Trickster\u27s Taxonomy

Matthew Groneman explores the dynamic nature of language through a series of poems broken into three thematically-linked sections. The first section includes poems about the natural world, scientific processes and technological innovation. The second section is centered around poems exploring American culture, from the nineteenth century to contemporary times. The final section explores the speaker\u27s perceptions of self, particularly with regards to the speaker\u27s masculinity relative to societal expectations thereof. The poems play with concepts of fluid semiotics by employing notions of the trickster as narrator in several poem, disrupting binaries and complicating the nature of meaning. Also utilized toward this end are formal variations, homophones and various sets of jargo

Make It Your Own Clinical Trials Posters: A Regional Collaboration with the National Cancer Institute

University of Kansas Medical Center - Midwest Cancer Institute Poster SessionIntroduction: National health organizations usually offer a limited variety of publication resources to the regional organizations that they serve. These resources may not always reflect the needs of the populations served in those diverse areas. Private industry has addressed the varied needs of their customers by offering products that can be customized by the consumer. The Cancer Prevention & Control Research Network (CPCRN) site at Washington University in St. Louis, in collaboration with Midwest Cancer Alliance and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed and tested a web-based tool for customizing clinical trial recruitment posters in Midwest Cancer Alliance member cancer centers, NCI's Community Cancer Center Program in Nebraska, and select NCI-designated cancer centers in the heartland region. Methods: CPCRN, Midwest Cancer Alliance, and NCI worked closely with the cancer centers to select, edit and audience test the images and messages that would populate the Make It Your Own (MIYO) system. CPCRN built a secure website and cancer center staff members were trained on the MIYO Clinical Trials Poster website by the Midwest Cancer Alliance, CPCRN and the Heartland Region Cancer Information Service. Each cancer center created a unique user name and password to access the site. Organizations were able to select images, clinical trial messages, and add their own organization's logo in order to build a poster that best reflects the population served. Once created, the poster was provided in a print ready file that could be produced on a local printer, at a hospital print shop, or through a commercial print shop. To determine if this new system of offering cancer publications is a feasible method to create and distribute publications, a program evaluation was conducted using the on-line survey tool Survey Monkey. Project outcomes measured satisfaction, ease of use, number of unique poster element combinations, and number of posters generated and printed. Results: Fifteen cancer centers were trained on the MIYO website; ten completed the post-use survey. Participants indicated that the ease to create a poster, with an average rating of 8.8 (10=very easy, 1=very difficult). Eighty percent indicated that the system offered images that represented the population served. All agreed or strongly agreed that the system was user friendly and that they would recommend the system to others, and 90 % would use MIYO again. A total of ten unique poster element combinations were selected by eleven organizations. Five organizations indicated they printed the posters within 4-8 weeks of introduction to the MIYO system, all on local printers. Discussion: MIYO is a demonstration of the varied needs of local organizations and the opportunity to meet their needs through use of a web-based customizable resource and distribution system. National and academic institutions have the opportunity to test health education resources through collaboration with local and regional health care providers. This collaboration between academia and private organizations gives rise to unique solutions for creation and dissemination of evidence-based resources

Multiple shRNA combinations for near-complete coverage of all HIV-1 strains

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Combinatorial RNA interference (co-RNAi) approaches are needed to account for viral variability in treating HIV-1 with RNAi, as single short hairpin RNAs (shRNA) are rapidly rendered ineffective by resistant strains. Current work suggests that 4 simultaneously expressed shRNAs may prevent the emergence of resistant strains.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study we assembled combinations of highly-conserved shRNAs to target as many HIV-1 strains as possible. We analyzed intersecting conservations of 10 shRNAs to find combinations with 4+ matching the maximum number of strains using 1220+ HIV-1 sequences from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). We built 26 combinations of 2 to 7 shRNAs with up to 87% coverage for all known strains and 100% coverage of clade B subtypes, and characterized their intrinsic suppressive activities in transient expression assays. We found that all combinations had high combined suppressive activities, though there were also large changes in the individual activities of the component shRNAs in our multiple expression cassette configurations.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>By considering the intersecting conservations of shRNA combinations we have shown that it is possible to assemble combinations of 6 and 7 highly active, highly conserved shRNAs such that there is always at least 4 shRNAs within each combination covering all currently known variants of entire HIV-1 subtypes. By extension, it may be possible to combine several combinations for complete global coverage of HIV-1 variants.</p

An Infinitely Expandable Cloning Strategy plus Repeat-Proof PCR for Working with Multiple shRNA

Vector construction with restriction enzymes (REs) typically involves the ligation of a digested donor fragment (insert) to a reciprocally digested recipient fragment (vector backbone). Creating a suitable cloning plan becomes increasingly difficult for complex strategies requiring repeated insertions such as constructing multiple short hairpin RNA (shRNA) expression vectors for RNA interference (RNAi) studies. The problem lies in the reduced availability of suitable RE recognition sites with an increasing number of cloning events and or vector size. This report details a technically simple, directional cloning solution using REs with compatible cohesive ends that are repeatedly destroyed and simultaneously re-introduced with each round of cloning. Donor fragments can be made by PCR or sub-cloned from pre-existing vectors and inserted ad infinitum in any combination. The design incorporates several cloning cores in order to be compatible with as many donor sequences as possible. We show that joining sub-combinations made in parallel is more time-efficient than sequential construction (of one cassette at a time) for any combination of 4 or more insertions. Screening for the successful construction of combinations using Taq polymerase based PCR became increasingly difficult with increasing number of repeated sequence elements. A Pfu polymerase based PCR was developed and successfully used to amplify combinations of up to eleven consecutive hairpin expression cassettes. The identified PCR conditions can be beneficial to others working with multiple shRNA or other repeated sequences, and the infinitely expandable cloning strategy serves as a general solution applicable to many cloning scenarios