, molecular biology and biochemistry can all lead to a career in microbiology.

Explore careers in microbiology

If you are interested in microbiology, explore the websites of organisations such as the American Society for Microbiology, the Microbiology Society and the American Society for Virology where you can find blogs and articles about new research.

To find out more about BMA, visit their website.

Meet the team

Ariangela

When I was really young, my parents gave me a microscope. It came with empty slides and tools, so I could just go and cut pieces off stuff and look at them under the microscope. That was my first entry into microbiology and I realised that there are all these other tiny organisms that you can’t normally see but are still an important part of our world. I thought that was the coolest thing ever.

I love being able to ask questions at the edge of our knowledge. It’s such an amazing feeling when you and your team discover something new and you’re the only people in the world who know it. That doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it gives me the energy to keep asking questions.

I love working with my students. They are bright, brilliant people who are going to do really cool things and change the world. I love having the privilege of training and mentoring them to become excellent scientists and follow their curiosity.

Curiosity is important, but you also have to be a good advocate for yourself. It’s easy to get lost in large courses and on new campuses, but it’s important to have confidence in yourself. Make the effort to talk to your professors and learn from them. Having good mentors and role models is key.

I’m a scientist, but also a musician. Science is often seen as the opposite of art, but I think leaning into creativity is important. I love listening to and playing music, painting, and listening to birds to ground myself.

Ariangela’s top tip

Don’t be intimidated by your perception of where you think a scientist needs to come from or what they have to do or be. So many of my students came from artistic backgrounds, and science needs that creativity and spark!

Kelyah Spurgeon

PhD candidate, Kozik Lab

Science is about finding your passion, asking questions and getting creative! In the Kozik lab, half my time is spent at the computer using programming to predict how bacteria will behave. The other half is spent in the lab conducting experiments to test if my predictions are correct in real life. My research aims to answer an important question about host-microbe interactions: are Prevotella friends or foes?

I’ve always wanted to understand how things work. Growing up, I took things apart to look at all the parts, then put them back together. My first real glimpse into the microscopic world happened when I was in high school. I was observing the arrangement of plant cells and noticed a striking resemblance between them and ordinary brick walls. Seeing the similarities between the invisible world of microbes and our day-to-day lives motivated me to pursue a career in science.

Claire Albright

PhD candidate, Kozik Lab

Scientific discovery rarely happens on the first try. In the Kozik lab, I discovered the significant aerotolerance of the lung bacteria P. melaninogenica. However, there were many rounds of failed experiments before I got the data I needed! I had to troubleshoot, adapt my methods and try again. This trial and error is a perfectly normal part of science, making resilience an essential skill. When you finally get that breakthrough, and you have discovered something entirely new, there is no better feeling.

ADHD is my scientific superpower. Growing up, I wasn’t the best student in biology class. I was a curious kid with a love for nature, but I struggled with tests and paying attention. I didn’t know if I could succeed as a scientist, but I decided to try anyway. Now I know that the traits that make me different – like my ability to hyperfixate on things that interest me and think outside the box – are the same traits that make me a great scientist. Never discount the things that make you different; they could open new doors!

Funder: Claire was supported by the University of Michigan Predoctoral Training in Genetics Program (T32GM149391).

Do you have a question for Ariangela, Keylah or Claire?
Write it in the comments box below and they will get back to you. (Remember, researchers are very busy people, so you may have to wait a few days.)

Learn about how a baby’s gut microbiome helps to prevent allergies:

futurumcareers.com/can-microbes-in-a-babys-gut-prevent-food-allergies

The post How does the human respiratory tract microbiome affect our health? appeared first on Futurum.

Understanding the hidden world beneath our feet: building tools for studying soil organisms

Admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:55:33 +0000

Understanding the hidden world beneath our feet: building tools for studying soil organisms

Published:

Every square metre of soil is teeming with tiny organisms, such as nematodes, which play essential roles in soil stability and fertility, nutrient recycling, and pest management. However, studying these organisms can be incredibly difficult due to their tiny size and huge numbers. That is why Dr Camila Filgueiras, a soil ecologist at the University of North Carolina Asheville in the US, and her students have been developing new technologies to shine a light on this hidden world.

Talk like a soil ecologist

Arthropod – an invertebrate with a segmented body, hard external shell or exoskeleton, and jointed legs, such as an insect, spider or crustacean

Bacteria – single-celled microorganisms that live in almost every environment on Earth

Entomopathogenic nematode – a nematode that infects and kills insects

Flow cytometer – a machine that analyses cells or small organisms as they flow through a narrow stream of liquid

Machine learning – a type of artificial intelligence that learns patterns from data to identify, categorise or make predictions without needing fixed instructions

Nematode – a microscopic roundworm that lives in soil, water, plants or animals

Parasite – an organism that lives on or inside another organism and harms it

Substrate – the non-living material in a sample, such as soil, sand or organic debris

If you go digging in the dirt with a microscope in hand, you might discover nematodes – microscopic creatures that hold clues to the health of soil ecosystems. “Nematodes are tiny, worm-shaped animals that live almost everywhere on Earth – and are unbelievably abundant in soil,” says soil ecologist Dr Camila Filgueiras from the University of North Carolina Asheville. “In a single square metre of healthy soil, it is common to find millions of nematodes living alongside hundreds of arthropods and billions of bacteria.” These nematodes help recycle nutrients, support plant growth and keep soils healthy. Some nematodes are parasites, whereas others are beneficial. Camila and her team study entomopathogenic nematodes – tiny roundworms that infect and kill insect pests, effectively acting as living, biological pesticides.

Dirt difficulties

Soil is an incredibly difficult environment to study. “Every footprint we leave covers millions of organisms that we cannot see without laborious extraction and microscopy,” says Camila. Traditional methods for studying nematodes have limitations. For example, the Baermann funnel technique collects nematodes by allowing them to move from a sample of soil through a mesh filter into water. However, typical recovery is only around 15%, and results change with soil type, moisture and how the funnel is built. The white trap method is used to rear nematodes from infected insects, which are collected as they emerge from their hosts. However, the Petri dishes in which these traps are set up are easily contaminated.

Soil-sampling solutions

Camila and her students have developed the NEMA Device to both extract nematodes from soil and rear more for further study, using just one piece of equipment. A soil sample is wrapped in a porous tissue inside a simple device. Nematodes swim into surrounding water and are collected after 24 hours. The same device can then be used to rear nematodes: infected insect larvae are placed inside, and newly emerging nematodes move into the surrounding water where they can be collected. Because the system remains sealed, the risk of contamination is reduced.

“The biggest challenge was designing something that was efficient and standardised but simple enough to be built and used anywhere – including in field settings or in labs with limited budgets,” says Camila. “We overcame this by deliberately working with everyday plumbing parts that are cheap, light and easy to replace, and by combining extraction and rearing into a single unit so that researchers don’t need two different set-ups.”

Trials demonstrated that the NEMA Device extracted significantly more nematodes than the Baermann funnel and was able to produce the same number of juveniles per host as the white trap method, but with less chance of contamination. “In addition, the NEMA Device is portable, easy to take apart and clean, and inexpensive,” says Camila. “It also combines two separate workflows in a single piece of equipment.”

Counting and cataloguing the uncountable

To examine soil-dwelling organisms further, Camila and her students developed the Smart Soil Organism Detector (Smart SOD). “This is an instrument-plus-software pipeline designed to do something that has been almost impossible until now: take a soil sample and quickly extract, identify and count living soil organisms by species without killing them,” says Camila.

Smart SOD combines a custom flow cytometer and a fast, high-resolution camera. “A soil sample is diluted in water, passed through a mesh filter, and then pushed gently through a narrow flow cell,” says Camila. Lasers and a camera create a unique ‘fingerprint’ for each organism that flows through the instrument based on physical characteristics. “Living individuals are physically sorted into separate compartments with a small puff of air, so they stay alive for further study,” explains Camila. Machine learning models, trained on known organisms, can use the fingerprints and photographs to identify the organisms.

Developing Smart SOD came with its own challenges. “We had to make sense of a huge amount of multi-dimensional data, separate organisms from ‘background’ substrate, and train machine learning models on uneven cultures,” says Camila. “We solved these problems step-by-step: tuning the flow cytometer and lasers against beads of known size, using machine learning to cleanly distinguish between substrate and nematodes, and thoroughly testing the models to make sure they worked accurately on new samples.”

Trials found that Smart SOD is fast, accurate and capable of keeping organisms alive for further study. It can distinguish between living and dead nematodes, separate nematodes from sand and soil, and identify other soil-dwellers such as mites and small insects. “Preliminary work suggests the same pipeline will work for organisms as small as fungal spores and as large as visible arthropods,” says Camila. “The long-term vision is a shared, open library of machine-learning models for soil organisms around the world, giving us a practical way to monitor global soil biodiversity.”

Simplifying soil studies

Camila has founded a start-up company, SoilTech, to scale up the technologies she and her students have invented. “Our hope is that these tools lower the barrier to working with soil life,” she concludes. The NEMA Device can help scientists collect and rear nematodes anywhere in the world and can support farmers with sustainable pest management, while Smart SOD can identify soil organisms in minutes with minimal training needed. “New tools like the NEMA Device and Smart SOD make it possible to look at thousands of individual soil organisms quickly, accurately and non-destructively,” says Camila. “Soil biodiversity is enormous and almost completely unexplored, and you are the generation that will finally get to see it!”

Download the article

Reference
https://doi.org/10.33424/FUTURUM710

Link to the activity sheet

“In a single square metre of healthy soil, it is common to find millions of nematodes living alongside hundreds of arthropods and billions of bacteria,” says Camila. © NEMA Lab

Dr Camila Filgueiras

Associate Professor, Biology Department, University of North Carolina Asheville, USA

Field of research: Soil ecology

Research project: Soil ecology, biological control and new technologies for studying soil organisms

Funders: California Institute for Biodiversity; North Carolina Biotechnology Center; University of North Carolina Asheville

Websites: nemalab.org and soiltech.bio

About soil ecology

“Soil is one of the most diverse yet least understood ecosystems on Earth,” says Camila. “The organisms living in just a square metre of healthy soil drive nutrient cycling, support agriculture, shape natural ecosystems and help regulate the global climate. Soil organisms also affect human health directly – they suppress plant and animal pathogens, they are a major source of antibiotics, and they underpin the biological control of pests.”

Human activities such as land-use change, pollution and intensive agriculture are altering soil ecosystems faster than scientists can study them. Camila believes that the development of tools such as the NEMA Device and Smart SOD is essential for monitoring changes in soil ecosystems, such as how they respond to agricultural management and a changing climate.

“What I love most about this job is that every new tool we build lets us ask questions we could not answer before,” says Camila. “There is a real sense of opening a door into a previously hidden world, and doing that work alongside students, who bring fresh ideas and energy, is the best part.”

Importantly, students can contribute to the field early in their careers. “My lab is set up so that undergraduate students are collaborators, not just observers,” explains Camila. “Students help design experiments, build soil technologies like the NEMA Device, extract and rear nematodes, and appear as co-authors on our papers. You do not have to wait until graduate school to do real science!”

Pathway from school to soil ecology

“Soil ecology sits at the meeting point of several subjects,” says Camila. “Biology is the starting point – especially ecology, microbiology and invertebrate zoology. And chemistry helps you understand the soil itself, plant nutrition and how organisms interact with their environment.”

“Mathematics and statistics are surprisingly important,” says Camila. “A lot of modern soil science is about analysing patterns in big datasets. Computer science and a bit of coding make a huge difference, because tools like Smart SOD rely on machine learning and image analysis.”

“Environmental science, geology and Earth science give you the wider picture of how soils form and how they interact with climate, water and land use,” says Camila.

Explore careers in soil ecology

“My first piece of advice is simple – get your hands in the soil!” says Camila, “Volunteer at a local farm, community garden or natural-area restoration project. Use a hand lens or microscope to look at what is in a teaspoon of soil.”

Soil ecology is a practical, interdisciplinary field, providing a doorway to careers in research, agriculture or biotechnology.

“Organisations like the Soil Science Society of America, the Society of Nematologists and the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative all have student-friendly resources, photo galleries and citation-quality articles online,” says Camila.

“Reach out to university labs – many soil ecologists are happy to host students for tours or summer research projects,” says Camila. “We love welcoming students to the NEMA Lab!”

As undergraduate students, Maria Escobedo and Michael O’Cain worked with Camila in the NEMA Lab.

Meet Maria

Animals and nature have fascinated me since childhood. I would rent books from the local library and read about different ecosystems and their creatures. When I started university, Dr Filgueiras offered the opportunity to work in the NEMA Lab, which is where my passion for ecology grew. Working with insects and sharing that knowledge cultivated my enthusiasm and curiosity.

After graduation, I became a laboratory technician for SoilTech and used Smart SOD to process soil samples. I also trained Smart SOD to identify microscopic organisms and developed protocols for the proper use and maintenance of the instrument.

The NEMA Lab and SoilTech were pivotal in helping me grow. I gained friends and built connections with like-minded people who value sharing science. My confidence in public speaking greatly improved and I became less shy. And I learnt the value of insects and their importance in our world.

The NEMA Lab and SoilTech also taught me important skills such as conducting, writing about and presenting research, which helped me obtain a research assistant role in an entomology and horticulture lab in Australia, where I am now studying for a master’s degree. The support, experience and skills I developed through my involvement with the NEMA Lab and SoilTech prepared me for the next steps in my career.

My favourite fact about nematodes is that plant-parasitic nematodes have a small appendage that they use to infect root-systems, like a tiny personal sword. They are like the narwhals of the soil biome!

Maria’s top tips

1. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or for help. Teachers and more experienced students will be happy to help you succeed, if only you ask for their support.

2. Be organised with your time and responsibilities.

3. Try something at least once before dismissing it. That group or activity could be something that interests you or helps you achieve your goals.

Meet Michael

I live in a region with an abundance of plant biodiversity and the prospect of being able to understand what I was seeing inspired me to study biology. However, I didn’t start studying biology until I turned 30 – it is important to know that you shouldn’t be afraid to change your mind as you move through life.

Dr Filgueiras was my zoology teacher during the time Smart SOD was being designed. Although I didn’t help build it, I’ve since put in many hours working with the instrument, so I’ve become well acquainted with the technology.

I love working at SoilTech because I enjoy the exploratory nature of our lab. I also love having the opportunity to show other people the tiny wildlife we work with. Aside from providing me with employment that allows me to use the skills I gained as a biology undergraduate, SoilTech has given me the opportunity to continue practising scientific research and communication.

SoilTech is currently partnering with the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory in California to collect, scan and catalogue every single species of soil organism in the state of California! It’s a massive undertaking, but amazing to see the diversity of the soil organisms.

When I started seeing how many tiny organisms can be pulled from a single spoonful of soil, I began to feel exceedingly large! It also made me think that perhaps humans should be considered ‘megafauna’ on a planet that seems to be predominantly inhabited by organisms less than a millimetre long.

Michael’s top tips

1. Look around your community for events or programmes that align with your interests and volunteer with local organisations.

2. Life is about living, so try different things and see what feels good.

Do you have a question for the team?
Write it in the comments box below and they will get back to you. (Remember, researchers are very busy people, so you may have to wait a few days.)

Learn how scientists are protecting crops from parasitic nematodes:

futurumcareers.com/protecting-crops-from-nematodes

The post Understanding the hidden world beneath our feet: building tools for studying soil organisms appeared first on Futurum.

How do our brains perceive the world around us?

Admin — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:11:37 +0000

How do our brains perceive the world around us?

Published:

For a long time, neuroscientists thought of the brain as a passive receiver of sensory information, waiting patiently to receive input from our eyes, ears and other sensory organs. However, predictive coding theory flips this idea on its head and proposes that our brains actively make predictions about the world around us, only using sensory information to correct their mistakes. Dr Andrea Alamia at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in France is investigating this theory and exploring its impacts on other areas of science.

Talk like a computational neuroscientist

Alpha-band oscillations – rhythmic electrical pulses in the brain that help regulate the processing of sensory information

Autism – a neurodevelopmental difference that affects how a person perceives the world

Electroencephalogram (EEG) – a non-invasive test that records brain activity through small metal discs attached to the scalp

Predictive coding – a theory proposing that the brain constantly generates predictions about the world, rather than passively waiting for sensory input

Schizophrenia – a severe mental illness that causes a person to feel disconnected from reality, sometimes resulting in hallucinations or delusions

Travelling waves – repeated patterns of neural activity that spread across the brain

Picture the scene: the lunch bell rings after a long morning of complicated algebra and dense poetry. After racing to the canteen, you rip your cheese sandwich out of its wrapper, chomp down and begin to chew… Eugh! You spit the sandwich out in disgust and stare at it in bemusement, slowly realising that you accidentally packed your brother’s egg mayonnaise sandwich in your lunchbox this morning. While your friends may laugh at your misfortune, this unexpected situation can actually reveal a lot about how our brains work.

Predictive coding

“According to predictive coding theory, our brains are constantly generating predictions about incoming sensory information based on previous experiences and comparing these predictions with the actual sensory information we receive,” explains Dr Andrea Alamia from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique. If the incoming sensory input matches the prediction, our brain suppresses it to save energy. However, if there is a prediction error (such as tasting egg when you expected cheese), your brain takes notice and searches for new information to update its prediction.

“In this framework, our perception emerges from an interaction between ‘top-down’ predictions and ‘bottom-up’ sensory signals,” says Andrea. This differs from traditional theories which emphasised the flow of incoming sensory information up to higher areas of the brain. “In contrast, predictive coding proposes a continuous two-way exchange between higher and lower levels of the brain,” continues Andrea. “Rather than passively registering sensory input, predictive coding suggests that the brain actively suppresses or flags the sensory information we receive.”

Alpha-band oscillations

So, how does your brain control which sensory inputs you pay attention to and which you ignore? Well, the answer lies in alpha-band oscillations – rhythmic patterns of electrical brain activity that cycle at a frequency of 8 to 12 times a second. These ‘alpha rhythms’ spike when you close your eyes and relax, so for many years, scientists thought they were just the background hum of a brain that didn’t have much to do.

However, many scientists now think that alpha rhythms have a much more active role as the brain’s noise-cancelling filter that supresses unnecessary information. For example, as you’re reading this article, your brain boosts alpha rhythms in regions that are receiving distracting sensory input, such as the auditory cortex. At the same time, it reduces alpha rhythms in your visual cortex, allowing you to focus entirely on the words you are reading.

“This is a fairly simple explanation and we are still trying to figure out the nuances, but it seems that alpha rhythms help to regulate when and where populations of neurons become excitable, making them more likely to receive and process information,” explains Andrea. “Scientists in our field are still actively debating this topic and some experiments suggest that the relationship between alpha oscillations and perception is not always straightforward. This is science in action!”

Travelling waves

Sometimes, alpha-band oscillations sweep through the brain like waves moving through water. Andrea discovered that these alpha travelling waves could be the mechanism that underlies predictive coding. “We showed that alpha travelling waves moving forwards or backwards through the brain emerge under different conditions,” he says. “These movements are consistent with the predictive coding model that describes how predictions and prediction errors would flow through the brain.”

For example, forward-travelling alpha waves move from the back of the brain, where sensory information is received, to the frontal lobe, where decision-making takes place. These forward waves represent bottom-up sensory processing and emerge when you are actively paying attention to sensory inputs. In contrast, backward-travelling alpha waves move from the frontal cortex to the sensory regions at the back of the brain. These waves represent the top-down predictions that your brain is making and filter out the unnecessary sensory information you are receiving.

“Our work provided a bridge between a prominent theoretical framework and observable brain dynamics,” says Andrea. “Through a computational simulation, we generated predictions about how travelling waves should change in different perceptual states, based on the theory of predictive coding.” Andrea and his team validated these predictions in experiments, measuring participants’ brain activity using an electroencephalogram (EEG), to provide concrete evidence that supports predictive coding theory.

Predictive coding in action

Since providing this evidence, Andrea has been exploring how predictive coding theory could be applied to other areas of science. For example, he is investigating whether it can be used to explain conditions such as schizophrenia and autism. “These conditions may involve atypical weighting of top-down predictions or bottom-up sensory inputs,” explains Andrea.

By comparing EEG data from schizophrenia patients to healthy control participants, Andrea found that those with schizophrenia displayed stronger backward-travelling alpha waves. This indicates that their brains give more weight to internal predictions and heavily suppress sensory inputs, potentially leading to hallucinations and delusions that do not align with reality. On the other hand, Andrea conducted a similar study with autistic participants and found that they displayed stronger forward-travelling waves, indicating that their brains are less likely to suppress sensory information. This could explain why some people with autism experience sensory overload and extreme attention to detail.

Download the article

Reference
https://doi.org/10.33424/FUTURUM717

Link to the activity sheet

Pierpaolo Felicetti, a Master’s intern, carefully placing EEG electrodes to get everything ready for a brain recording.

Project Manager Leslie Marie-Louise keeping things running smoothly by managing all the behind-the-scenes research administration.

Dojin Heo, a visiting PhD student, running an EEG experiment to explore how the brain works, one recording at a time.

Postdoc Jakob Schwenk brainstorming the next big research idea at the whiteboard.

Quentin Guardia, another Master’s intern, keeping a close eye on the EEG signals to make sure every recording is high quality.

Predictive coding principles can also be applied to computer vision, a type of artificial intelligence that can interpret and understand images and videos. “This theory offers a framework in which perception is guided by prior expectations as well as incoming sensory data,” Andrea explains. “This approach makes image recognition more robust when an image is blurry or incomplete, allowing computer vision systems to be more accurate and resilient.”

Under controlled, regulated conditions, Andrea is also studying how psychedelic drugs disrupt the balance between prediction and sensory input. “Studying these effects provides a unique opportunity to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying perception, cognition and consciousness,” he says. “Ultimately, the goal is to develop a more unified understanding of how brains generate perception and experience.”

Dr Andrea Alamia
Researcher, The Brain and Cognition Research Centre (CerCo), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), France

Field of research: Computational neuroscience

Research project: Investigating how alpha travelling waves in our brains affect our perception

Funder: European Research Council (ERC; Grant agreement No. 101075930)

Website: artipago.github.io

About computational neuroscience

“Computational neuroscience aims to answer some of the biggest questions about how the brain generates perception, thought and consciousness,” explains Andrea. “However, one of the biggest challenges in the field is that the brain is an incredibly complex system, and no single discipline provides all the tools needed to understand it.” Luckily, the field is one of the most interdisciplinary areas of science, so researchers often work together to combine knowledge from neuroscience, mathematics, programming, statistics and psychology.

Technological advances, such as artificial intelligence and brain imaging, are creating unprecedented opportunities to understand how the brain operates. “The next generation of researchers will have access to richer datasets and more powerful computational tools than ever before,” continues Andrea. “This opens exciting possibilities for understanding brain disorders, improving AI systems and uncovering the fundamental principles of intelligence and cognition.”

A typical day in the life of a computational neuroscientist involves a mixture of data analysis, programming, reading scientific papers and thinking about how to develop computational models or new approaches. “I spend quite a bit of time analysing brain recordings to test our hypotheses and evaluate the results of our experiments,” says Andrea. “I also spend time writing code, running simulations and meeting with collaborators, which is especially important on interdisciplinary projects.” Andrea also mentors students and discusses projects with postdocs. “These interactions generate new ideas and help us assess the progress of different projects,” he continues. “Interestingly, no two days are the same, which is one of the field’s appealing aspects!”

Students can best prepare for a career in computational neuroscience by developing strong quantitative and analytical skills – particularly in mathematics and coding – and by having a keen curiosity about biological and psychological questions. “Critical thinking, scientific communication skills and the ability to work across disciplinary boundaries are equally important,” says Andrea.

Pathway from school to computational neuroscience

At school, Andrea suggests studying mathematics, physics and computer science whenever possible. “At university, degrees in neuroscience, psychology, computer science, mathematics, physics, engineering or related disciplines can all provide strong foundations,” he says.

Learn programming languages such as Python and gain experience with statistics and data analysis. “These are particularly valuable and could make life easier at later stages, such as during a PhD,” says Andrea. “In my opinion, although large language models (like ChatGPT) are changing our approach to coding, learning to code is still one of the most valuable investments a student can make as it will help them think in a logical and structured manner.”

Students can also benefit from summer research projects, internships and coding workshops.

Explore careers in computational neuroscience

“Career opportunities include academic research, healthcare technology, artificial intelligence companies, neurotechnology, pharmaceuticals and data science,” says Andrea. “The interdisciplinary nature of the field means that graduates often have a wide range of career options.”

Online courses, conference talks and educational resources provide excellent starting points to explore different fields. For example, the British Neuroscience Association has a suite of educational resources for students of all ages.

The Société des Neurosciences in France has a programme that aims to guide young neuroscientists in their careers.

Meet Andrea

As a teenager, I was passionate about science fiction (especially Isaac Asimov’s books) as well as dinosaurs and sports. I also practiced judo and breakdancing for many years! While I can’t say these interests directly determined my career path, they certainly helped shape my curiosity and my attitude about the world. Sports, in particular, taught me perseverance, discipline and the importance of enjoying what you do.

Reading Asimov’s books sparked a fascination with artificial intelligence and, more broadly, with understanding the human mind. That led me to become interested in psychology, cognition and neuroscience, even before I fully understood what those fields involved. Today, that curiosity and passion for understanding how the mind works remains my strongest motivation and continues to drive my research.

What I love most about being a researcher is the freedom it offers to investigate what really interests and impassions me. I have the opportunity to learn something new every day, and I enjoy the intellectual challenge of solving problems and understanding how things work. The combination of discovery, creativity and continuous learning makes the job incredibly rewarding.

It is important to maintain a sense of enjoyment and curiosity throughout your career. I was fortunate to have opportunities to move between countries for my PhD, postdoctoral training and eventually my permanent position. These experiences allowed me to explore new environments, meet inspiring people, exchange ideas and learn from different perspectives. I believe that being humble, open-minded and passionate are the key ingredients for success. Most other skills can be learned along the way.

Sport is still a big part of my life. Recently, I’ve been practising capoeira, a Brazilian martial art, and going to the gym with a friend. I also enjoy playing chess online, although it can become a little competitive at times! Outside of that, I love going to the cinema with my girlfriend or spending time with friends, enjoying an apéro (evening drink) along the Garonne River in Toulouse.

Andrea’s top tips

1. Don’t focus solely on the most prestigious universities or institutions. Instead, look for supervisors and mentors who will genuinely support your growth, value your work and
encourage your passion.

2. Maintain a healthy work-life balance and keep your enthusiasm and curiosity alive throughout your journey.

Do you have a question for Andrea?
Write it in the comments box below and he will get back to you. (Remember, researchers are very busy people, so you may have to wait a few days.)

Learn about how we learn about how our brains perceive and extract information from faces:

futurumcareers.com/how-do-our-brains-extract-information-from-faces

The post How do our brains perceive the world around us? appeared first on Futurum.

Issue 39

Admin — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:03:29 +0000

Issue 39

Championing young people through careers education

“Our aim is to champion young people by sharing their voices,” says Baz Ramaiah, Director of Policy and Research at Youth Employment UK. “Careers education, work experience and employer engagement are the bridges into work, but each is in decline.” Young people are crying out to learn more about real-world careers and how to get started on their chosen career pathway, but too often, the opportunities aren’t available.

Here at Futurum, we’re aiming to bridge that gap by providing students with access to professionals and industry leaders. You’ll find this issue is packed full of careers information and advice from experts in different fields. As you read these pages, our contributors and collaborators will guide you down the paths they took, showing you the routes to success. Keep your eyes peeled – the spark of inspiration could be hiding just around the corner!

View the magazine in the flipbook below or download the PDF

The post Issue 39 appeared first on Futurum.