Abstract:
RITMO aims to expand our understanding of rhythm as a fundamental property of human life. As such, we explore why rhythms make us move, why music moves us, and how rhythm is constructed in the human mind. Through an interdisciplinary approach, RITMOers have learned a whole lot about musical rhythms and how they affect us, but we have largely ignored the one basic rhythm on which our lives depend, namely the rhythm of the heartbeat. Ph.d. student Joanna Sulkowska aims to narrow this gap. By evaluating cardiac MRIs with machine learning tools, she investigates how the hearts movement can predict preventable disease, so that vital blood flow to our cells is maintained. Curiously, cells can themselves flow, and through their synchronized motion, they form our internal organs such as our liver and the hearth itself, and ultimately our entire body. To learn more about how cell flows shape early human development, postdoc Joachim Mossige grows artificial human embryos, which he studies in the lab under a microscope. Microscopes are powerful tools, and can even be used to study how our cells respond to musical rhythms, which is the focus of Ph.d. student Dongho Kwak work. Finally, although microscopy images can provide invaluable insight, our eyes are not equipped to distinguish subtle differences in contrast or color. For this, our ears do a much better job and as such, Ph.d. student Bálint Laczkó uses sound to visualize cell metabolism in a technique known as sonification. Through bioRITMO, Joanna, Joachim, Dongho and Bálint seek to unravel the mysteries of cellular life, and the essential role of rhythm.
Bios:
Balint Laczko
Balint Laczko is a researcher, music technologist and composer. His technological background includes audiovisual analysis, computer vision, and interactive systems development. His artistic background includes classical music, electronic music with emphasis on 3D audio and data-driven audiovisual art.
Joachim Mossige
Joachim is an experimental fluid mechanician interested in the motion of cells, drops and molecules. He received his Ph.D. from the Atle Jensen lab at UiO and conducted postdoctoral research in the Fuller lab at Stanford and in the Squires lab at UCSB. He now studies how artificial human embryos grow and develop, and by this, he hopes to learn more about the synchronized motion of cells in living systems.
Dongho Kwak
Dongho Kwak joined the Artificial Biomimetic systems - the Niche of Islet Organoids (ABINO) project in January 2020 as a PhD candidate at RITMO. In this convergence project between RITMO, HTH and CCSE, Dongho's main objective is to create controllable audio stimuli for mechanical/acoustic-base perturbations for stem cell differentiation.
Joanna Sulkowska
Joanna Sulkowska is a radiology resident at Akershus University Hospital and a PhD candidate the University of Oslo. By focusing on motion analysis from cardiac MRIs and aiming at developing machine learning tools for cardiac motion analysis, she is putting both her computational and medical studies to good use. She is affiliated with K.G. Jebsen Centre for Cardiac Biomarkers and with RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion. In her spear time she creates medical drawings and can also be seen on the hill as a capable skier.