He starts describing his twenty-fifth birthday, celebrated just a couple of weeks ago. Nothing special, he says. The usual office affair. A cake, maybe a little lumpy. Candles to wish upon and blow out. The traditional strains of \u201cHappy Birthday to You.\u201d<\/p>\n Kasak seems unfazed that the party took place at a base camp on the approach to Mt. Everest, a world away from his hometown of Austin, Minnesota. That he was perched on a 400-foot-thick slab of ice. That Sherpa porters baked the cake. That, in the rarified air of 17,600 feet, summoning the breath to blow out candles took a little extra effort. That the chorus serenading him included his fellow members of the Mayo Everest Research Team and a group of climbers preparing to summit the world\u2019s highest peak. An imperfect cake can be forgiven when it was baked at more than 17,000 feet.<\/p><\/div>\n Although he turned a year older on the slopes of Everest, Kasak was the youngest member of the Mayo team. Five other researchers in<\/p>\n Kasak\u2019s lab group made the month-long trek to the Himalayas, along with a contingent of scientists, expedition specialists, reporters, photographers, and nine climbers backed by the National Geographic Society and outfitter The North Face.<\/p>\n The goal, according to Kasak, was to conduct \u201cevery physiological test you could imagine\u201d to measure the human body\u2019s responses to extreme altitudes and conditions. The Mayo team is using the data it collected on Everest to learn not only how the body adapts to high altitude, but also to understand the physiology of cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of the symptoms observed at altitude \u2013 back-flow between heart chambers, fluid accumulation in the lungs, muscular wasting \u2013 are the same as seen with cardiac disease,\u201d says Kasak, a graduate of the exercise science program at Winona State University.<\/p>\n A focus of the project, led by Mayo researcher Dr. Bruce Johnson, is how the lungs handle fluid changes. That\u2019s commonly the problem that forces climbers down from the mountain, and patients with heart disease into the hospital.<\/p>\n Kasak and the Mayo Everest Research Team spent months preparing for the trip, which included performing baseline physiological testing on the climbers and control groups, and selecting, optimizing, and packing about 1,500 pounds of testing equipment.<\/p>\n Early April to late May is prime season on the 29,000-foot Everest, when the weather is less severe and Sherpa guides have established climbing routes. The conditions remain unpredictable, and dangerous:\u00a0 during the 2012 season, there were about 500 summits with ten confirmed deaths.<\/p>\n Kasak\u2019s team, supported by a coterie of guides and porters, set up a full physiological testing lab at more than 3 miles above sea level. Despite the remote location on a glacier surrounded by towering peaks \u2013 and the constant sounds of creaking ice and falling rocks \u2013 Kasak says that the base camp was \u201clike a small city with hundreds of tents,\u201d that sheltered climbers waiting to scale Everest.\u00a0 \u201cThere was everything from a helicopter landing pad to wireless Internet,\u201d says Kasak.<\/p>\n Getting there wasn\u2019t easy, however. After flying first to Kathmandu, Nepal, and then to a village on the slopes of the Himalayas, Kasak and the Mayo group hiked 53 twisting miles to base camp. The trek took eight days, giving the team time to acclimate to the high altitude. Kasak says that living conditions along the way were Spartan. But the distinctive peak of Everest was always just around the next bend.![\"Alex](\"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/06\/main_everest_curr-fall12-copy.jpg\")
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\nAlex Kasak \u201909<\/strong> sits in a coffee shop across the street from Saint Mary\u2019s Hospital in Rochester, taking a mid-afternoon break from his work as a research assistant in the Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering at Mayo Clinic.<\/p>\n
\nAlex’s birthday cake<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThe Mayo Clinic team built a full physiology testing lab on the shoulders of Everest.<\/p>\n