IMPACT: The Journal of the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning. Volume 8, Issue 2, Summer 2019

Many of us look for ways to help students forge concrete connections between their academic studies and the real world. Universities encourage professors to develop community-based learning, allowing students to contribute to the community beyond their campus in a way that enhances their academic studies and enables them to create these connections. Scholars have theorized the many benefits of community-based learning, but professors have many questions about how to implement community-based learning in practice. What does a successful community-based learning assignment look like? What are the different ways to assess students’ learning experiences in community-based learning assignments? How can one build effective partnerships with community organizations? In these pages, you will find practical advice, theoretical framework, and firsthand accounts of community-engaged teaching across disciplines. Learn from professors who have designed assignments allowing students to complete community projects with refugees, prisoners, veterans, elementary school children, science museums, nursing homes, public libraries, and ESL populations. Students in an Anthropology course, for instance, conduct oral history interviews with refugees, and provide written transcriptions of the interviews that the refugees can then use as a learning tool in ESL classes. In a Science Methods class, students collaborate with an aquarium to produce meaningful exhibits that educate the public. First-year writing students work with veterans to create autobiographical films and write papers related to the project

Mutational spectrum by phenotype: panel-based NGS testing of patients with clinical suspition of RASopathy and children with multiple café-au-lait macules

Children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) may exhibit an incomplete clinical presentation, making difficult to reach a clinical diagnosis. A phenotypic overlap may exist in children with other RASopathies or with other genetic conditions if only multiple café‐au‐lait macules (CALMs) are present. The syndromes that can converge in these inconclusive phenotypes have different clinical courses. In this context, an early genetic testing has been proposed to be clinically useful to manage these patients. We present the validation and implementation into diagnostics of a custom NGS panel (I2HCP, ICO‐IMPPC Hereditary Cancer Panel) for testing patients with a clinical suspicion of a RASopathy (n = 48) and children presenting multiple CALMs (n = 102). We describe the mutational spectrum and the detection rates identified in these two groups of individuals. We identified pathogenic variants in 21 out of 48 patients with clinical suspicion of RASopathy, with mutations in NF1 accounting for 10% of cases. Furthermore, we identified pathogenic mutations mainly in the NF1 gene, but also in SPRED1, in more than 50% of children with multiple CALMs, exhibiting an NF1 mutational spectrum different from a group of clinically diagnosed NF1 patients (n = 80). An NGS panel strategy for the genetic testing of these two phenotype‐defined groups outperforms previous strategie

Coreceptor gene imprinting governs thymocyte lineage fate

Double-positive (CD4+CD8+) thymocytes differentiate into CD4+ helper T cells and CD8+ cytotoxic T cells. A knock-in approach replacing CD8-coding sequences with CD4 cDNA shows that it is the expression kinetics of CD8, and not the identity of the coreceptor, that governs thymocyte-lineage fate

Distinct tau prion strains propagate in cells and mice and define different tauopathies

Prion-like propagation of tau aggregation might underlie the stereotyped progression of neurodegenerative tauopathies. True prions stably maintain unique conformations (“strains”) in vivo that link structure to patterns of pathology. We now find that tau meets this criterion. Stably expressed tau repeat domain indefinitely propagates distinct amyloid conformations in a clonal fashion in culture. Reintroduction of tau from these lines into naive cells reestablishes identical clones. We produced two strains in vitro that induce distinct pathologies in vivo as determined by successive inoculations into three generations of transgenic mice. Immunopurified tau from these mice recreates the original strains in culture. We used the cell system to isolate tau strains from 29 patients with 5 different tauopathies, finding that different diseases are associated with different sets of strains. Tau thus demonstrates essential characteristics of a prion. This might explain the phenotypic diversity of tauopathies and could enable more effective diagnosis and therapy

A global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Finding communication strategies that effectively motivate social distancing continues to be a global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-country, preregistered experiment (n = 25,718 from 89 countries) tested hypotheses concerning generalizable positive and negative outcomes of social distancing messages that promoted personal agency and reflective choices (i.e., an autonomy-supportive message) or were restrictive and shaming (i.e., a controlling message) compared with no message at all. Results partially supported experimental hypotheses in that the controlling message increased controlled motivation (a poorly internalized form of motivation relying on shame, guilt, and fear of social consequences) relative to no message. On the other hand, the autonomy-supportive message lowered feelings of defiance compared with the controlling message, but the controlling message did not differ from receiving no message at all. Unexpectedly, messages did not influence autonomous motivation (a highly internalized form of motivation relying on one’s core values) or behavioral intentions. Results supported hypothesized associations between people’s existing autonomous and controlled motivations and self-reported behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing. Controlled motivation was associated with more defiance and less long-term behavioral intention to engage in social distancing, whereas autonomous motivation was associated with less defiance and more short- and long-term intentions to social distance. Overall, this work highlights the potential harm of using shaming and pressuring language in public health communication, with implications for the current and future global health challenges

Cross sectional study of prevalence, genetic diversity and zoonotic potential of Cryptosporidium parvum cycling in New Zealand dairy farms

Abstract Background The estimation of the prevalence and zoonotic potential of Cryptosporidium parvum cycling in bovine populations requires the use of genotyping, as several morphologically similar non-parvum genetic variants of unproven clinical and public health impact are found in cattle. However, robust C. parvum prevalence estimates in cattle are lacking and comparative data of bovine and human isolates collected from the same regions are scarce. Thus, the relative contribution of the C. parvum oocysts released by farmed animals to animal and human cryptosporidiosis burden is, in general, poorly understood. Methods The New Zealand farm-level C. parvum prevalence was estimated using a cross-sectional sample of 1283 faecal specimens collected from newborn calves on 97 dairy farms. Faeces were analysed by immunofluorescence and the Cryptosporidium parasites were genetically identified. Finally, bovine C. parvum were genetically compared with historical human clinical isolates using a bilocus subtyping scheme. Results Immunofluoresence-positive faeces were found in 63/97 (65%) farms. C. parvum was identified in 49 (50.5%) farms, C. bovis in 6 (6.1%) farms, and on 8 (8.2%) farms the species could not be identified. The dominant C. parvum genetic variants were geographically widespread and found in both host populations, but several variants were found in humans only. Conclusions Phenotypic tests offered by New Zealand veterinary diagnostic laboratories for the diagnosis of C. parvum may have moderate to high positive predictive values for this species. The genetic similarities observed between the human and bovine parasites support a model considering calves as significant amplifiers of zoonotic C. parvum in New Zealand. However, data suggest that transmission routes not associated with dairy cattle should also be taken into account in future source-attribution studies of human cryptosporidiosis