Owning Geronimo but not Elmer McCurdy: The Unique Property Status of Native American Remains

This Article unifies two areas of legal scholarship that have not historically intersected. In the fields of biotechnology and the law, it is generally understood that human remains and many body parts are not objects of legal property. This general rule has a startling exception, which heretofore has gone unnoticed in the literature and relevant case law. The bodily remains of Native Americans were, and I argue, continue to be, objects of legal property. With the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (“NAGPRA”) Native American remains are classified as familial and tribal property. In Native American legal scholarship the distinction and significance of property status under NAGPRA has been overlooked. The perpetuation of property status is surprising given that NAGPRA was passed to address the systematic disrespect for Native American burial grounds and commercialization of Native American remains. Property status is all the more striking and important because some federal circuits have also interpreted NAGPRA to apply to contemporary individuals with Native American ancestry. With the rise of genetic testing technologies, application of this property rule takes on some surprising implications. At first glance, we might condemn the property status of Native American remains as continued evidence of dehumanization. Property is traditionally associated with rights of alienability, exclusion, commensurability, and commodification. The understanding of property in Native American human remains advocated for in this paper challenges classic property constructs of wealth-maximization and an individually centered right of exclusion. Instead, after reconsidering the paradigm of property, I argue that the communal property approach embodied by the Act enables Native Americans to protect their dead more effectively than any other American group. NAGPRA, therefore, represents an intriguing pathway for human biological materials regulation reform beyond Native American remains

Unearthing the Origins of Quasi-Property Status

Under contemporary American law, human corpses and some bodily parts are classified as quasi-property. Quasi-property is an American legal conception composed of limited interests that mimic some of the functions of property, but does not formally qualify as property. It is a uniquely American, idiosyncratic and misunderstood legal category. Quasi-property status is most typically associated with intellectual property given the Supreme Court decision of International News Services v. Associated Press. That human remains and bodily materials are classified as quasi-property is less well known. The confusion surrounding the quasi-property status of the dead has negative implications for current and future research, medicine and broader society. Litigation surrounding the treatment and status of those who died in the 9/11 World Trade Center attack hinged on quasi-property. Clearly resolving the quasi-property status of the dead is becoming increasingly important in the wake of biotechnological advances. In March 2018, a Y Combinator startup, Nectome, promised to preserve, digitize and reanimate brains. The project is concerning for many reasons, but one major concern is the ambiguous status of the dead that the company will experiment upon. This Article explores the origins of quasi-property and investigates why American judges ascribed quasi-property status to human remains. The adoption of quasi-property status is notable because judges broke with hundreds of years of inherited common law, and forsook a legal tenant prescribed by Blackstone and Coke. Understanding its origins, therefore, has broader implications for our understanding of the development of American law. I show that the academic literature and case law have mistaken both the origin of, and reasoning behind quasi-property status. Scholars and judges cite an 1872 Rhode Island Supreme Court decision as the foundational case on quasi-property status of the dead. My research shows that, in fact, the first case occurred instead in Cleveland, Ohio, a year earlier. Further, my analysis of this initial case, and surrounding socio-cultureal context, reframes our understanding of the forces behind quasi-property status. The traditional account in the literature and case law of the emergence of quasi-property status points to America’s lack of ecclesiastical courts, which historically had jurisdiction over cemeteries and burial in England. I argue that the existing explanation does not sufficiently account for the initial application, the dominance, or the persistence of the unique status of quasi-property by American courts. This Article advances a novel argument that socio-cultural changes forged in the maelstrom of the Civil War precipitated the initial use and later systematic adoption by American courts of quasi-property status for human remains. My discovery and re-examination of the subsequent rise of quasi-property at the turn of the nineteenth century has important implications for how contemporary courts should conceive of this deeply contested legal category

Accounting for Fetal Personhood: Confronting the Implications of Fetal Personhood on Vital Statistics Law

In February 2024, in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, the Alabama Supreme Court held that embryos created through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) were legal persons. The national conversation about this ruling focused on the implications for IVF treatment. The impact of fetal personhood on the realm of vital records law has, to date, gone unnoticed. Vital records laws in the United States mandate the registration and collection of data for legislatively determined vital events. Vital records law influenced by fetal personhood, as well as broader trends to criminalize pregnancy, has profound and troubling implications for individuals experiencing spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) or induced abortion. With full fetal personhood, individuals experiencing very early spontaneous abortion, who may never have even known they were pregnant, could violate vital record regulations if they do not report the spontaneous abortion. These laws and ruling, therefore, fundamentally impact the reproductive rights and privacy expectations of individuals across the United States. Vital records regulations fall under the jurisdiction of vital records registration area, typically states, and are not subject to federal law. This article contextualizes vital records law and highlights the immense variation across jurisdictions. It examines how fetal personhood ideologies and criminalization can impact vital records requirements to report and document information about reproduction. This article focuses on three prime concerns: data privacy, gestational age, and reporting requirements. The problem presented by vital records and reproduction becomes more complex because data is also important for public health. This article underscores the necessity of a balanced approach to vital records legislation—one that maintains public health benefits without compromising the privacy or rights of individuals or criminalizing pregnancy

Plk4 Regulates Centriole Asymmetry and Spindle Orientation in Neural Stem Cells

Defects in mitotic spindle orientation (MSO) disrupt the organization of stem cell niches impacting tissue morphogenesis and homeostasis. Mutations in centrosome genes reduce MSO fidelity, leading to tissue dysplasia and causing several diseases such as microcephaly, dwarfism, and cancer. Whether these mutations perturb spindle orientation solely by affecting astral microtubule nucleation or whether centrosome proteins have more direct functions in regulatingMSO is unknown. To investigate this question, we analyzed the consequences of deregulating Plk4 (the master centriole duplication kinase) activity in Drosophila asymmetrically dividing neural stem cells. We found that Plk4 functions upstream of MSO control, orchestrating centriole symmetry breaking and consequently centrosome positioning. Mechanistically, we show that Plk4 acts through Spd2 phosphorylation, which induces centriole release from the apical cortex. Overall, this work not only reveals a role for Plk4 in regulating centrosome function but also links the centrosome biogenesis machinery with the MSO apparatus.ERC starting grant CentroStemCancer [242598]; Institut Curie; CNRS; NCI [P30CA23074]; NIGMS [R01 GM110166, GM126035]; FRM; IC; FRM installation grant; ATIP grantOpen access articleThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Identification of Candida glabrata genes involved in pH modulation and modification of the phagosomal environment in macrophages

notes: PMCID: PMC4006850types: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tCandida glabrata currently ranks as the second most frequent cause of invasive candidiasis. Our previous work has shown that C. glabrata is adapted to intracellular survival in macrophages and replicates within non-acidified late endosomal-stage phagosomes. In contrast, heat killed yeasts are found in acidified matured phagosomes. In the present study, we aimed at elucidating the processes leading to inhibition of phagosome acidification and maturation. We show that phagosomes containing viable C. glabrata cells do not fuse with pre-labeled lysosomes and possess low phagosomal hydrolase activity. Inhibition of acidification occurs independent of macrophage type (human/murine), differentiation (M1-/M2-type) or activation status (vitamin D3 stimulation). We observed no differential activation of macrophage MAPK or NFκB signaling cascades downstream of pattern recognition receptors after internalization of viable compared to heat killed yeasts, but Syk activation decayed faster in macrophages containing viable yeasts. Thus, delivery of viable yeasts to non-matured phagosomes is likely not triggered by initial recognition events via MAPK or NFκB signaling, but Syk activation may be involved. Although V-ATPase is abundant in C. glabrata phagosomes, the influence of this proton pump on intracellular survival is low since blocking V-ATPase activity with bafilomycin A1 has no influence on fungal viability. Active pH modulation is one possible fungal strategy to change phagosome pH. In fact, C. glabrata is able to alkalinize its extracellular environment, when growing on amino acids as the sole carbon source in vitro. By screening a C. glabrata mutant library we identified genes important for environmental alkalinization that were further tested for their impact on phagosome pH. We found that the lack of fungal mannosyltransferases resulted in severely reduced alkalinization in vitro and in the delivery of C. glabrata to acidified phagosomes. Therefore, protein mannosylation may play a key role in alterations of phagosomal properties caused by C. glabrata.Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftNational Institutes for HealthWellcome TrustBBSR

Proceedings of the 2015 WA Chapter of MSA Symposium on Music Performance and Analysis

This publication, entitled Proceedings of the 2015 WA Chapter MSA Symposium on Music Performance and Analysis, is a double-blind peer-reviewed conference proceedings published by the Western Australian Chapter of the Musicological Society of Australia, in conjunction with the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University, edited by Jonathan Paget, Victoria Rogers, and Nicholas Bannan. The original symposium was held at the University of Western Australia, School of Music, on 12 December 2015. With the advent of performer-scholars within Australian Universities, the intersections between analytical knowledge and performance are constantly being re-evaluated and reinvented. This collection of papers presents several strands of analytical discourse, including: (1) the analysis of music recordings, particularly in terms of historical performance practices; (2) reinventions of the \u27page-to-stage\u27 paradigm, employing new analytical methods; (3) analytical knowledge applied to pedagogy, particularly concerning improvisation; and (4) so-called \u27practice-led\u27 research.https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecubooks/1005/thumbnail.jp

Lung function and microbiota diversity in cystic fibrosis

We thank the patients and staff at each of the contributing centres for their involvement, time and patience in sample collection. This study was supported by grants from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/H019456/1) and the Wellcome Trust (WT 098051). AWW receives core funding support from the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) division. AA and GO received support from the Dartmouth Translational Research Core (CFF RDP STANTO15R0) for acquiring samples.Peer reviewe

High frequency of Human Cytomegalovirus DNA in the Liver of Infants with Extrahepatic Neonatal Cholestasis

BACKGROUND: Biliary atresia (BA) is the most severe hepatic disorder in newborns and its etiopathogenesis remains unknown. Viral involvement has been proposed, including the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). The aims of the study were to use the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to screen the liver tissue of infants with extrahepatic cholestasis for HCMV and to correlate the results with serological antibodies against HCMV and histological findings. METHODS: A retrospective study in a tertiary care setting included 35 patients (31 BA, 1 BA associated with a choledochal cyst, 2 congenital stenosis of the distal common bile duct and 1 hepatic cyst). HCMV serology was determined by ELISA. Liver and porta hepatis were examined histologically. Liver samples from infants and a control group were screened for HCMV DNA. RESULTS: Twelve patients had HCMV negative serology, 9 were positive for IgG antibodies and 14 were positive for IgG and IgM. Nine liver and seven porta hepatis samples were positive for HCMV DNA but none of the control group were positive (general frequency of positivity was 34.3% – 12/35). There was no correlation between HCMV positivity by PCR and the histological findings. The accuracy of serology for detecting HCMV antibodies was low. CONCLUSION: These results indicate an elevated frequency of HCMV in pediatric patients with extrahepatic neonatal cholestasis. They also show the low accuracy of serological tests for detecting active HCMV infection and the lack of correlation between HCMV positivity by PCR and the histopathological changes

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead