A note from Blog Master, Ann Raddant:
This post wraps up our series of posts looking back at the 2019 Annual Conference. If you missed any of the earlier posts, be sure to go back and give them a read. It’s almost like being back in Portland! Thanks again to all of the authors who contributed a post in this series: Meghan Moran, Bridgit Goldman, Andrew Russo, and the authors for the current post, Kevin Flaherty and Valerie Kramer. This post offers a glimpse into the first-timer experience from two participants. If you’ve never been to a HAPS meeting, I hope this post inspired you to make it happen to 2020!

HAPS member, Kevin Flaherty:
Like many of you, what I did on my summer vacation was to attend the annual HAPS meeting in Portland, OR. This was my first experience of a HAPS meeting, and what follows is my first timer’s experience of the event.

I loved it. My experience at HAPS provided me with several unique experiences that I want to bring into the other societies I belong to. One of the first unique experiences of HAPS was that I already had an idea of how the meeting worked and what the culture was like because of the A&P Professor podcast, which is sponsored by HAPS. The podcast’s host, Kevin Patton, did an episode specifically about the HAPS conference, which I found really helpful as I was preparing to go.

Another unique aspect of the HAPS meeting is the first timer breakfast. First-time attendees not only get a free meal, they also get to meet many senior members of HAPS, including the former presidents of the organization. Each table has a senior HAPS member stationed at it so that in addition to getting to meet other people who are attending the meeting for the first time, you also get to meet folks who have been around the academic block.

The Thursday talks were fascinating. I volunteered to be a Twitter correspondent for HAPS, and I found it to be a neat way to involve myself. The first talk I attended was Meghan Moran’s discussion of the relationship between the microbiome and bone. While I don’t want to recapitulate the talks here (my Twitter feed @kvflaherty has blow-by-blow accounts of all the talks I went to), I will say that this talk included my favorite line of the conference, when Dr. Moran lost her train of thought and said, “I forgot what I was going to say…it was really good though.”

On Saturday, I got my chance to contribute to the meeting. My former student, Ben Karger, and I have been researching the utility of virtual reality in anatomy education, so we hosted a workshop on VR and how it might be used in an anatomy classroom. I came away from the workshop feeling good about the level of interest in my research and excited to provide updates as my research continues.  

These moments were the ones that I really felt made HAPS for me. Every time I entered a room full of people, I instantly met people that I felt very comfortable conversing with.  Everything is easy-breezy at HAPS, even for us introverts. I’m not sure what happens behind the scenes to produce this sort of culture, but the product is a meeting that feels very welcoming.

McGraw Hill A&P Marketing Manager, Valerie Kramer:
While planning for the 2019 HAPS Conference, I knew there would be a lot to learn, presentations to give, and an exciting opportunity to meet new people and customers. What I didn’t know is that I’d leave with a conference experience like none I have experienced before. I didn’t just leave with business cards and a to-do list, I left with new friends and even more respect for those in the HAPS organization and the incredible instructors the organization serves.

 As a marketing manager for McGraw-Hill, I am responsible for hearing the needs of instructors and sharing those with our product team, then working with the product team to create the solutions instructors need for a successful experience in their course. Along with that important duty, which I believe is the most important, I get to spread the word about McGraw-Hill’s solutions in various ways, including email campaigns, on-campus relationships and presentations, and conferences like HAPS. Although marketing and conferences are not new to me, higher education has only been my work home for about two years and I’m absolutely in love. I began working with microbiology and nutrition, and recently moved into the best discipline—A&P! (Shhh… Don’t tell microbiology and nutrition instructors. They are pretty fabulous too.)

All this said, the HAPS Conference is not like any other trade show or conference, it’s unique. Why? Attendees WANT to be there! It’s a special time for instructors to bond and share similar stories and challenges. It’s a place where they can relax, laugh, and have fun in the comfort of those that share the same experiences! It’s a breath of fresh air as instructors finish their spring semesters and get re-energized for the coming year. It’s a place where learning happens and ideas flourish. A meeting of the minds I like to say, but most of all what I experienced was that HAPS is built on friends that motivate and inspire one other for the success of something bigger—their students and the future generations of educators, nurses and citizens.

Can’t wait to see the passionate instructors and meet new faces at the 2020 HAPS in Canada!

Kevin Flaherty is a visiting assistant professor teaching anatomy and neuroanatomy in the Biology Department at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL. He received his PhD in Anthropology from Penn State in 2018. His primary research interests are craniofacial development, particularly developmental disorders such as craniosynostosis, and the use of 3D visualization technology in anatomy education. In his free time, he enjoys running, playing video and board games, playing fantasy football, and spending time with his wife and two daughters.

Valerie Kramer is the Anatomy & Physiology Marketing Manager for McGraw-Hill. With a passion for education and the life sciences, she is responsible for assisting in the development of and bringing to market innovative tools to help instructors and students succeed in the Human Anatomy, Human Physiology, and Anatomy and Physiology courses of higher education. At McGraw-Hill, she shares insights on the pulse of Anatomy & Physiology through her ‘Succeed in A&P’ podcast and recently helped bring the new interface of Anatomy & Physiology Revealed (APR) and Connect® Virtual Labs products to market.

Outside the office, she is committed to her local community and family as a volunteer for Dubuque Main Street, a development non-profit. She also enjoys fitness, traveling, and spending time with her husband and goldendoodle. 

Hi HAPsters,

I am happy to be writing a follow-up on the work I presented to you at the HAPS meeting in Portland, OR in May 2019. To briefly recap, I use an in vivo rat model of osteolysis to understand the mechanisms driving implant loosening. After bilateral intramedullary implants are placed, weekly injections of particles are administered to each knee joint. These particles are either LPS-doped polyethylene (LPS-PE) or cobalt-chromium (CoCr); two materials common to orthopedic implants. I discovered that the particle challenge in this model is associated with pro-inflammatory alterations in the gut microbiome as shown at the phylum level.

Fecal Firmicutes / Bacteroidetes ratio at the phylum level (1-way ANOVA p = 0.0282).

I also confirmed histologically that macrophage presence in the synovium is dependent upon particle challenge. Liver histology, which was read blindly by a veterinary pathologist, showed differential presence/absence of inflammation with particle treatment (p = 0.013, chi-square). Thus, we know there is inflammation local to the knee joint and remote in the liver; however, it is not currently clear if the liver effects precede, were secondary to, or were simply coincident with changes in the gut microbiome.

In a recently completed probiotic treatment experiment, I aimed to induce osteolysis using CoCr particles and then prevent implant loosening with a probiotic treatment of Lactobacillus reuteri. L. reuteri has been shown to decrease gut inflammation and increase bone density, prevent bone loss following ovariectomy and prevent bone loss post-antibiotic treatment in mice[1-4]. Plus, this probiotic has been shown to reduce age-related bone loss in a placebo-controlled double-blind clinical trial in humans[5]. Therefore, from the literature, this probiotic seemed to be a good candidate to dampen implant loosening from peri-implant bone loss. However, I found that the probiotic treatment did not change the gut microbiome and did not affect the implant microenvironment in Sprague-Dawley rats. From the microbiome analysis, I now know that S-D rats have an already high abundance of L.reuteri in their colon. A few possible reasons for the lack of probiotic effect in my model are: 1) there was no ‘niche’ in the gut for MORE L. reuteri to settle into, 2) the dose I administered was too low and/or 3) my probiotic was not viable. On another note, I have also learned that when I do not induce a change in the peri-implant bone (because sometimes our model does not ‘behave’), then the gut microbiome is unaffected. Together, our data still support the interaction between alterations in the gut microbiome and peri-implant bone loss following particle challenge.

Bidirectional gut-implant microenvironment cycle.

Don’t give up on the probiotics! The above-cited literature tells us this bacteria increases bone! Just because I did not get it to work in my model on the first try does not mean all hope is lost. I plan to revisit L. reuteri treatment in an upcoming experiment (after I complete a dose-response study) that will also include a prebiotic (high fiber ‘food’ for the bacteria already in the gut) treatment. Currently, I’m pursuing local inflammatory gene expression in the synovium and peri-implant tissue to determine if there is local upregulation and I plan to expand this to remote gene expression in the colon.

References

1. Britton RA, Irwin R, Quach D, Schaefer L, Zhang J, Lee T, Parameswaran N, McCabe LR. Probiotic L. reuteri treatment prevents bone loss in a menopausal ovariectomized mouse model. J Cell Physiol 229(11): 1822, 2014
2. McCabe LR, Irwin R, Schaefer L, Britton RA. Probiotic use decreases intestinal inflammation and increases bone density in healthy male but not female mice. J Cell Physiol 228(8): 1793, 2013
3. Schepper JD, Collins FL, Rios-Arce ND, Raehtz S, Schaefer L, Gardinier JD, Britton RA, Parameswaran N, McCabe LR. Probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri Prevents Postantibiotic Bone Loss by Reducing Intestinal Dysbiosis and Preventing Barrier Disruption. J Bone Miner Res 34(4): 681, 2019
4. Collins FL, Rios-Arce ND, Schepper JD, Jones AD, Schaefer L, Britton RA, McCabe LR, Parameswaran N. Beneficial effects of Lactobacillus reuteri 6475 on bone density in male mice is dependent on lymphocytes. Sci Rep 9(1): 14708, 2019
5. Nilsson AG, Sundh D, Backhed F, Lorentzon M. Lactobacillus reuteri reduces bone loss in older women with low bone mineral density: a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, clinical trial. J Intern Med 284(3): 307, 2018

Dr. Moran is an Assistant Professor at Rush University Medical Center (RUMC) in the Department of Cell & Molecular Medicine in Chicago, IL. She conducts basic and translational research to understand the connection between the gut and bone. She uses a pre-clinical model of aseptic peri-implant osteolysis, which is bone loss around an implant, which is triggered by inflammation. This model mimics the osteolytic condition in humans with failed implants. Her goal is to understand the connection between the gut and bone to ultimately identify novel, non-invasive means to delay or mitigate implant loosening and the resulting invasive implant revision surgery by targeting the gut. Dr. Moran also taught human gross anatomy for 10 years to first-year medical students and physical therapy students.

The first breath.

The downbeat.

Music surrounds me.

I am happy.

I smile at my memory of singing in a choir.

I grew up oscillating between playing the piano and taking apart human anatomical models, so I was thrilled when 2019 HAPS speaker Lawrence Sherman, from Oregon Health & Science University, brought together my two favorite worlds: science and music.

The MRI scans of active music-making were fascinating. Dr. Sherman showed how the same parts of the brain are activated when one is learning new music, regardless of ability. Another scan showed an improvising jazz pianist which displayed that several parts of the brain turn off during this intense activity. He went on to explain exciting research on how music can stimulate neurogenesis

As Dr. Sherman led us through this data, my thoughts drifted to my own experiences as a musical performer. As a young adult, I had the privilege of singing with The Canticum Novum Singers; a New York City based chorus under the direction of Harold Rosenbaum. In one particular performance when we sang  Arnold Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden, I experienced my anatomy in a surreal way:

We were on the stage at Lincoln Center looking out to a full house. My black binder filled with music was held high and my eyes were focused on the Maestro. The first breath. The down beat. Music surrounded me; beautiful voices, harmonies, the breath of my fellow singers… then something changed.

As I continued to sing, I felt myself as a beating heart in a body like no other. I was connected by vibrational blood vessels to the singers around me and to my conductor, who was our new nervous system, his motions telling us how fast/slow/loud/soft to sing. A powerful and unique energy field united us in song. The music on the page, a series of dots and lines, were as a genetic code, expressed by each musician and understood as we transcribed and translated our individual parts into a phenotype of beauty surrounding us and extending out to the audience.

In those moments I was a living being greater than myself. A being connected through the power of musical vibration.

Thunderous applause brought me back to myself, but the experience has always remained with me. If a scientist had analyzed my brain during that experience, what would my MRI scan have looked like in those moments? 

When we create music with a group, perhaps vibrational waves sum together and create a force grander than our own.  For many cultures, group singing is a common practice. The vibrations, tones and rhythms strengthen community and embody the musical history and evolution of humans in a way that an MRI scan can only begin to image. 

HAPS gives us another way to connect. Like singing in a choir, working and helping each other solve problems through HAPS brings us together and reminds us that no matter where we are, we have a community of professors ready to help us and connect us so that we can grow in our field.

Dr. Sherman’s talk inspired me to learn new piano music when I returned home. But more importantly, he reminded us all how music can increase neuroplasticity and ignite feelings of camaraderie. He gave us something truly special when he had the audience of his lecture stand up and sing those lovely notes from The Beatles’ Hey Jude. He bonded us not only through being at the HAPS annual meeting, but through the power of music. We vibrated together beyond our anatomy. 

We can strengthen that bond through continuing to reach out to each other in the myriad ways HAPS has to support us. I hope we can all sing together again at HAPS in Ottawa, 2020. Until then, we can hum the Beatles tune we all sang together, “nah—nah—nah, nah nah nah…”

Bridgit Goldman has been teaching college-level biology since 1998.  She has a Ph.D. in Cellular, Molecular, and Developmental Biology from The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York. Since 2007 she has designed, developed and taught all the lecture and laboratory classes in Human Anatomy and Physiology at Siena College in Loudonville, NY.