August 1, 2016 — Adam Summers used to trade Snickers bars to get free CT scans of dead fish.
He likes fish. A lot.
Summers is a professor at the University of Washington in the biology department and School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences.
“I’ve always been a fish guy,” he says. “It’s just been in my blood since I was as small as I can remember.” Summers was a scientific consultant on Finding Nemo and did similar work with Finding Dory.
He describes himself as a biomechanist — he studies “how physics and engineering govern some parts of biology.” Some of that refers to, for example, studying how humans could use ideas from the structure of a fish skeleton to design an underwater vehicle.
“A lot of what I do is in the realm of what’s called biomimetics,” Summers tells NPR. “I’m looking to the sea for inspiration, for biomimetics solutions to technical problems.”
He’s based on an island about 60 miles north of Seattle, at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories. The lab is only a short walk from the water — from “the water’s edge to the cutting edge,” Summers says. As part of his work at the lab, his team is trying to make 3-D CT scans of all 33,000 varieties of fish.
So, why?
Researchers like Summers want to understand how fish work. To do that, he says, “one of the very, very useful things is to understand exactly what the skeleton looks like. It is shockingly complex. Your skull is just a few bones. Fish skulls are dozens and dozens of bones.”
That’s where the CT scans come in. The machines are usually used to see the insides of humans. Many years ago, Summers wanted to see the insides of fish.