The changing role of cell culture in the generation of transgenic livestock

Transgenesis may allow the generation of farm animals with altered phenotype, animal models for research and animal bioreactors. Although such animals have been produced, the time and expense involved in generating transgenic livestock and then evaluating the transgene expression pattern is very restrictive. If questions about the ability and efficiency of expression could be asked solely in vitro rapid progress could be achieved. Unfortunately, experiments addressing transcriptional control in vitro have proved unreliable in their ability to indicate whether a transgene will be transcribed or not. However, initial studies suggest that cell culture may be able to predict in vivo post-transcriptional events. We review these issues and propose that strategies which engineer the transgene integration site could enhance the probability for efficient expression. This approach has now become feasible with the development of techniques allowing animals to be generated from somatic cells by nuclear transfer. The important step in this procedure is the use of cells grown in culture as the source of genetic information, allowing the selection of specific transgene integration events. This technology which has dramatically increased the potential use of transgenic livestock for both agricultural and biotechnological applications, is based on standard cell culture methodology. We are now at the start of a new era in large animal transgenics

Languages (and cultures?) in contact. Interpreting and Intercultural Mediation in Italian healthcare settings

A series of interpreted-mediated medical encounters is analysed in order to ascertain how interpreters coordinate doctor-patient interaction and to what extent they empower the “voice of patient” or promote patients’ adaptation to the “voice of medicine”

Talking emotions in multilingual healthcare settings. A qualitative study of interpreter-mediated interaction in Italian hospitals

This contribution discusses the results of research on the treatment of emotions in interpreted-mediated interactions in healthcare settings, discussing examples of interpreters’ choices excluding or promoting the emotions of the patients in the interaction. The corpus consists of 40 Italian/Arabic interactions and 15 Italian/Chinese interactions. Analysis draws upon Conversation Analysis as well as on studies on Dialogue Interpreting and intercultural communication. Findings suggest that the activity of interpreters may prevent patients’ emotions from becoming relevant in the medical encounter, but also that interpreting may promote an emotion-sensitive healthcare, in the interest of a patient-centred model of inter-linguistic medicine

Alternative polyadenylation of ZEB1 promotes its translation during genotoxic stress in pancreatic cancer cells

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is characterized by extremely poor prognosis. The standard chemotherapeutic drug, gemcitabine, does not offer significant improvements for PDAC management due to the rapid acquisition of drug resistance by patients. Recent evidence indicates that epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of PDAC cells is strictly associated to early metastasization and resistance to chemotherapy. However, it is not exactly clear how EMT is related to drug resistance or how chemotherapy influences EMT. Herein, we found that ZEB1 is the only EMT-related transcription factor that clearly segregates mesenchymal and epithelial PDAC cell lines. Gemcitabine treatment caused upregulation of ZEB1 protein through post-transcriptional mechanisms in mesenchymal PDAC cells within a context of global inhibition of protein synthesis. The increase in ZEB1 protein correlates with alternative polyadenylation of the transcript, leading to shortening of the 3' untranslated region (UTR) and deletion of binding sites for repressive microRNAs. Polysome profiling indicated that shorter ZEB1 transcripts are specifically retained on the polysomes of PDAC cells during genotoxic stress, while most mRNAs, including longer ZEB1 transcripts, are depleted. Thus, our findings uncover a novel layer of ZEB1 regulation through 3'-end shortening of its transcript and selective association with polysomes under genotoxic stress, strongly suggesting that PDAC cells rely on upregulation of ZEB1 protein expression to withstand hostile environments

Pertumbuhan Bakteri Laut Shewanella Indica LBF-1-0076 Dalam Naftalena Dan Deteksi Gen Naftalena Dioksigenase - (the Growth of Marine Bacteria Shewanella Indica LBF-1-0076 in Naphthalene and Naphthalene Dioxygenase Gene Detection)

Crude oil exploitation which often occured offshore can cause water pollution in the sea since its contains naphthalene which is a hazardous compounds. This research used marine bacteria LBF-1-0076 that have ability in naphthalene degradation. This research aimed to study the parameter effect of naphthalene and cell concentration toward marine bacteria LBF-1-0076. This research also identified isolate LBF-1-0076 and detected the encode gene of naphthalene dioxygenase. Based on growth test result, the optimum naphthalene degradationby isolate LBF-1-0076 occured in 75 ppm naphthalene concentration with 15cell concentration. The result of 16S rDNA gene analysis showed that LBF-1-0076 was identified as Shewanella indica strain 0102 with identical value 99%. The result of naphthalene dioxygenase gene detection using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) showed that the isolate contained naphthalene dioxygenase gene with size ±377 bp. Therefore, LBF-1-0076 potential as bioremediation agent to solve crude oil contamination in the sea

Analysing trust building in educational activities

This article aims to offer both a theoretical contribution and examples of practices of trust building in peace education; the article presents an empirical analysis of videotaped interactions in the context of peace education activities in international groups of adolescents. The analysis aims to understand if and in which ways peace education is effective in enabling adolescents to communicate, creating conditions of working trust, mutual humanization, mutual recognition of needs, and trustworthiness of facilitators. In analysing interactions, we will follow the basic methodology of Conversation Analysis, which consists in working on naturally occurring interactions and more specifically on the contribution of single turns or actions to the ongoing sequence, with reference to the context. The analysis concerns the design of turns (actions) produced in the interaction, the organization of the sequences in which educators’ and adolescents’ turns are intertwined, the cultural presuppositions of turn design and sequence organisation. Education is a system where trusting commitment in specific interactions is vital for its reproduction; in education, creating effective conditions for trusting commitment means promoting possibility for social action and relationships, thus avoiding marginalization, alienation and loss of confidence in the educational relationship. Our analysis highlights some ways in which educators’ actions create the conditions of adolescents’ trusting commitment in group activities; our study enhances a reflection on the relationship between trust building and avoidance of the unintended consequences of education related to lack of trust

Trust building in the promotion of peace and intercultural dialogue among adolescents in international summer camps

This article aims to offer both a theoretical contribution and examples of practices of trust building in peace education. The analysis regards international summer camps established in Italy. Each camp is attended by four delegations of ten adolescents coming from different countries; aiming to promote adolescents’ ability in conflict resolution, peaceful relationships and intercultural dialogue. In analysing interactions, we follow the basic methodology of Conversation Analysis, which consists in working on naturally occurring interactions and more specifically on the contribution of single turns or actions to the ongoing sequence, with reference to the context. The analysis concerns the design of turns (actions) produced in the interaction and the organization of the sequences in which educators’ and adolescents’ turns are intertwined. We aim to understand if and in which ways education is effective in enabling adolescents to communicate, creating conditions of trust and trusting commitment, mutual humanization, and mutual recognition of needs. Our data exemplifies two different ways of promoting trust and communication: 1) the educator coordinates the direct interactions between adolescents, who cooperate in constructing a joint narrative; 2) the educator acts as a mediator of contacts among adolescents, promoting their alternate participation in the interaction in triadic exchanges

Media theory and web-based groups as social systems

This chapter consists of four sections. The first section analyses the relationship between consciousness and social systems, discussing how individual thoughts and communication are connected, influencing each other without being able to control each other. The second section develops an interdisciplinary approach which refers to phenomenological philosophy, theory of forms, second order cybernetics and the theory of autopoietic systems, describing a socio-evolutionary process where new media alter the societal capacity to handle complexity in time and space. In sections 3 and 4, the article takes a micro-level perspective by applying the theoretical framework build in sections 1 and 2 to concrete social formations (groups in social networks), observed as self-organizing interactive systems. In particular, the article takes on web-based groups in the social networks, observing them as: 1) bounded interaction systems, as forms in the medium of the social networks, organized as tight couplings of elements, users' profiles, that are loosely coupled in the medium, 2) social systems that produce themselves as the output of their own operations, creating a border of meaning by condensing a distinction between actual communication and possible communication. In this way, it will be possible to analyse how these web-based but nevertheless concrete social formations make a border of meaning, how they reproduce it, and what possibilities it has for the communication in the groups. This, at the same time, will count as an example of the situation of the individual in the modern society, where there is always a border of meaning when we want to belong to the social that determines what we can observe, and say