Play hard, work harder? How hobbies affect employees’ work and life

Decades of work-family research establishes that family life substantially influences experiences at work. While we have vast knowledge regarding the influence of family on work and vice versa, relatively little research examines the influence of other activities that employees engage in outside of work, considered a “third place” domain (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000) and their impact on work. In this dissertation, I focus on hobbies as an exemplar for a “third place” domain, which affects employees’ experiences across domains. In researching hobbies, I employ theoretical perspective from theories of multiple domains. From one hand, hobbies align with role accumulation theory (Sieber, 1974) and can be a source of enrichment leading to greater energy and beneficial outcomes for other domains. On the other hand, in alignment with role strain theory (Goode, 1960), daily hobby involvement can be a source of depletion, leading to detrimental daily outcomes across domains. I examine these perspectives in the same theoretical framework, and by so doing add to multiple domains research in integrating contradictory theories regarding the effects of multiple domains on one another. Across two studies I highlight the importance of hobbies for employees and examine the effects of hobby involvement as a between- and within-person phenomenon. In doing so, I facilitate future research regarding the effects of hobbies and other “third place” domains on employees’ work, family, and on other domains in their lives more generally.Ph.D

Novel blood test to predict neoplastic activity in healthy patients and metastatic recurrence after primary tumor resection

We reported that single oncosuppressor-mutated (SOM) cells turn malignant when exposed to cancer patients’ sera. We tested the possibility to incorporate this discovery into a biological platform able to detect cancer in healthy individuals and to predict metastases after tumor resection. Blood was drawn prior to tumor resection and within a year after surgery. Blood samples from healthy individuals or metastatic patients were used as negative and positive controls, respectively. Patients at risk for cancer were included in the screening cohort. Once treated, cells were injected into nonobese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficiency mice to monitor tumor growth. All samples of sera coming from metastatic patients transformed SOM cells into malignant cells. Four samples from screened patients transformed SOM cells. Further clinical tests done on these patients showed the presence of early cancerous lesions despite normal tumor markers. Based on the xenotransplants size, we were able to predict metastasis in three patients before diagnostic tests confirmed the presence of the metastatic lesions. These data show that this serum-based platform has potentials to be used for cancer screening and for identification of patients at risks to develop metastases regardless of the Tumor Node Metastasis (TNM) stage or tumor markers level

Additional file 3: Table S3. of Exosomes isolated from cancer patients’ sera transfer malignant traits and confer the same phenotype of primary tumors to oncosuppressor-mutated cells

Plasma membrane proteins involved in microvesicles uptake*. (PDF 239 kb

Additional file 2: Table S2. of Exosomes isolated from cancer patients’ sera transfer malignant traits and confer the same phenotype of primary tumors to oncosuppressor-mutated cells

MS data from the plasma membrane as visualized on Scaffold Q+. (PDF 1967 kb

Additional file 1: Table S1. of Exosomes isolated from cancer patients’ sera transfer malignant traits and confer the same phenotype of primary tumors to oncosuppressor-mutated cells

List of antibodies used in this study. (PDF 16 kb

Additional file 5: Figure S4. of Transfer of malignant trait to BRCA1 deficient human fibroblasts following exposure to serum of cancer patients

Cancer patient sera changed the fate of BRCA1-KO fibroblasts. BRCA1-KO fibroblasts were treated with CRC-LM patient sera for 2 weeks (Cases G, H and I). Treated cells were injected into NOD/SCID mice that were followed for 4 weeks for tumors growth. Generated tumors were processed for H&E staining, or immunolabeled with antibodies against tumor specific markers. (PPT 36551 kb

Additional file 4: Table S4. of Exosomes isolated from cancer patients’ sera transfer malignant traits and confer the same phenotype of primary tumors to oncosuppressor-mutated cells

List of top 100 proteins that are often identified in exosomes (ExoCarta). (PDF 158 kb