Dance: Wild Wild Westie (W3) 2022; brief introduction to WCS events; raw energy of social dance

 Wild Wild Westie (W3) is a West Coast Swing (WCS) event in Dallas, held on July 4th weekend since 2012.

Holding a national-level dance event is a lot of work for organizers; inviting traveling pros as judges and/or as performers/teachers/MCs/DJs, booking hotel with big dance floor(s), mobilizing not a small number of volunteer staff, and above all, needing to attract dancers, so that the event can go on financially. 

In Texas in 2000's, there were big WCS events like Americas Classic in Houston (January) and Dallas Dance in Dallas (Labor Day). They both went belly up in 2010's. No jinxing. 

The W3 basically replaced those events in 2010's, along with Novice Invitational in March.

In 2020-2021, covid shut down all dance events. West Coast Swing communities in this region also took hit from covid. Currently in mid 2022, WCS communities are more or less in recovery phase. 

I had not been to big (3+ days) WCS event for a long time.  As life threat of covid is reduced with vaccination and improvements in other treatments, I felt like going to a big WCS event. I love this dance after all. So I made this July 4th weekend a mini dance vacation. 

I left OKC on Saturday, drove 4 hours, got tested for covid (this event is a covid testing event with vaccine requirement), joined the event in the evening for watching competitions/shows and late night social dance. I spent Sunday for the same, then came back on Monday July 4th. Glad to see familiar faces and to meet new people.

What you see in WCS event:

Big WCS events are usually structured like this; they have leveled competitions for novice (meaning WCS competition novice, not total beginners), intermediate/advanced, and champions. These categories are defined by points each dancer accumulates in WCS contests. Winning/higher placements gives you more points at a time. Levels are aligned from amateur contests to more interesting/show-worthy contests. 

The point system is not exactly the ideal system, as it assumes dancers' current levels are proportional to points (it is not. But it may make sense to encourage personal engagement and growth). As such, point system can work as a barrier to established dancers like professional dancers in other dances. But a better system is hard to find.  

To some, WCS points are brownie points. To others, the points are tangible awards for their efforts, sum of good memories, and/or something that may come with perks. 

If you are committing to WCS contests, read the rules, practice the dance and sign up.

I digress. Competition categories include Jack and Jill, Strictly Swing, Pro-Am, and Routine ("Classic" and "Showcase" defined by lifts/drops/non-swing dance moves allowance). They are also categorized by dancers ages, from junior to sophisticated (age 35+) and masters (+50).

In addition, there are workshops and classes. They can teach many subjects; patterns, drills, contest mindsets, choreographed moves, connection, etc.

And social dances in between the contests and in late night. This social dance hours are for all, both for active contestants and for "just dance and have fun" people, who may or may not be former contestants or otherwise very good dancers. 

Good thing about social dance is that people don't care about titles. Sure, the way they dance gives away who are (likely) pros and who are not. But asking dance is a lot simpler in WCS than, say, Cabeceo ritual of Tango.

Now, a note on dance levels. I am talking from a spectator's standpoint here.

Some dances are clearly divided to (a) stage dance by pros and to (b) dance by amateurs, like ballet, jazz/contemporary, and ballroom. Pro performers in these dances are (or they better be), convincingly professional performers, even to layman's eyes. These stage dancers with "trained" look make Broadway shows and National TV-level stage shows.

Argentine Tango and WCS were born from social dance. In 110+ years of history, AT went through this pro/am separation. Someone in a book "Tango Tips" described stage AT performance as "professional deformation". I laughed, but true, what pros do on stage shows is so far apart from the hug and walk, what social Tango dancers do on social dance floor.

WCS is younger and is still going through this pro-am separation. Some (few) dancers are polished to the level of Broadway shows. Most are not.

"Most are not", but in general, followers (usually women) are better dancers in WCS, same with Argentine Tango. 

Perhaps it is due to the differences in the lead/follow roles. Leaders' primary job is support, then lead, then dance and look good, in this order. Refining dances and becoming appealing dancers are late in the agenda for leaders. Alpha-male type dancer-leader are rare and far in between.

Followers' primary job is to "follow and dance and look good", at the same time. In contests, they hardly survive without some form of appeal. They are better, because the selection is tougher? Maybe.

As followers are better dancers, it can show in the dance. Sometimes it looks like "one-woman show", when follower being strong dancer and the lead focusing on his support role. Each couple, especially leader, needs to think how they can create nice dance. 

Note on Lead and Follow roles:

Which is tougher, follow or lead? It is up to you to decide. And you can literally decide after you try them both. In the W3, there were lots of dancers with "switch roles", and even a class for that. I usually lead, but can follow and dance. I can tell you, following is lots of physical work, as the main "moving parts" is the follower in WCS. 

After all, WCS is a swing dance, and swing motion has both slow and fast aspects. WCS dancers usually use "slow" time for anchor and play, and use "fast" time for smooth moving to create the mix of slow/fast (swing) motions. Leader tends to stay in the middle playing the role of support and visual center point, and follower moves around like the swinging seat.

Speaking of physical work, in fact, you can see much faster speed of energy flow in higher level WCS dancers than, say, novice and masters. Having quick feet and fast response time is an indicator as advanced (or younger) WCS dancers. There is no immediate cure to fix immobile or all slow follower in WCS. Overall smoothness and the swing motion cannot be achieved without both partners bringing knowledge and physical ability to the dance floor. 

On social dance:

I did late night dance for two nights (seriously, after such a long time). I do not always like late night dance, because in late night dance people tend to lose concentration and go to autopilot mode. Crèche moves with overactive frame can be the norm.

But the late night dance floor was filled with raw energy. After these years including covid. What fun it was.

I did lots of watching as well. The social dance may not always look polished. But who cares. Something interesting is coming out of all these energy and experiments. WCS is alive and well there. I love it.

I hope WCS communities come back from covid disruption soon, safe and sound.

PS  Covid variant is on the rise again and there were reports of tested-positive at the event. They went to immediate quarantine and masking. I checked myself yesterday and was negative. We'd have to deal with covid like this for some time.

Science: "Cancer disappeared!" news on early June 2022 (cancer journal club in the lab)

 A few weeks ago, many major news outlets reported this news, sensationally titled "cancer disappeared!".

The news was based on a report on New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), published on 6/5/2022. The journal is highly regarded.

Link to the paper.  https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2201445

We picked up the paper for our journal club in the lab.

Background. 

(a) Immunotherapy reagent (PD1 blocker) has shown success in various cancers, including metastatic (stage 4) colorectal cancer. 

(b) PD1 blocker indicated particularly good efficacy on a subset of cancers with mismatch-repair deficient characteristic.

(c) Standard colorectal cancer therapy is initial treatment with chemotherapy drugs (combination of DNA damaging drugs such as fluoropyrimidine and platinum compound oxaliplatin), followed by chemoradio therapy then surgery. 

(d) But the response rate for the standard therapy is up to 25%. The current therapy comes with complications, toxicity and fertility challenge. Much to be desired.

In the report, the group in Sloan Kettering Memorial Cancer Center hypothesized that single reagent PD1 blocker could be effective in patients with mismatch-repair deficient, localized (stage 2 and 3) rectal cancers.

They enrolled 16 patients with mismatch repair-deficient rectal cancer and stated treatment with PD1 blocker every 3 weeks for 6 months.

 In the planning, (Plan A) if the single drug treatment work, no chemo or surgery, and (Plan B) the PD1 blocker treatment should be followed by chemoradiotherapy then surgery (=standard therapy).

They monitored the cancer at the start, 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months. 

Amazingly, the cancer literally "disappeared" in 100% of 12 patients who went through the 6 months treatment of PD1 blocker. 

In all clinical monitoring parameters (imaging analyses with MRI, PET, endoscopy, digital examination, histopathological analyses on biopsy samples), rectal cancers were not seen. They did not even have to pull out the Plan B/follow up with chemoradio therapy then surgery.

If we point out something cautionary and less rosy, 

(i) mismatch repair-deficient colorectal cancers are about 5-10% of colorectal cancers. 

(ii) This is a phase2 trial with small size of white patients in single institute. 

(iii) If the cancer ever comes back or not in a long term remains to be seen.

(iv) They did not talk about the cost, but PD1 blockers are not cheap. 

Yet, the way cancer disappeared with only mild to moderate side effects if any was indeed newsworthy.

Cancer is a collection of many diseases. They reported a very effective way to deal with mismatch repair-deficient, stage 2/3 rectal cancers. Highly promising.

Cancer is "cured" like this. You can call it a trench warfare. By conquering one type of cancer at a time, we'd eventually have effective ways to "cure" many other types of cancers.

[For non-medical practitioners. gross alert]

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x

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[Figure 1A from the paper. An example of "cancer disappearance" over time]

Life: Active shooter safety training 6/23/22

 Our Cancer Center was mandating active shooter safety training for the staff. 

This training was announced after a school shooting incident on 5/24/2022 in Uvalde Texas. With some mis-judgements and confusion causing delay in rescue attempt by the police, the incidence left 19 elementary school kids and 2 teachers dead. The shooter was killed, which offers a sliver of solace in the terrible incident.

There was another incident in Tulsa, OK, which was a shooting in hospital on 6/1/2022. A disgruntled and resentful patient shot and killed four people. Three were hospital staff including the patient's surgeon, and one was a "wrong place wrong time" bystander. In this case, the police acted quickly and the shooter killed himself before more harm was done.

In such emergencies, response can make a difference.

I attended a training session today. Campus police chief gave a well-organized 1 hour talk with a short video, "Run, Hide, Fight". As the short video summarizes the message well, I link it here.

  ["Run, Hide, Fight" posted by Ready Houston. Nicely educational.]

Active shooter situations have occurred in schools, hospitals, churches, shopping malls, movie theaters, restaurants, concerts, even in a military base. It happened in many public places, and not only in a "soft" target. 

Sickening, but it is the reality of 2022 America.

Training needs to be implemented, although I'd rather not be in an active shooter situation that forces me to use the training. 

Following the training, I checked out exits around the lab and the office to "run". Also checked out if there are suitable rooms/places to "hide". To "fight" with improvised weapons,.....there is a fire extinguisher right outside of office, maybe pens and scissors (look pathetic), some notebooks and magazines for light emergency body armor and....maybe this marble tiger from Pakistan? Ugh.

Seriously, I don't fancy throwing a bottle of sulfuric acid or hydrochloric acid in the lab. Might work better than a pen, though.

My worksite is a cross between school and hospital. School teachers and medical staff will have it tougher, as they may have to look after young students or immobile patients. 

Heck, I'd really hate it if I were in the situation.

Science: Innovation in medical science...what does it mean?

 The word "innovation" is highly regarded. But what does "innovation" really mean in medical science?

Check out Shark Tank or something. 

We have seen a bunch of stuff trying to sell themselves as innovative, but did not fly. We have seen "innovation" for the sake of novelty, but nobody picked it up. (Come to think of it, they still can be good niche products for the fans. But the word "innovation" implies broad and big coverage). Perhaps, the notion of "innovation" is not understood correctly, not defined properly, or is just overrated?

In a government grant section, we scientists need to explain "innovation" of our research project. That made me think what innovation really means.

If we look back in the history, innovations were Dynamite, T-ford car, Walkman (Sony), ipod (Apple), Penicillin, guns, smartphone, vaccination, etc. 

mRNA vaccine is a major improvement in vaccination. You can debate if mRNA vaccine counts as a true "innovation".

Common to all "innovation" is that they all changed previous ways, status quo at the time, to a new way while solving problems with old ways. Innovations change our ways of doing things.

It sounds like talking from the result, I know. But in retrospect many innovations look like well-designed from the beginning, even if they actually were products of serendipity.

When I apply this notion of "innovation" to science, to be innovative, outcomes of our medical research should change current medical practice for the better in a big way.

I've worked in cancer chemoprevention research field for 15 years and have developed some familiarity in the field. There are many chemicals, dietary compounds, etc, that actually can reduce cancers in animals and likely in humans.

But the body of knowledge has not been fully translated to current medical practice. In fact, cancer prevention is rather poorly practiced. We are only beginning to test the approach on a small segment of patients with well-defined genetic cancer-predisposition (like Lynch syndrome with known genetic mutation that will increase colon cancer risk), or well-defined high risk factor (like pancreatitis for developing pancreatic cancer).

In these cases, applying cancer prevention measures by itself is innovation, compared with current practice of preemptive surgical removal of colon (which comes with likely QOL decrease) or of careful monitoring and doing nothing.

Anyhow, to define innovation, we need to know current medical practice. Then we need to apply our science and research to improve current practice for the better (hopefully in a big way).

Sure, "innovative" research tools like cancer genome sequencer have changed medical practice. The sequencer enabled oncology clinicians to identify gene mutations that are likely driving the cancer, so that the clinicians can pick a promising drug. Yet, clinicians changed their ways as users of the new tools. 

Basic researchers need to think what will bring next innovation and what will be accepted/useful to the users. 

True, many Nobel prize-level discoveries were ahead of time and had a long time collecting dust on the shelf before new users recognized the value and made them to innovation. Yet, we may need to keep putting forth the best designed outcomes.