The Role of the Mucus Barrier in Digestion

Mucus forms a protective layer across a variety of epithelial surfaces. In the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, the barrier has to permit the uptake of nutrients, while excluding potential hazards, such as pathogenic bacteria. In this short review article, we look at recent literature on the structure, location, and properties of the mammalian intestinal secreted mucins and the mucus layer they form over a wide range of length scales. In particular, we look at the structure of the gel-forming glycoprotein MUC2, the primary intestinal secreted mucin, and the influence this has on the properties of the mucus layer. We show that, even at the level of the protein backbone, MUC2 is highly heterogeneous and that this is reflected in the networks it forms. It is evident that a combination of charge and pore size determines what can diffuse through the layer to the underlying gut epithelium. This information is important for the targeted delivery of bioactive molecules, including nutrients and pharmaceuticals, and for understanding how GI health is maintained

Transnational Travels of the Caterpillar Fungus, 1700-1949

This dissertation explores the transformation of Chinese materia medica in the 19th- and the first half of the 20th-centuries, especially the Republican period, in a global context. It is based on a microhistory of the caterpillar fungus, a curious object and also a medicinal substance initially used by Tibetans no later than the 15th century and then assimilated into Chinese materia medica from the 18th century. This study first traces the transmission of specimens and knowledge of the caterpillar fungus in Chinese society and from China to France, Britain, Russia and Japan by the end of the 19th century; then it investigates the tensions and negotiations between Chinese and newly produced European knowledge about the caterpillar fungus, initially emerging in 18th- and 19th-century Europe but then shifting to communities of scientists, traditional physicians and other intellectuals in Republican China. The overall research question is that why did the caterpillar fungus attract the attention of so many different scientific communities, and how did its transnational travels impact on the making of the 20th-century Chinese materia medica? Drawing on Bruno Latour’s discourse on the agency of objects and characterisations of modernity, this dissertation demonstrates that the caterpillar fungus stimulated people’s curiosity about exotic objects and their pursuit of new medicinal substances, with itself changing from a transformable wonder in China to a scientific wonder in Europe and East Asia in transnational networks of knowledge production; in the meantime the caterpillar fungus also witnessed the powerful rhetoric of modern science. On the basis of a further analysis of changes in knowledge about Chinese medicinal substances represented by the caterpillar fungus in Republican China, I argue that the ‘modern’ Chinese materia medica, characterised by plural knowledge systems related to and in conversation with the new goal of scientification, had never been modern

1919 – The Year That Changed China

The year 1919 changed Chinese culture radically, but in a way that completely took contemporaries by surprise. At the beginning of the year, even well-informed intellectuals did not anticipate that, for instance, baihua (aprecursor of the modern Chinese language), communism, Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu would become important and famous – all of which was very obvious to them at the end of the year. Elisabeth Forster traces the precise mechanisms behind this transformation on the basis of a rich variety of sources, including newspapers, personal letters, student essays, advertisements, textbooks and diaries. She proposes a new model for cultural change, which puts intellectual marketing at its core. This book retells the story of the New Culture Movement in light of the diversifi ed and decentered picture of Republican China developed in recent scholarship. It is a lively and ironic narrative about cultural change through academic infi ghting, rumors and conspiracy theories, newspaper stories and intellectuals (hell-)bent on selling agendas through powerful buzzwords