Five Questions

H a n n a h Ze av i n , B e r ke l ey L e c t u re r a n d Au t ho r o f

T h e D i s t a n c e C u re

Your new book is about teletherapy, which has become more commonplace during the pandemic. Tell us how you define the subject.

I decided to use the most broad idea of teletherapy, thinking about what “tele” means, which is “at-distance.” I incorporate letter writing, the advice column, and broadcast radio. But of course, things like telephone, email, FaceTime, Zoom—all of that would be teletherapy. The case I start with is Freud, who worked via letter with many people and had a full-blown analysis with a five-year-old boy who was agoraphobic. He wouldn’t leave the house. So the father (a student of Freud’s), Freud, and the little boy all worked together via post—and it helped.

What is the best argument for the current forms of teletherapy, compared to an in-person model?

The best argument is that teletherapy will disrupt, à la Silicon Valley, and fix what is wrong with mental health care. But of course, it’s much more complicated than that. And, across its long history, teletherapy has been escorted by a democratizing promise, that it’s for everyone who doesn’t have access to mental health care. T h e p r o b l e m i s, t h e way t e l et h e r a py i s o f t e n deployed now is as a replacement for in-person therapy. And it’s not because of the pandemic, but because of the appification of mental health care, which promises “therapy ” for all but doesn’t fix the access problems. Not really.

Do you think the moral panic around teletherapy is valid?

It’s like any moral panic around technology—that it’s ruining our most intimate relationships.

A lot of these apps are not supplying care that is either deep, nor for people who otherwise wouldn’t receive treatment. People who evangelize contemporary teletherapy argue that they do those things, but they don’t. That doesn’t mean no one’s ever had a successful interaction. And it doesn’t mean that some therapists don’t love it.

A central claim of the book is to remind readers that distance is not the opposite of presence—absence is. But it would be really disappointing if teletherapy became only synonymous with corporate apps.

Can you talk about the history of teletherapy in the Bay Area?

The suicide hotline was first pioneered by an Anglican priest named Chad Varah who saw that mental health crises in his parish often had to do with questions that people couldn’t ask—not even in a confessional. He realized they needed the protective qualities of anonymity and distance. In the United States, the hotline idea got imported to the Bay Area in the late ’50s, early ’60s, run by Bruce Mayes. He advertised on the inside flap of matchbooks: “Thinking of ending it all? Call Bruce.” He sends a bat signal, if you will, that it is a queer-friendly, queer-run hotline. This was the moment of the Lavender Scare and raids on the gay bars of San Francisco. At the time, San Francisco had the highest per capita suicide rate in the world outside of West Berlin.

Mayes wouldn’t allow any trained social workers or psychiatrists to work the hotline because he believed those disciplines carried such intense judgment about queerness and suicide. He didn’t feel this way. He wanted to help people who wanted to be helped, but not punish or criminalize those who didn’t. So he starts this hotline, and the suicide rate in San Francisco cuts in half within one year.

Now that the pandemic is easing, will we see a return to more inperson therapy? If not, what have we lost?

We know that what we license in an emergency often sticks with us on the other side, and we need to be really careful. Is it only good that we can now do therapy sessions on FaceTime, or is there a cost—and is the cost privacy?

FROM THE MICROPLASTICS LEACHING FROM OUR laundry to the Styrofoam swirling in the Pacific garbage patch, it seems the world is awash in plastic waste. While we have struggled and failed to wean ourselves off plastics, Berkeley scientists are working hard to address the problem by making polymers that are more readily recyclable and biodegradable.

Our plastic crisis stems heavily from the limitations of the recycling technology we use, as well as the materials our plastics are made of. According to the EPA, less than 10 percent of plastic discarded in the United States in 2018 was recycled. And of the seven types of conventional plastics currently enumerated in the resin identification label (the chasing-arrows icon stamped on our products), only two are actually recyclable. Even those lose so much of their quality in the process that they can rarely be recycled more than once.

Enter poly(diketoenamine), or PDK, a new material that promises to be endlessly recyclable. The breakthrough discovery came in 2017, when a team of scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory led by Brett Helms, Ph.D. ’06, noticed, while cleaning glassware, that PDK broke down to a snow globe-like flurry of dispersed solids, depolymerizing back to its original monomers, the basic building blocks of plastic. The process, known as chemical recycling, had produced

Telegraph m o n o m e r s t h a t w e r e g o o d a s n e w a n d could be re-polymerized into new material with no loss in quality.

W h i l e t h e t e a m e n t h u s i a s t i c a l l y announced the new material in 2019, major questions over the costs and logistics of introducing PDKs to the market remained.

In April, a team led by Helms, Corinne Scown, Ph.D. ’10, Jay Keasling, and Kristin Persson published a study demonstrating how PDK plastics could be produced at scale and made commercially viable. For now, the ideal application for PDK is manufacturing, where material can be reclaimed and recycled without passing through a conventional sorting facility. Think large products like furniture and automotive parts. But Helms hopes to see consumer products, such as shoes and glasses frames, being made from PDK in the near future.

A n o t h e r a l t e r n a t i v e t o t r a d i t i o n a l petroleum-based plastic are biodegradable materials. But they have two major problems. First, they are often indistinguishable from single-use plastics and, if not properly sorted, can contaminate recyclable plastics. Also, it can take months for the material to decompose in industrial-scale composting facilities. Even decomposed, biodegradables can form microplastics that contaminate the ocean and infiltrate the food chain.

Better biodegradables are on the way, h ow e ve r. A n e w p r o c e s s d e ve l o p e d by Berkeley scientists uses a polyester-eating enzyme to break down plastics quickly in a standard compost bin. An April study coauthored by Ting Xu and Scown showed how, in a matter of days or weeks, heat, soil, and water successfully release the enzymes, which are trapped in the polymer at room temperature. These enzymes reduce the plastic to monomers, which soil microbes then feed on. Not only is the process fast and inexpensive, it also eliminates microplastics.

Still, challenges remain. Organic farme r s, f o r e x a m p l e , “ a r e n ot t e c h n i c a l l y a l l ow e d t o u s e c o m p o st t h a t i n c l u d e s compostable plastics, no matter how thoroughly they have broken down,” Scown explains. She adds that, ultimately, “there is no silver bullet to solving the plastic waste crisis; because plastics are used for different applications, all with different properties, it would be nearly impossible to develop one special polymer that works for everything.”

In the end, she says, “reducing consumption is one of the most powerful tools we have.”

Happening at Berkeley

As UC Berkeley gradually returns to live, in-person events, we’ve rounded up a few recommendations for the fall. On Campus

Reunion and Parents Weekend at Homecoming Berkeley’s annual celebration kicks off October 1 with a slate of spirit events, lectures, a 5K, and more. homecoming.berkeley.edu Cal Football Tailgates Celebrate the return of Cal football in classic pre-game style. Special events include Young Alumni and Big Game tailgates. alumni.berkeley.edu/tailgates

Volunteer Awards Honor the alumni and friends who serve the Berkeley community. awards.berkeley.edu

Places and Spaces

Manual Cinema’s Frankenstein Cal Performances’ production mesmerized its virtual audience last fall. Live viewers can enjoy the “gripping gothic tale” on October 31. calperformances.org

UC Botanical Garden Visitors can once again enjoy the 34-acre garden and its more than 10,000 types of plants in person. (CAA members save 15% on garden memberships.) botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu

Virtual and On-Demand

BAMPFA The iconic art space celebrates the Pacific Film Archive’s 50th anniversary this year. Catch one of the multimedia exhibits, which include textile art by Berkeley fiber artist Kay Sekimachi, or a free film on the outdoor screen. bampfa.org

Race and Climate Change Professors Dan Kammen and Sarah E. Vaughn in candid conversation about how climate change and racial justice converge—and where solutions might lie. alumni.berkeley.edu/raceandclimate

UC Alumni Career Network Join UC-system alumni for career-growth topics including non-tech jobs in tech and personal financial management. universityofcalifornia.edu

Further Afield

Alumni Making a Difference Can we use greater-good concepts like gratitude and service to heal from the past years’ collective unrest? This series explores how we use our experiences to make a difference for the future. alumni.berkeley.edu/difference

Berkeley China Summit Founded by alumni in 2016, this annual conference encourages collaboration between the US and China. Past guests include Nobel laureates and global entrepreneurs. berkeleychinasummit.org

Historical Baseball Tour Go behind the scenes of America’s National Pastime as you visit Cooperstown and catch games at Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. alumni.berkeley.edu/baseball

For the latest alumni events: alumni.berkeley.edu/events.

Gleanings

T he T B F i g h t e r

GROWING UP IN BURUNDI AND CAMEROON, Dr. Mireille Kamar i z a , M . A . ’ 1 5 , d r e a m e d o f becoming an astronaut.

“I had a g eneral curiosity towards nature,” says Kamariza. “I was particularly intrigued by the sky and the stars and the vastness of space. As a result, I had a fondness for science classes.”

“As I got older,” she continues, “I refined my interests to more-realistic dreams. Medicine looked like a viable path, but I never considered research as a potential career since I had never seen a Black woman scientist.”

Kamariza, who moved to the United States at age 17, completed her bachelor’s at UC San Diego before earning her master’s at Berkeley and, finally, her Ph.D. at Stanford, where she developed her technology for the rapid diagnosis of TB. She is now a junior fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University and co-founder of OliLux Biosciences, Inc.

Kamariza’s innovation uses a novel molecule she developed that essentially lights up TB bacteria, making the pathogen fluorescent. As explained in the Harvard Gazette, “researchers only need a microscope and a reagent to see that tuberculosis is present and alive” in a patient’s blood sample.

“Not only is it simpler to use [and] faster to use, but it also can tell you whether the pathogen you have is drug resistant and even what kind of resistance you have,” she told PBS NewsHour in May. For Kamariza, the fight against TB is personal. “I grew up knowing that tuberculosis is a disease that you could die from,” she said. “And it’s a disease that is prevalent in my community.”

According to the World Health Organization, some 10 million people fell ill with TB in 2019 and 1.4 million died, making it “one of the top 10 causes of death and the leading cause from a single infectious agent (above HIV/AIDS)” worldwide.

To save lives from TB, detection is critical. Between 2000 and 2019, an estimated 60 million lives were saved by diagnosis and treatment. But historically, diagnostic tests for TB haven’t been adequate and/or available to those most in need.

Kamariza’s technology is currently undergoing clinical trials. She hopes that it can reach communities in need as soon as possible—but progress has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the meantime, Kamariza hopes her story can inspire aspiring scientists.

Her message for young minds? “Dream big and work hard!” she says. “Someone once told me success is 90 percent hard work, 9 percent luck, and 0.9 percent madness. It takes a little bit of thinking out of the box in order to achieve something new.” “Delta is a lightning strike and loosening restrictions is the wind.” UC Irvine public health professor Andrew Noymer, Ph.D. ’06, quoted in the “California Today” newsletter of the New York Times, on August 4, 2021, amid a sharp uptick in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state

Academese

Meme Surely, you’ve heard of memes, the viral images and accompanying text that get shared ad nauseum online (shout-out to Kermit the Frog *sipping his tea*). But did you know where the word “meme” originated? According to Britannica, credit goes to British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who minted the neologism in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, to denote a “unit of cultural information spread by imitation.” “Meme” is derived from the Greek word mimēma, meaning “that which is imitated.” Dawkins rendered it monosyllabic to sound “a bit like ‘gene.’”

Anti-Proverb You know what they say: “Absence makes the heart go wander.” And, “Where there’s a will, there’s a lawsuit.” Okay, maybe you’ve heard the “correct” endings to these phrases—but you can’t deny it, the changes were kind of funny. Meet the anti-proverb, which University of Vermont professor Wolfgang Mieder, who coined the term in 1982, defines as “parodied, twisted, or fractured proverbs that reveal humorous or satirical speech play with traditional proverbial wisdom.” You can’t say that again.

Snowclone Now, let’s have a look at snowclones. According to the Collins Dictionary, a snowclone is a sentence formula that is “adapted for reuse by changing only a few words so that the allusion to the original phrase remains clear.” Popular examples include “To X, or not to X” and “X is the new Y.” Substitute for X and Y and you can Mad Lib your own anti-proverbs. The term, invented by economist Glen Whitman, was inspired by the journalistic cliché about all the words the Inuit reputedly have for snow. Of course, “snowclone” is also a pun on “snowcone,” making it doubly clever.

—W.G.P.