There are always new viruses emerging, and, like SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, they are constantly evolving into different variants or strains. Researchers are racing to find vaccines and therapies that can improve outcomes for patients worldwide, using methods ranging from traditional lab work to computational biology (bioinformatics), and even artificial intelligence (AI). To understand vaccine development, we first need to understand how our immune system fights germs.
“The scientific world is constantly on the lookout for potential new pandemics so when there is a new virus, we would be able to quickly predict and measure the immune response,” said Dr. Alessandro Sette, a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego, California, and Director of the Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and Center for Vaccine Innovation. Being able to predict and measure how the body’s immune system will respond to viruses is essential to developing effective vaccines. The immune system recognizes, remembers, and destroys disease-causing organisms, called pathogens, and can provide long-lasting protection from future attacks. Pathogens are made up of antigens, which activate the immune response.
The body’s immune response is mediated by B cells and T cells. They do not recognize pathogens as a whole but instead recognize epitopes, which are unique markers on the antigens. If you’ve ever seen pictures of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the spikes on the virus’s surface are the antigens that allow researchers to develop COVID-19 vaccines. These are critical for the immune system’s ability to identify and respond to foreign invaders such as viruses and bacteria.
Predicting B-cell vs. T-cell epitopes
The difference between B cells and T cells makes it necessary to have multiple methods for predicting their epitopes. B cells produce antibodies that usually bind to cell-surface epitopes that are folded in a three-dimensional structure. This method used for B-cell epitope prediction is called discontinuous 3D structure-based epitope prediction.
“Antibodies recognize things on the outside and often recognize three-dimensional structures that are made out of discontinuous epitopes,” said Dr. Sette. “These are epitopes that are made from parts of a protein that are not necessarily like ducks in a row.”
(Teresa Fang)
T cells are entirely different: They recognize chopped-up fragments of proteins bound to human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules. Also known as major histocompatibility complex (MHC), these are specialized molecules on a cell’s surface for detection, holding important epitopes, for T cells. T-cell epitope prediction, therefore, is not limited to far-apart 3D structures like B cells are. Instead of discontinuous epitopes, T cells recognize linear epitopes. This method is called linear sequence-based epitope prediction.
“If you could see the structure of an HLA molecule with a peptide bound to it, it looks like a hot dog bun with a sausage in the middle,” Dr. Sette explained. “That is the fragment where the peptide is stretched out.”
Currently, most vaccines and therapeutics target B cells because antibodies are easier to measure than epitope fragments in T cells, although both are important for vaccine design.
Bioinformatics in advancing epitope prediction
In the past, vaccines were developed by using whole inactivated pathogens (such as in polio), an approach that was not always successful, or by predicting epitopes using traditional lab techniques, which are laborious and time-consuming. Recent advances in computational biology and bioinformatics have significantly improved the ability to predict epitopes for B-cell and T-cell activation in a time-sensitive manner.
Dr. Sette is part of a team that develops and oversees the national Immune Epitope Database (IEDB), a free, widely-used bioinformatics resource database for storing epitope structures. It has two purposes: to function as a catalog for epitopes and as a collection of epitope prediction tools for immunology research around the world. The IEDB uses many methods to predict epitopes and is always being updated. Generally, it analyzes patterns in already-known epitope structures to predict the epitope for an unknown one for B-cell or T-cell activation. One key area in these advances lies in AI. Machine learning (ML) algorithms, trained on large datasets of known epitopes and their interactions, can improve the accuracy of predictions. Dr. Sette plans to use ML approaches to improve data curation and algorithm prediction.
“We will be relying on predictions more than data that is already available because if it is a new virus, we’ll have to rely on more innovative approaches,” Dr Sette said. He believes that if another pandemic arrives, epitope prediction will give researchers an upper hand in fighting against its spread.
The name “eating disorders” (EDs) may seem straightforward, but they are one of the most misunderstood conditions. The rise of attractive, accessible social media has exposed mass populations to messages conflating the ideas of body image and health. EDs impact a broad spectrum of the population and for many different reasons and ways, making recovery complex; 1 in 11 Americans—or 28.8 million people—will develop an ED in their lifetime. For young people, 13 percent of adolescents will develop an ED by the age of 20.
Today, a general distrust of mainstream media outlets has led the public to flock to other reliable sources, leading medical sites to skyrocket in popularity and engagement. Modern readers are obsessed with personal image, and sites have adjusted and seen a drastic rise in health facts and biomedical communication. The seriousness of possible actions and repercussions has pushed objective data-driven information to subjective opinion-based suggestions, vulnerable to dishonest and dangerous arrangements to lead to misinformation, fearmongering, and competition. Thus, it is paramount that the general public becomes aware of the avenues of language a science communication piece possesses over their subjects and readers, especially with a topic so universal and nuanced yet often overlooked as eating disorders.
Language by the writer
To have a context for the ethical intricacy of biomedical communication when it comes to EDs, we must first look at the basic information available to the general public on the Internet. A quick Google of one of the most prevalent eating disorders, anorexia (even so, “anorexia” is an umbrella term for other EDs), will take us to the first search result by Mayo Clinic.
Like many informational websites, this article starts with an overview of the subject but its language regresses on the verge of being a piece of scientific writing versus giving directions as if it is the widely-accepted truth. A growing subjective language used to describe anorexia, which still is a widely-debated topic to be categorized medically, effectively freezes the process of teaching anorexia to telling readers how to see anorexics, disqualifying the root issue as how to deal with the aftermath rather than deal with how anorexia is borne in the minds of anorexics in the first place. The writers of Mayo Clinic unconsciously adopt this false essentialization of all anorexics as people who have no self-control, have unrealistic perceptions of life, have fatphobia, and starve themselves for personal validation of their self-worth.
This is not to casually accuse Mayo Clinic of scientific misrepresentation. They are among the world’s largest and most influential medical nonprofits, rated as the No. 1 hospital in the world for the past six years in the global hospital rating. In the organization’s mission and values statement, Mayo Clinic claimed that its vision is “transforming medicine to connect and cure as the global authority in the care of serious or complex disease” (Mayo Clinic); they view success as the paradigm of scientific progress and social compassion, a representation of their patients by collaboration so close to their patients the doctors can be called patients themselves.
Interpretations by the reader
As seen in Figure 1, a person with anorexia may interpret the language as hypocritical or as further justification to continue their starvation behaviors to be “better” or thinner than other anorexics for more societal attention and praise. With this article and that of other biomedical communication writers from organizations such as the National Eating Disorders Association and Healthline, the lines between objectiveness and subjectiveness are easily blurred.
At the same time, these texts gain traction on the Internet because of their authority and wide acceptance. Articles by lesser-known professionals and experts are often buried underneath higher-standing ethos, albeit they may provide the same information about eating disorders but at a level easier to digest and understand for both general audiences and people with EDs, like citizen science.
In a 2022 blog post on Octave, a mental health care provider-based company, author TJ Mocci explains why EDs are difficult to understand, along with suggestions on how to support people struggling with an ED. The ethos of the writer as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the logos of the broad but niche language become a powerfully visceral tool for the blog in promoting understanding in a non-triggering way; the use of targetted facts and statistics are reminiscent of active listening strategies that make an effort to understand what the other person is trying to communicate, making them feel less alone.
In regards to research articles that describe the latest updates/breakthroughs in producing medical cures for EDs, many articles are sourced from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision, which places the majority of the symptoms of each ED on physical symptoms, remaining vague in its behavioral ones, to categorize patients. Mocci utilizes careful wording, like pronouns, and lists “common signs,” not “symptoms,” of an eating disorder to inform readers how to be good allies/supporters. These are mostly behavioral, which is less emotionally/psychologically triggering and less likely to appeal as a fairy tale weight loss story. Intentional language can address readers directly and allows for a reader with an ED to gain sympathy for third parties, who may or may not also have EDs, which in turn allows them to gain sympathy for themselves.
Misinterpretations
As with any piece of writing, it is impossible to avoid misinterpretations, but the writer must be especially careful when consciously choosing language and interpretation to teach science because their work is dependent upon honesty. Some articles can fulfill both obligations; Mocci’s Octave blog can both inform and generate sympathy. This article promotes a pragmatic way for individuals, families, and communities to help people with EDs recover fundamentally. Other articles may disregard language and interpretation to get their information across. The growing demand to get immediate answers at its extremes has altered people’s perceptions of honesty. Technology has superseded honesty to dangerous trust. Now, more than ever, biomedical communication must be aware of the nature of this ethic.
An excerpt of Mayo Clinic’s article on Anorexia nervosa (Mayo Clinic, 2018) with annotations by a person with anorexia (Anna Tringale).
This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Stentorian Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Stentorian editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.
Note to readers from the Editorial Board: If there are any discrepancies we missed in this story or additions you would like to make, please email us at stentoriansocials@gmail.com
Corrections on 10/27: Greg Powell informed us that he was not forced to resign by administration. Arts instructor Carrie Alter told us that our previous mention of “band-aid solutions” was done by administration in good faith, there is no other plan to move art classes to modular units, and the temperatures are inaccurate. Those descriptions have been removed from this editorial.
Prospective students and their families walk into Bryan lobby and read about some events in the history of the school since its transformation from the Watts Hospital: from the black-and-white photo of our three founders and the expansion of residential and online cohorts to Guinness World Records and opening Morganton.
Warmed up to the quiet vibe of Bryan lobby at noon, their top picks from the marketplace of Wikipedia-able information, and a deluge of selective marketing from the administration, they start their tours smiling–pleased to have arrived at such a pristine and well-established school. In other words, they had finally attained thinking in the way of the institution.
It helped that NCSSM’s public persona didn’t really open up their minds in the first place.
What the public don’t know are the health hazards arising from the aging and neglected campus infrastructure, which have been growing from years of deferred maintenance–a challenge made greater each day that NCSSM pushes back against calls to double down on maintenance, management, and budget needs from the students and employees who actually live here 24/7.
In a school where, according to ncssm.edu, “Igniting innovation, cultivating community” is the tongue-twisting slogan deserving the most attention and thought, it is no wonder that people dismiss superficial meanings as anything but professional institutional values–a way to dodge questions and concerns in acts of hypocrisy, censorship, and an obsession with temporary solutions.
To get a scope of the damage, we have constructed this narrative of words, emails, photos, videos, PDFs, and quotes to this article in hopes of readers grasping the severity and urgency of this issue.
Soft & Hard Censorship
On September 18, Carter Smith ‘25 published a post in the Parents of NCSSM Students (Past, Present, & Future) Facebook group, beginning with “Dear NCSSM Parents, Resident of Hunt have potentially been exposed to carbon monoxide, mold, fungi, and other toxic if not deadly chemicals,” followed by a redirecting to a YouTube channel (“Mech Anek”) containing video evidence of the stated health hazards.
When Stentorian staff spoke to Smith in a private conversation, Smith revealed he was originally going to wait to publish the post until after his meeting with the Associate Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Students Jennifer Ashe the next day. The belief that “people deserve to look at how messed up the data is for themselves” first outweighed that prerequisite.
“It is obviously not the parents’ responsibility to provide solutions to this issue; it is the administration’s job to ensure the safety of the students while they are at the school,” Smith said.
He told us he had been interested in getting to the bottom of the issue–literally, as Mech Anek’s videos show rusted-through flues leaking chemicals in Hunt’s underground and in-wall HVAC systems–since former 3rd East CC Greg Powell told Smith about concerning information on residential health and safety.
Since Powell joined NCSSM in March 2023, he had been increasingly voicing his concerns to the administration to fix Hunt’s frequent flooding issues, damp walls, and more. The Stentorian Editorial Board initiated multiple attempts to contact Powell for a private interview but we were unable to continue communicating after he resigned and moved off campus on September 22.
Former electrical worker by the alias of “Mech Anek” uploaded the videos he took of various electrical and moldy places above Watts, in Hunt, outdoors, etc. to his YouTube channel. Here are three descriptions of his videos. (YouTube)
Mech Anek had a similar story: behind the moniker was an unnamed mechanical worker contracted with the school through a third party maintenance company. He was fired in May 2024 by NCSSM for uploading the videos, the screenshots of three of his six YouTube videos provided in this article. One description reveals administration’s (“he,” referring to Vice Chancellor for Student Life and Chief Campus Officer of NCSSM-Durham, Terry Lynch) shocking response to the worker’s safety concerns of the live feed.
“…he harassed me over pathetic hearsay. He acted as if he didn’t understand what I was telling him about the potential of the students or employees getting hurt,” Mech Anek wrote under a video published on August 22 about NCSSM’s chiller.
Nine screenshots from Mech Anek’s YouTube channel, which includes six videos and five shorts – all of various places around NCSSM-Durham’s campus that are electrical and health hazards. (Mech Anek)
As another current maintenance employee (unnamed for safety reasons) described, Mech Anek was “telling too many truths and bruising too many egos.”
“We just want to know that the students are living in a safe environment,” Smith said. “When we see these videos online and take a look at the filtres, walls, mold, and environment that students are living in, it is not unreasonable for us to have some serious concerns.”
Hypocrisy & Denial
Four hours after Smith’s meeting with Ashe, all residential students, faculty, and parents received an email written by Lynch, sent by Associate Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs and Chief Communications Officer Bryan Gilmer.
As we take a look at the email’s attached report from Terracon (above), there are several issues. Two of the biggest things to consider lie within the specificity and selectiveness of sampling. Firstly, in the Limitations section: “The scope of services was limited to mold sampling as directed by the client.” Who was the client? If the school wants to not be shut down because of mold issues, then it would make sense to direct the sampling elsewhere, in a blatant act of denial of the risk already growing. And where was the danger growing?
Secondly, in the Mold Result Summary Tables, Terracon (as directed by the “client”) tested the exterior of the art building. They did not test inside any rooms or bathrooms that may potentially have mold under tiles damaged by water or behind bubbling, peeling paint. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), mold may begin growing indoors when mold spored land on wet surfaces, and no mold grows without water or moisture. So why test for mold in the hallways and outside the buildings, when mold is prevalent where water is coming inside? Had Terracon and the client considered conducting visual assessments inside the buildings?
Students from the Research in Biology programs have conducted this black mold testing themselves, through a more traditional but all the while more visual means: swabbing surfaces throughout campus and growing colonies in agar petri dishes. Covering both female and male residence halls, air vents, and even bathroom faucets, they note notably high quantities of black mold in Hunt and Greynolds.
Mold growing in a petri dish with a sample taken from the opening of a Beall air vent. (Anna Tringale & Aretha Datta)(Skyler Qu)
“Essentially, from the petri dishes I’ve collected school-wide, I can confidently say that there is not a single residence hall on this campus that does not show notable quantities of mold,” said Anna Tringale ‘25. They are also one of seven Sustainability Project Leaders (SPLs) at NCSSM-Durham. “Still, it’s absolutely essential to remember that just because there is mold in a room, that doesn’t necessarily mean students are at severe risk of health impacts or sickness.”
Some mold seemed to grow inside the agar, which is something unheard of before to Aretha Datta ‘25. “Generally, when something grows on one of our agar plates, it grows on top of the agar. But this mold had somehow gotten inside the agar,” she said. “Up close, there were small vein-like structures as well. I’m honestly not really sure what this means, but I can tell that there is clearly mold in our room, and we should be concerned.”
The Stentorian also has firsthand experience and evidence of denial, or put differently, the lack of acceptance. On Friday, October 18, editor-in-chief Teresa Fang visited Lynch’s office and successfully scheduled an interview with him for the coming Monday, followed by an email confirmation that night. On Monday, no response from Lynch prompted her to send an email at noon with a list of six questions for him to answer via email. However, he responded as he was leaving the building that day, saying he would answer those by “tomorrow afternoon” as he didn’t have time to reply on Monday.
The response received from Lynch was not unexpected, but instead dismissive yet equally revealing. For starters, he did not attempt to answer any of the questions provided, but provided the same information he stated earlier in Gilmer’s September 18 email. The lack of a directional response compels the Editorial Board to conclude there is also a lack of direction in demonstrating improvement for students’ success and wellbeing, two important words in the NCSSM Strategic Plan 2024-2030.
The Stentorian also requested an interview with Ashe, but she declined to comment.
“Students still have every right to be concerned. It’s their life, it’s their room, and even small one-time exposures can get certain individuals sick,” Tringale added.
Obsessed With Temporary Solutions
By now, it is clear there are many open faucets and loose ends to this narrative. One way to enter this story is through the art studio’s wall collapsing into the interior over the Summer Research and Innovation Program (SRIP) in June, due to a rainstorm’s effects on the never-renovated-before Watts Hospital walls.
The hole in the wall of the green screen room in the art studio on June 27, 2024, revealing the original brick wall and the materials used to insulate the room of the century-old Watts Hospital. Formerly, the art studio was an operating room where doctors carried out surgeries. (Teresa Fang)
Likewise, the art studio’s predicament is also reflective of NCSSM’s current progress on campus “repairs”–if layers and layers of temporary solutions can be regarded as proper repair. Since last school year, the walls bleed water and white dust upon rain, human touch, or even small breezes, and one brick tile hangs precariously above the glass ceiling in the painting studio. When this school year started, rust was falling from an old gas hood and onto students’ workspaces in the advanced art studio. AR4110 Painting has already temporarily moved all their easels and paints to a meeting room in the library.
As we have learned in EN4610 Research in Humanities, displacement does not solve any deep-rooted problems. It can position vulnerable groups of people in even more vulnerable locations. We wonder, then, what kinds of discussions our peers, parents, and teachers would be willing to incorporate into our everyday lives, classes, and our ways of thinking. Until NCSSM can express views that genuinely respond to the concerns of those most impacted and invested in student success and wellbeing at NCSSM without the fear of negatively-impacting their public persona, we strongly disagree with the methods and language used by the administration to defer campus maintenance.
Today, students are acutely aware that whenever there is vapor arising from the metal manholes on the ground, it indicates that a major HVAC pipe is broken and leaking natural gas somewhere. (Teresa Fang)
If NCSSM is actually serious about addressing student success and wellbeing, it must demonstrate improvement in the largest concern of students, families, and faculty first: the school’s dilapidating campus. Until then, we worry that the future of our school will become nothing more than a moldy institution, more so than the 100-year-old Watts Hospital it used to be in the very beginning.
On February 29, Blue Mirror and editors Victor Chin ’24 (center), Gracie Lagerholm ’24 (left), and Harshitha Vadlamani ’24 (right) hosted their annual Winter 2024 reading to the NCSSM student body in celebration of the Winter 2024 issue release. (Harshitha Vadlamani/Blue Mirror)
On the eve of 2024’s Leap Day, a rain covered Hill Street bit at the ground-grazing pant legs of all students with baggy jeans and oversized pants. Not very far away, tucked in the dry security of Ground Beall, NCSSM’s literary and arts magazine Blue Mirror celebrated the release of their Winter 2024 issue.
Established in 1982, this issue of Blue Mirror marked the beginning of their forty-second year dedicated to the literary and visual artwork of NCSSM’s creative community. A pinnacle of the humanities at Science and Math, every issue has held countless creative visions that may have been bubbled up in the classroom- all in Strawbridge Studio’s glossy print.
This year’s editors, Victor Chin (editor-in-chief), Gracie Lagerholm (managing editor) and Harshitha Vadlamani (layout editor) worked hard to deliver nothing less of a monument, a memoir, and a muse (that welcomes cutting and pasting on dorm walls) to fulfill its purpose.
Students crowded Beall 1 and listened to student artists and writers present their published works in celebration of the Winter 2024 issue release. (Harshitha Vadlamani/Blue Mirror)Lita James ’24 poses with her painting on the cover of the Winter 2024 Blue Mirror edition. Editor’s Note (8/7/2025): Lita James has stated that her painting was heavily inspired by artist Ganja’s 2011 work. (Harshitha Vadlamani/Blue Mirror)
