'Education, education, education' : legal, moral and clinical

This article brings together Professor Donald Nicolson's intellectual interest in professional legal ethics and his long-standing involvement with law clinics both as an advisor at the University of Cape Town and Director of the University of Bristol Law Clinic and the University of Strathclyde Law Clinic. In this article he looks at how legal education may help start this process of character development, arguing that the best means is through student involvement in voluntary law clinics. And here he builds upon his recent article which argues for voluntary, community service oriented law clinics over those which emphasise the education of students

A Biased Review of Sociophysics

Various aspects of recent sociophysics research are shortly reviewed: Schelling model as an example for lack of interdisciplinary cooperation, opinion dynamics, combat, and citation statistics as an example for strong interdisciplinarity.Comment: 16 pages for J. Stat. Phys. including 2 figures and numerous reference

Identification of regulatory variants associated with genetic susceptibility to meningococcal disease

Non-coding genetic variants play an important role in driving susceptibility to complex diseases but their characterization remains challenging. Here, we employed a novel approach to interrogate the genetic risk of such polymorphisms in a more systematic way by targeting specific regulatory regions relevant for the phenotype studied. We applied this method to meningococcal disease susceptibility, using the DNA binding pattern of RELA - a NF-kB subunit, master regulator of the response to infection - under bacterial stimuli in nasopharyngeal epithelial cells. We designed a custom panel to cover these RELA binding sites and used it for targeted sequencing in cases and controls. Variant calling and association analysis were performed followed by validation of candidate polymorphisms by genotyping in three independent cohorts. We identified two new polymorphisms, rs4823231 and rs11913168, showing signs of association with meningococcal disease susceptibility. In addition, using our genomic data as well as publicly available resources, we found evidences for these SNPs to have potential regulatory effects on ATXN10 and LIF genes respectively. The variants and related candidate genes are relevant for infectious diseases and may have important contribution for meningococcal disease pathology. Finally, we described a novel genetic association approach that could be applied to other phenotypes

Autosomic 27 Trisomy in a Standardbred Colt

A 19-month-old Standardbred colt was donated to the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medi- cine with a suspicion of intersexuality. The analgenital distance and penis were normal, and there was no evi- dence of intersexuality, but the colt was bilaterally crypt- orchid. Several aspects of the colt’s behavior appeared unusual, including general temperament and behavior described as sympathetically dull and affable. With herd mates, the colt appeared slow to perceive or to learn the usual intraspecies social cues. An atypical gait characterized by intermittent unnatural shuffle of the hind limbs, sliding them along in short rhythmic strides for 3 to 10 seconds at a time was noted at times when a horse might normally transition from a slow walk to a fast walk or a slow trot. Occasionally the colt exhibited slight protrusion of the tongue through the teeth and lips with jaw movements and smacking of the tongue against the teeth as if struggling to retract the tongue to the normal position. Evaluation of the karyotype combined with fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) revealed an abnormal male karyotype showing trisomy of chromosome 27 (65, XY þ 27). The colt was euthanized at 24 months of age, and a necropsy re- vealed no significant abnormalities. This case of trisomy was not associated with developmental abnormalities described in other rare reports of trisomy in horses; however, some features were strikingly similar to that of humans with trisomy 21. FISH was demonstrated to be an excellent method for correct identification of equine chromosomes