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What a privilege to witness how Pancho Bezanilla keeps elucidating the deepest secrets of the sodium channel #GRC_Ion_Channels2026

After 50 yrs in science, former #HHMIInvestigator David Clapham’s advice is simple: “You have to see problem-solving as fun.” From training w/Nobel laureates to deepening our understanding of ion channels & leading at HHMI, he retires with a lasting legacy hhmi.news/3O3kYj

Apparently, yesterday @midjourney pivoted from AI image generation to...whole body ultrasound , presumably AI-augmented. I spent some time trying to find hard data and did not come up with much beyond the video. Some thoughts based on the X reactions today. 1) "Nobody's ever done this before." This seems to be a variant on ultrasound tomography, with Butterfly sensors arranged in rings. Ultrasound tomography is not new, with commercial systems available for breast imaging. The system proposed here seems very similar to Garrett et al 2024 (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/article…) which provided fuzzy images of the abdomen and extremity. By collating sound wave return from the ring array the system can attempt to minimize artifact from bone and gas. So, we have known this is possible since 2024. 2) "So easy for the patient." The system requires the patient to submerge themselves in water. For commercial breast UT, this simply requires laying on top of a shaped tank, but not going fully in water. As some people have difficulty lying on a DEXA or CT scanner (the latter of which can image in seconds) I will be interested to see how this is received by patients. 3) "This will revolutionize medical imaging." Ultrasound is limited by bone, air (lung, stomach, bowel) and depth of penetration. In the abdomen, this system can "see" around bowel and spine by adding together the full set of images. There is no workaround for the head or lungs and you'll notice that's why they didn't offer any pictures of those areas. It also means it won't be great at screening inside the stomach, intestine, or colon. I also note the volunteers appear fairly skinny. Ultrasound is always more limited in heavier patients. 4) "But AI can fix it!"...not really. Current DL-based reconstruction techniques require at least some undersampling of a region in order to reconstruct the image. You'll get a lovely picture of the outside of the skull. I can AI-upsample a fuzzy photograph but that doesn't mean what comes out of it actually existed. We have a variant of this issue already with MRI DL reconstruction. 5) "But this is better than MRI in the 1970s!" Yes, true. But the competition is not 1970s MRI, it's modern CT/MRI/US and most especially low-field MRI. For brain, for example, low-field MRI is already diagnostic quality and doesn't need shielding. A low-field scanner costs 50k and can be used in an ICU or put in a van. Why would I send a patient to get an experimental full body US when there's whole body MRI available that's already diagnostic quality? science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/… 6) "The FDA has no idea how to regulate this." This one made me laugh. There's an entire set pathway for this. Commercial ultrasound tomography already exists as an easy reference of a similar technology in the application. If they haven't submitted to the FDA, it's because they plan to try at a later date, or because they're not planning on submitting it at all. Do I think this is new and exciting? Yes. It looks like it's going to be great for body composition, and I do think there will be improvement in the future. Is it currently medical-grade diagnostic quality? No, not based on what they showed us. Apparently in-person there was a great hand demo. I don't see why that would be an improvement over routine US or MRI in visualizing hand soft tissues. To quote @khakrish: "It feels like all the same problems as full body MRI with the added problem of an unproven imaging modality and no FDA clearance."

Reposting this because I think it eloquently stated the same points I made today re: this new product vs MRI, and also because it includes the thoughts of Function’s @DanielSodickson, formerly of @NYUImaging and truly the expert’s expert on MRI.

10 personas de la tercera edad con asistencia de silla de ruedas @BOG_ELDORADO fueron dejadas irresponsablemente esperando por más de dos horas en una sala y llevadas a su sala de espera cuando el vuelo de @avianca AV222 ya había cerrado las puertas. Quién responde?

My LO: If one day I don’t know the answer to a question, I will use the scientific way to answer Me: which one is that? My LO: we would love to research that but we haven’t got into it yet

Time to celebrate @MVLabUW

Trying to get back to Science: Piezo channels (also) conduct outwardly rectifying chloride currents by @JeromeMechBio, in BiophysicalJournal#: cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S…

A great sketch of Professor Bill Spain! Congrats to Dr. Spain on a great talk.

The 7th best global university, as ranked by UW News and World Report. 👨‍🎓 👩‍🎓

My 9yo planning her weekend: “Mom I will 1. Go to Michaels to buy art supplies 2. Handcraft 3. Feel sorry for myself because I’m sad” I might just follow that plan as well…