Down the Rabbit Hole

45:09. I checked the timer as I crossed the Solano Turkey Trot finish line, huffing and puffing the last of the chilly, crisp autumn air. It's that anticipation of the sense of accomplishment that got me to the finish line, especially after running too fast during the first mile. Victory was made even sweeter because I just came back from a setback: I didn't finish my first half-marathon attempt in Orangetheory's DriTri Sprint . This year's turkey trot was not just a regular 5K for me; it also held some of my firsts: First turkey trot, ever. Apparently, turkey trots are popular events in the USA. This local event has attracted over 2,000 runners. In fact, I was runner #1911 despite signing up earlier in the year. There were different distance categories (5K, 10K, 21K, and kids' fun run), catering to the various skill levels of the runners (or joggers... or walkers). All along the course, I noticed cheerers carrying banners that said something about "earning y...

https://www.solanoturkeytrot.org/ I have not learned my lesson. Barely two months ago, I did not finish my treadmill half-marathon . This should have convinced me that I'm not ready for a race, but here I am again, paying and confirming my attendance at another one. I signed up for the Solano Turkey Trot, an outdoor run/walk event to be held at Solano Community College.  I first saw an announcement about it at work, but I dismissed it (I thought that I had to be in a turkey costume for it). Everything changed on a relaxed morning when I wasn't rushing after school drop-off. As I was leaving for a physiotherapy appointment, I bumped into the moms of two of Donan's friends. They had both signed up for the 5K run and invited me to join them. Just like that, my initial decision of no  changed into count me in . I doubled down. From treadmill to the great outdoors Now back to reality: The 5K run/walk lasts for about 90 minutes. I haven't run outdoors for over 10 years, and s...

The problem: data drudgery.  Our solution: business intelligence tools.  Two business intelligence tools are available for use at the Napa-Solano-Yolo-Marin Public Health Laboratory (NSYM PHL): Power BI and R. I described how the laboratory staff use these tools during my presentation to LabAspire Fellows and their mentors. I'm sharing part of it here.  Context The NSYM PHL processes over 10,000 specimens annually, with more than 75% being environmental specimens (i.e., water samples and ticks). The rest are clinical specimens. Once these specimens are in the laboratory, they undergo three phases of testing: Pre-analytical phase Information about the specimen is derived from the requisition form that comes with it: patient information (i.e., unique identifiers, travel history), submitter (oftentimes the medical facility) information, and sample information (i.e., sample source and type, collection date and time, type of test requested). The information is then entered...

Listening to Steven Bartlett's  Diary of a CEO  episodes on  inflammation  and  herbal medicine  coincided with my exploration of how to improve my vitamin levels. I used to take prenatal multivitamins and then individual vitamin and mineral supplements. I even tried green juices. However, the habit of drinking vitamins and minerals in tablet or capsule form doesn't stick; I didn't like the taste of green juices. As I continued researching, I encountered IM8, a product that claims to contain 92 nutrient-rich ingredients, including vitamins, minerals, superfoods, antioxidants, prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics.  It sounded too good to be true; however, it contains  spore-forming probiotics,  Bacillus subtilis  and  B. coagulans .  This is consistent with what Dr Jamnadas said about what he's personally taking to improve his gut microbiome. Moreover, it promises berry flavours with chocolate undertones; not my favourite fla...

I regularly listen to Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO (DOAC) podcast during my commute to work (it's currently in my driving playlist, along with finance podcasts) and during my solo lunch-time one-mile walks because his discussions with guests are compelling and informative. One of the episodes I listened to featured Dr Pradip Jamnadas , the founder of Aristotle Education LLC. I found this episode interesting because it followed soon after the discussion with Simon Mills on herbal medicine . Simon Mills discussed inflammation and its relationship to the body's immune response. To recap, inflammation occurs when blood vessels become more permeable, allowing white blood cells and other immune system components to leave the blood vessels, enter the injured area of the body, and attack the pathogens causing infections. NSAIDs are not ideal medications because they tend to dampen one's immune response. His treatments of choice are concoctions of different plant materials,...

I have subscribed to Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO (DOAC) after I listened to the episode about feet and barefoot running. I appreciate his inclination to invite scientists to discuss their expertise... these guests are conversational, not overly technical or jargon-filled. For instance, the episode featuring Simon Mills (my favourite so far) was all about phytotherapy. Antibiotic resistance limits the medicines available for treating illnesses. Enter phytotherapy. I've witnessed the alarming effects of antibiotic resistance firsthand while at work. Patients with bacterial infections must be screened for the antibiotic susceptibilities of the causative pathogens so that doctors can determine the most effective treatment.  In the lab, isolates identified as  Mycobacterium tuberculosis  complex  from specimens submitted by the same patient are sent to the California Department of Public Health  every 90 days (based on collection date). This is crucial in a pat...

 You don't quit when it's hard. You quit when it's over. I didn't complete the half-marathon distance in my first Orangetheory Marathon Month attempt , logging only 10.02 miles on the treadmill. I told myself I would refrain from joining these challenges because being so close and yet so far was such a let-down.  The following month, however, I decided to join the DriTri sprint challenge because I couldn't shake off the feeling that I could actually finish this. If the half-marathon is 13.1 miles spread over a month, the DriTri sprint is composed of a 1,000-metre row, 130 reps of bodyweight exercises, and a 1.55-mile treadmill run to be finished within one hour. Crazy for a non-finisher, right? Nevertheless, I took on this challenge. While on the rower, I thought that reaching the distance was easy enough because I started at a good pace. Then fatigue kicked in, about halfway through the rowing portion. I struggled through the rest of the distance as I couldn't...

I've been attending Orangetheory classes every weekend since January. Each class I attend includes a treadmill exercise. In the several months that I have been attending classes, I progressed from power-walking (fastest pace at 3.5 mph) to jogging (fastest pace at 5.0 mph) I decided to join the Marathon Month challenge and run/jog the half-marathon. If I run/jog at least 1.7 miles per class, I'd be able to complete the half-marathon distance. And so I kept signing up for the 2G classes or the Tread 50 classes (i.e., 50-minute treadmill-only workouts).  After the challenge ended, I found out that I had only reached a little over 10 miles. I did not finish the half-marathon. My first reaction was to avoid joining future Orangetheory challenges. As I wallowed in disappointment, I justified not participating by focusing on my primary objective for signing up for classes: improving my overall cardiac health by losing weight, burning fat, and building muscle. I was very disappointe...

Google Scholar has always had this quote on its website. It resonates with me because my scientific work builds upon the products developed by scientists before me. This is why I still marvel at the impact of Miracle Rice (IR8)  in preventing widespread hunger in Asia, and wonder if the work I previously did in improving rice quality made a dent in rice breeding pipelines . My contributions in developing the gastronomic systems research framework, such as the Robinsons Mall auctions  (Quezon City, Philippines) and the expert elicitation workshops (Kolkata and Bhubaneswar, India), helped shape the consumer research angle currently being pursued by IRRI, particularly for gauging the market acceptability of rice varieties that can potentially curb the risk of developing diabetes . My work in applying machine learning tools  to classify rice into quality types  is five years ahead of its time; I now see more people using   big data approaches  to answer incre...

Mycology has always been an interesting subject for me. I am fascinated by the different morphologies of moulds that grow on bread and fruit. During class, I loved to draw the morphologies (see my Mycology notes from my PHM training ). My notes about Zygomycetes I learned that Mucormycetes (or Zygomycetes in the old taxonomy) have coenocytic, aseptate hyphae. The organisms within the Mycormycete group (e.g., Mucor  sp. and Rhizopus sp., and the organisms I had sketched, in the picture above) can be differentiated based on their microscopic morphologies. For example, both  Mucor  sp. and  Rhizopus  sp. have circular to oval sporangia without apophyses. Mucor  sp. is distinguished from Rhizopus sp. by its lack of rhizoids (i.e., roots). Fungi can take on either multicelled forms (e.g., moulds) or single-celled forms (e.g., yeast-like). Some fungi can take on both! Dimorphic fungi, such as Coccidioides sp. and Blastomyces  sp., have been observed in both ...

Shingles Awareness Week 2025 is from February 24 to March 2. I was unaware that such an event existed until—you guessed it—I was diagnosed with shingles during Shingles Awareness Week! The timing is impeccable. Thanks to getting shingles, I am reviewing what I have learned about this condition (in college-level virology and during my PHM training ) in juxtaposition with my experience. What is shingles? Shingles is a disease caused by the Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV). The VZV contains double-stranded DNA, similar to its host (i.e., people). Its replication mechanism is similar to its host, allowing it to use the host's enzymes to multiply. As Dr Jill Hacker (of CDPH's Viral and Rickettsial Diseases Laboratory) said during one of her Virology lectures, VZV (and its cousins in the Herpesviridae family) is a "gift that keeps on giving" because once someone gets it, the virus is with him/her as long as he/she is alive. As it happens, VZV is the same virus that causes chick...

On one of my most recent medical check-ups, my healthcare provider noticed I was getting heavier over time (my BMI isn't what it should be). She said that if we don't start losing weight soon, we'd probably consider taking medications to prevent developing hypertension, diabetes mellitus, heart disease, and other chronic lifestyle-linked conditions. I had reduced my double chocolate frappuccino intake to once or twice a month, but I need to increase my physical activity to help burn fat and build muscle. Thus, I currently take (almost) daily walks during my lunch break and plunged into heart rate zone training and reformer pilates over the weekend.  Heart rate zone training I must increase my heart rate to at least 120 bpm while working out to burn calories. Orangetheory monitors participants' heart rates in each class (through a heart rate monitor on each participant), so this was a good starting point for my weight loss. Each participant rotates among two of three sta...

I seriously need a change in routine. My recent physical exam and lab tests show the consequences of my sedentary lifestyle: I gained weight, my complexion is pasty, and my Vitamin D levels are too low. My medical provider presented a simple solution: increased sunshine exposure and movement. Walking seems like an easy enough exercise to start, but it's challenging to fit into my daily schedule, especially with afternoon daycare pick-ups. I decided to hit two birds with one stone by taking a 15-minute walking break during my lunch period. To keep my walks from becoming boring, I needed the perfect audio gear that keeps me aware of my surroundings while listening to music or podcasts. Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2e The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e headphones quickly became my favourite walking audio gear for my lunchtime walks. On this walk around campus, the weather has started to turn cold and crisp, yet my ears were warm, thanks to these headphones. What I liked about the  Px7 S2e...

A few years ago, I was walking through an exhibit about outbreaks at the Smithsonian Museum. Little did I know that my life (and the whole world) would drastically change because of SARS-CoV-2 (aka COVID-19). Aside from giving birth during the early part of the pandemic (and being indoors most of the time), my career shifted towards public health microbiology . The Smithsonian exhibit about outbreaks featured influenza and how easily it can be transmitted from various animals to humans. A strain called H5N1 is known as avian flu because it is found typically in domestic poultry in Asia. According to the exhibit, this strain is not known to be spread from person to person. Instead, humans usually get it from exposure to sick or dead birds. Epidemiologists are most concerned about H5N1 (or any other strain of avian flu) infecting another animal AND a flu strain from a human infecting the same animal. The flu strains' genetic material may recombine and become a brand-new strain that...

As a public health microbiologist trainee last year, I learned a mnemonic:  D irty  F ingers  B ring  S higella . The first letter in each word helps me remember the different groups of  Shigella , which coincide  with the species names: Shigella d ysenteriae (Group A), S. f lexneri (Group B), S. b oydii (Group C), and S. s onnei (Group D). S. sonnei accounts for a significant proportion of cases in the USA.  This mnemonic came to mind while listening to a presentation on extensively drug-resistant (XDR)  Shigella during the California Association of Public Health Laboratory Directors (CAPHLD) Annual Institute. This bacteria is a big concern for public health professionals in the United States because it is easily spread (mainly) by consuming contaminated food (it only takes 1–100 Shigella cells to get sick with it). It causes both domestically acquired and travel-associated acute inflammatory diarrhoea. Infections with XDR strains are made w...

I have attended conferences where climate change was discussed from a food security angle. Increasing temperatures, drought, excess rain, and flooding would lead to food shortages. Therefore,  climate-smart  food sources must be incorporated into planetary health diets  so that people get their nutritional needs while keeping their impact on the planet at a minimum. During Solano County's Public Health Division-Wide Meeting this year, Mr Jerry Huber (Director, Department of Health and Social Services) and Dr Bela Matyas (Public Health Officer and Deputy Director, Department of Health and Social Services) highlighted the need to talk about climate instability from a public health perspective. This encompasses the associations between public health and clean water, public health and **exotic** disease-bearing vectors, and public health and wildfires, among others. Zooming out of these specific links to public health reveals that climate instability is the underlying common ...

I came across Dr Cielito Habito's opinion piece entitled "Dumb and Dumber?" in the Philippine Daily Inquirer while browsing LinkedIn posts. This article highlighted the Philippines' poor performance in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test measuring selected students' math, reading, and science performance. Because I now work in the public health space, the last portion of this article resonated with me: poor performance attributed to weak cognitive and learning capacity is brought about by malnutrition. The author then mentioned that children's academic performance is closely linked with agriculture (e.g., farm productivity). Dr Habito's article resonates with Solano County's Public Health Leadership meeting agenda before Christmas. During that meeting, I learned (a bit more) about how public health is not just about diseases (being a microbiologist, my focus is disease diagnosis). It also covers maternal and child w...

I didn't write blog posts for a while because I was neck-deep in studying for my Public Health Microbiology (PHM) certification. I underwent a six-month program administered by the California Association of Public Health Laboratory Directors (CAPHLD). The program was a combination of remote and onsite learning activities, including lectures and laboratory work. When my cohort began the program, the instructors warned us that we were undertaking what could very well be one of the most hectic and challenging courses we had ever taken. It was like an M.Sc. in Microbiology but squished into six months of intense training... a boot camp, if you will. We wouldn't survive by being lone wolves; we should study in groups to increase our chances of passing.  I felt like I just entered Survivor or The Hunger Games. The course started with the easy topics: basic knowledge, quality assurance and quality control, statistics, and laboratory safety... then we had our first taste of Microbiolo...