Residential Instability and the McKinney-Vento Homeless Children and Education Program: What We Know, Plus Gaps in Research

Reviews the literature on the effects of homelessness and residential instability on academic performance and describes the program designed to mitigate them. Calls for better data collection on the affected children's outcomes and the program's impact

The Power of Words [brochure and video]

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt. This statement is not true for many reasons and for many people. Students across campuses throughout the nation feel the sting of hate words that hurt daily. Counselors assist students suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts everyday that stems from the usage of these harmful words. Both the user and receiver of these hurtful words are affected. Hurt Words exposes these words for what they are, gives them meaning on a personal level, show the effects of harmful language and how students, faculty and staff can help stop those words from hurting more students

Monitoring Success in Choice Neighborhoods: A Proposed Approach to Performance Measurement

Offers a framework and tools for performance management in the initiative to transform poor neighborhoods into revitalized, sustainable mixed-income communities. Proposes system components, logic model, management reports, and performance indicators

Proteinase-activated receptors (PARs) as targets for antiplatelet therapy

Since the identification of the proteinase-activated receptor (PAR) family as mediators of serine protease activity in the 1990s, there has been tremendous progress in the elucidation of their pathophysiological roles. The development of drugs that target PARs has been the focus of many laboratories for the potential treatment of thrombosis, cancer and other inflammatory diseases. Understanding the mechanisms of PAR activation and G protein signalling pathways evoked in response to the growing list of endogenous proteases has yielded great insight into receptor regulation at the molecular level. This has led to the development of new selective modulators of PAR activity, particularly PAR1. The mixed success of targeting PARs has been best exemplified in the context of inhibiting PAR1 as a new antiplatelet therapy. The development of the competitive PAR1 antagonist, vorapaxar (Zontivity), has clearly shown the value in targeting PAR1 in acute coronary syndrome (ACS); however the severity of associated bleeding with this drug has limited its use in the clinic. Due to the efficacy of thrombin acting via PAR1, strategies to selectively inhibit specific PAR1-mediated G protein signalling pathways or to target the second thrombin platelet receptor, PAR4, are being devised. The rationale behind these alternative approaches is to bias downstream thrombin activity via PARs to allow for inhibition of pro-thrombotic pathways but maintain other pathways that may preserve haemostatic balance and improve bleeding profiles for widespread clinical use. This review summarizes the structural determinants that regulate PARs and the modulators of PAR activity developed to date

Protease-activated receptor 2 : are common functions in glial and immune cells linked to inflammation-related CNS disorders?

Protease-activated receptors (PARs) are a novel family of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) whose activation requires the cleavage of the N-terminus by a serine protease. However recent evidence reveals that alternative routes of activation also occur and that PARs signal via multiple pathways and that pathway activation is activator-dependent. Given our increased understanding of PAR function both under physiological and pathophysiological conditions; one aspect that has remained a constant is the link between PAR2 and inflammation. PAR2 is expressed in immune cells of both the innate and adaptive immune system and has been shown to play a role in several peripheral inflammatory conditions. PAR2 is similarly expressed on astrocytes and microglia within the CNS and its activation is either protective or detrimental to CNS function depending on the conditions or disease state investigated. With a clear similarity between the function of PAR2 on both immune cells and CNS glial cells, here we have reviewed their roles in both these systems. We suggest that the recent development of novel PAR2 modulators, including those that show biased signalling, will further increase our understanding of PAR2 function and the development of potential therapeutics for CNS disorders in which inflammation is proposed to play a role

Process intensification: Case study with a CHO-based monoclonal antibody production process

Standard platform technologies for cell culture processing provide simple and robust strategies to meet rapid timelines for early process development and ease of manufacturing. However, when there is a need to achieve high antibody titers due to high product demand, both culture media and feed strategies must be customized for specific cell lines. Two case studies will describe the strategies employed as part of a process intensification effort to overcome the limitations of a platform Phase III cell culture process. The first case study will demonstrate an intensified fed-batch process development effort performed to maximize production of a CHO-based monoclonal antibody, while maintaining product quality comparability with the original Phase III process. The second case study will describe the evaluation of a concentrated fed-batch process using alternating tangential flow filtration to retain the protein in the bioreactor, and achieve even higher titers in support of the high product demand forecast. These case studies will show that the intensified fed-batch process improved titers by 50%, and the concentrated fed-batch process improved titers by 100% relative to the fed-batch platform