Spectral imaging in preclinical research and clinical pathology.

Spectral imaging methods are attracting increased interest from researchers and practitioners in basic science, pre-clinical and clinical arenas. A combination of better labeling reagents and better optics creates opportunities to detect and measure multiple parameters at the molecular and cellular level. These tools can provide valuable insights into the basic mechanisms of life, and yield diagnostic and prognostic information for clinical applications. There are many multispectral technologies available, each with its own advantages and limitations. This chapter will present an overview of the rationale for spectral imaging, and discuss the hardware, software and sample labeling strategies that can optimize its usefulness in clinical settings

Playgrounds And Battlegrounds: Children In The North Performed Their Part For The War Effort

Lessons of War is a must read for anyone with even the slightest inclination to understand and appreciate our history. Too often, we forget that while the politicians and armies were maneuvering, real battles were a daily part of home-front life. To survive, both mentally and physically, the ...

Secrets of a Civil War Submarine:Solving the Mysteries of the H.L. Hunley

Resurrecting a sunken sub A multi-faceted study for adolescents Few authors have the ability to present an historical work that enlivens the central theme with a hands-on appreciation for a number of related subjects and disciplines. In Secrets of a Civil War Submarine, Sa...

Bloody Showdown: Teenaged Soldiers And Civilians Discover The Meaning Of Courage

Writers of historical fiction often provide the reader with numerous coincidences that center on one or more of the primary characters. A seasoned booklover sometimes scoffs at such use of artistic license. However, books written for children that employ this technique can prove successful and edu...

First Hurrah: Child Patriots Learned Their Education In The Field

In Callow Brave and True, Jay S. Hoar brings welcome relief to anyone who ever has struggled to substantiate reports about a particular great-great relative who was thought to be a Civil War drummer boy or a certain local burial site that allegedly contains the remains of a Civil War hero. Th...

Almost To Freedom

Child\u27s play A unique perspective on American slavery Historical momentum is best served when the interests touched include everyone especially the children. Vaunda Micheaux Nelson touches the young reader or listener with a story related to a very special subject. The illustra...

A report to The Ozarks Regional Commission

"Changes in demographic processes are occurring in the Ozarks Region. Some metropolitan areas are experiencing a decrease in growth and, in a few, population decline. In conjunction with this, the reversal of non-metropolitan population loss and out-migration is becoming visible in major portions of the region. The level of natural increase, births minus deaths, is dropping in response to lower birth rates in some areas and to a heavy concentration of older persons in others. In order to comprehend these changes in the Ozarks Region it must be understood that the region is made up of five diverse states. (For regional boundary definitions, see Figures 1 and 2.) Within each are a variety of physiographic sub-regions with their individual economic distinctions. In constructing any social profile of the states it would become quite obvious that an array of such profiles would be produced. So also is the case in describing demographic change in the region. While an overview of the region provides a total picture, it tends to obscure variations on a state or sub-regional basis. Thus, an overview for all five states is first provided, followed by a description for each state, which incorporates sub-regional information. In exploring these demographic components of change an examination is made of the emergence of new patterns and the continuation of old ones. In addition, an effort is made to point out some of the factors associated with these processes and to place these factors in a national perspective." --Introduction.Rex R. Campbell, George H. Dailey, Jr., Robert L. McNamara (Deportment of Rural Sociology University of Missouri-Columbia

An iPSC-derived vascular model of Marfan syndrome identifies key mediators of smooth muscle cell death.

Marfan syndrome (MFS) is a heritable connective tissue disorder caused by mutations in FBN1, which encodes the extracellular matrix protein fibrillin-1. To investigate the pathogenesis of aortic aneurysms in MFS, we generated a vascular model derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (MFS-hiPSCs). Our MFS-hiPSC-derived smooth muscle cells (SMCs) recapitulated the pathology seen in Marfan aortas, including defects in fibrillin-1 accumulation, extracellular matrix degradation, transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling, contraction and apoptosis; abnormalities were corrected by CRISPR-based editing of the FBN1 mutation. TGF-β inhibition rescued abnormalities in fibrillin-1 accumulation and matrix metalloproteinase expression. However, only the noncanonical p38 pathway regulated SMC apoptosis, a pathological mechanism also governed by Krüppel-like factor 4 (KLF4). This model has enabled us to dissect the molecular mechanisms of MFS, identify novel targets for treatment (such as p38 and KLF4) and provided an innovative human platform for the testing of new drugs.This work was supported by Evelyn Trust, the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre and the British Heart Foundation (FS/13/29/30024, RM/l3/3/30159, FS/11/77/29327).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.372