Interdisciplinarity/Extradisciplinarity: On the University and the Active Pursuit of Community

This paper explores a defining contradiction at the heart of the university as a social and cultural institution: society requires the university to serve it, but this service requires the university's detachment and freedom from external social determinations. I argue that we can see this paradox embedded at the very heart of the university expressed in a myriad of ways throughout the institution's long history, including the relatively recent debates about interdisciplinarity. I review some instances in the history of the university where this contradiction has expressed itself most clearly and then examine some of the ways in which the rubric "interdisciplinarity" has been deployed in the contemporary corporate university. How is the term used? Who uses it and for what reasons? How might we come to understand "interdisciplinarity" as a performative term re-presenting or promising one set of meanings, but instantiating a very different set of actions? What are the political dimensions of its use? I highlight and problematize the distinction between the emergence of "interdisciplinarity" as an intellectual phenomenon and "interdisciplinarity" as it is currently defined and administered within academic institutions. Finally, I explore an alternative way to think about what we do at the university in the name of interdisciplinarity

Future tense: scandalous thinking during the conjunctural crisis

This brief essay considers the impact of the current conjunctural crisis on ideas about, and access to the ‘future’. It explores ways in which cultural critics and scholars might learn to think ‘scandalously’ in order to imagine and build a more equitable and humane world

The beguiling: glamour in/as platformed cultural production

Arguing that questions of power expressed through aesthetic form are too often left out of current approaches to digital culture, this article revives the modernist aesthetic category of glamour in order to analyze contemporary forms of platformed cultural production. Through a case study of popular feminism, the article traces the ways in which glamour, defined as a beguiling affective force linked to promotional capitalist logics, suffuses digital content, metrics, and platforms. From the formal aesthetic codes of the ubiquitous beauty and lifestyle Instagram feeds that perpetuate the beguiling promise of popular feminism, to the enticing simplicity of online metrics and scores that promise transformative social connection and approbation, to the political economic drive for total information awareness and concomitant disciplining, predicting and optimizing of consumer-citizens, the article argues that the ambivalent aesthetic of glamour provides an apt descriptor and compelling heuristic for digital cultural production today

Girl Power's Last Chance?:Tavi Gevinson, Feminism, and Popular Media Culture

This paper focuses on Tavi Gevinson, the teenage fashion blogger-turned-editor in chief of the online magazine Rookie, as a case study with which to interrogate the production and circulation of feminist politics within a ‘post-girl power’ era. Drawing on theories of performativity, I employ a discursive and ideological textual analysis of Gevinson’s self-produced media and media coverage to map how she uses the opportunities afforded by digital media to rearticulate narratives of ‘girl power’ and perform a feminist girlhood subjectivity that makes feminism accessible to her many readers. While I argue that Gevinson’s ability to do so is positive and demonstrates the porous nature of postfeminist media culture, I also suggest that we must be critical of the ways in which her feminism functions as part of her self brand that reproduces feminism as white, middle-class, and ‘hip’. Thus, I conclude by questioning a larger cultural trend towards the branding of feminism and advocating the need for an intersectional approach to understanding the resurgence of feminism within contemporary popular media culture

The Microevolution and Epidemiology of Staphylococcus aureus Colonization during Atopic Eczema Disease Flare.

Staphylococcus aureus is an opportunistic pathogen and variable component of the human microbiota. A characteristic of atopic eczema (AE) is colonization by S. aureus, with exacerbations associated with an increased bacterial burden of the organism. Despite this, the origins and genetic diversity of S. aureus colonizing individual patients during AE disease flares is poorly understood. To examine the microevolution of S. aureus colonization, we deep sequenced S. aureus populations from nine children with moderate to severe AE and 18 non-atopic children asymptomatically carrying S. aureus nasally. Colonization by clonal S. aureus populations was observed in both AE patients and control participants, with all but one of the individuals carrying colonies belonging to a single sequence type. Phylogenetic analysis showed that disease flares were associated with the clonal expansion of the S. aureus population, occurring over a period of weeks to months. There was a significant difference in the genetic backgrounds of S. aureus colonizing AE cases versus controls (Fisher exact test, P = 0.03). Examination of intra-host genetic heterogeneity of the colonizing S. aureus populations identified evidence of within-host selection in the AE patients, with AE variants being potentially selectively advantageous for intracellular persistence and treatment resistance.CPH was supported by Wellcome Trust (grant number 104241/z/14/z). MTGH, KAP, and KO were supported by the Scottish Infection Research Network and Chief Scientist Office through the Scottish Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Institute consortium funding (CSO reference: SIRN10). Bioinformatics and computational biology analyses were supported by the University of St Andrews Bioinformatics Unit that is funded by a Wellcome Trust ISSF award (grant 097831/Z/11/Z). JP and MTGH were supported by Wellcome Trust grant 098051. AEM is supported by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant BB/M014088/1. SJB is supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship in Clinical Science (106865/Z/15/Z)

Pharmaco-genomic investigations of organo-iridium anticancer complexes reveal novel mechanism of action

Resistance to platinum drugs (used in >50% of cancer chemotherapies) is a clinical problem. Other precious metal complexes with distinct mechanisms of action might overcome this. Half-sandwich organometallic complexes containing arene or cyclopentadienyl (Cp) ligands show promise. We screened two iridium(III) complexes [Ir(CpXbiph)(ppy)Cl] (ZL49, 1, ppy = phenylpyridine) and [Ir(CpXph)(azpyNMe2)Cl]PF6 (ZL109, 2, azpyNMe2 = N,N-dimethylphenylazopyridine) in 916 cancer cell lines from 28 tissue types. On average, complex 2 was 78× more potent than 1, 36× more active than cisplatin (CDDP), and strongly active (nanomolar) in patient-derived ovarian cancer cell lines. RNA sequencing of A2780 ovarian cells revealed upregulation of antioxidant responses (NRF2, AP-1) consistent with observed induction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Protein microarrays, high content imaging and cell cycle analysis showed S/G2 arrest, and late-stage DNA damage response without p53 requirement. The triple-negative breast cancer cell line OCUB-M was highly sensitive to 2 as were cell lines with KIT mutations. Complex 2 exhibits a markedly different pattern of antiproliferative activity compared to the 253 drugs in the Sanger Cancer Genome database, but is most similar to osmium(II) arene complexes which share the same azopyridine ligand. Redox modulation and DNA damage can provide a multi-targeting strategy, allowing compounds such as 2 to overcome cellular resistance to platinum anticancer drugs

Charge-tagging liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry methodology targeting oxysterol diastereoisomers

The introduction of a hydroxy group to the cholesterol skeleton introduces not only the possibility for positional isomers but also diastereoisomers, where two or more isomers have different configurations at one or more of the stereocentres but are not mirror images. The differentiation of diastereoisomers is important as differing isomers can have differing biochemical properties and are formed via different biochemical pathways. Separation of diasterioisomers is not always easy by chromatographic methods. Here we demonstrate, by application of charge-tagging and derivatisation with the Girard P reagent, the separation and detection of biologically relevant diastereoisomers using liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry with multistage fragmentation

Bile acid biosynthesis in Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome bypassing cholesterol: Potential importance of pathway intermediates

Bile acids are the end products of cholesterol metabolism secreted into bile. They are essential for the absorption of lipids and lipid soluble compounds from the intestine. Here we have identified a series of unusual Δ5-unsaturated bile acids in plasma and urine of patients with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS), a defect in cholesterol biosynthesis resulting in elevated levels of 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC), an immediate precursor of cholesterol. Using liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry (LC-MS) we have uncovered a pathway of bile acid biosynthesis in SLOS avoiding cholesterol starting with 7-DHC and proceeding through 7-oxo and 7β-hydroxy intermediates. This pathway also occurs to a minor extent in healthy humans, but elevated levels of pathway intermediates could be responsible for some of the features SLOS. The pathway is also active in SLOS affected pregnancies as revealed by analysis of amniotic fluid. Importantly, intermediates in the pathway, 25-hydroxy-7-oxocholesterol, (25R)26-hydroxy-7-oxocholesterol, 3β-hydroxy-7-oxocholest-5-en-(25R)26-oic acid and the analogous 7β-hydroxysterols are modulators of the activity of Smoothened (Smo), an oncoprotein that mediates Hedgehog (Hh) signalling across membranes during embryogenesis and in the regeneration of postembryonic tissue. Computational docking of the 7-oxo and 7β-hydroxy compounds to the extracellular cysteine rich domain of Smo reveals that they bind in the same groove as both 20S-hydroxycholesterol and cholesterol, known activators of the Hh pathway

Identification of unusual oxysterols and bile acids with 7-oxo or 3β,5α,6β-trihydroxy functions in human plasma by charge-tagging mass spectrometry with multistage fragmentation

7-Oxocholesterol (7-OC), 5,6-epoxycholesterol (5,6-EC) and its hydrolysis product cholestane-3β,5α,6β-triol (3β,5α,6β-triol) are normally minor oxysterols in human samples, however, in disease their levels may be greatly elevated. This is the case in plasma from patients suffering from some lysosomal storage disorders e.g. Niemann Pick disease type C, or the inborn errors of sterol metabolism e.g. Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome and cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis. A complication in the analysis of 7-OC and 5,6-EC is that they can also be formed ex vivo from cholesterol during sample handling in air causing confusion with molecules formed in vivo. When formed endogenously 7-OC, 5,6-EC and 3β,5α,6β-triol can be converted to bile acids. Here, we describe methodology based on chemical derivatisation and liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry with multistage fragmentation (MSn) to identify the necessary intermediates in the conversion of 7-OC to 3β-hydroxy-7-oxochol-5-enoic acid and 5,6-EC and 3β,5α,6β-triol to 3β,5α,6β-trihydroxycholanoic acid. Identification of intermediate metabolites is facilitated by their unusual MSn fragmentation patterns. Semi-quantitative measurements are possible, but absolute values await the synthesis of isotope-labelled standards

Diverse perspectives on interdisciplinarity from Members of the College of the Royal Society of Canada

Various multiple-disciplinary terms and concepts (although most commonly interdisciplinarity, which is used herein) are used to frame education, scholarship, research, and interactions within and outside academia. In principle, the premise of interdisciplinarity may appear to have many strengths; yet, the extent to which interdisciplinarity is embraced by the current generation of academics, the benefits and risks for doing so, and the barriers and facilitators to achieving interdisciplinarity, represent inherent challenges. Much has been written on the topic of interdisciplinarity, but to our knowledge there have been few attempts to consider and present diverse perspectives from scholars, artists, and scientists in a cohesive manner. As a team of 57 members from the Canadian College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada (the College) who self-identify as being engaged or interested in interdisciplinarity, we provide diverse intellectual, cultural, and social perspectives. The goal of this paper is to share our collective wisdom on this topic with the broader community and to stimulate discourse and debate on the merits and challenges associated with interdisciplinarity. Perhaps the clearest message emerging from this exercise is that working across established boundaries of scholarly communities is rewarding, necessary, and is more likely to result in impact. However, there are barriers that limit the ease with which this can occur (e.g., lack of institutional structures and funding to facilitate cross-disciplinary exploration). Occasionally, there can be significant risk associated with doing interdisciplinary work (e.g., lack of adequate measurement or recognition of work by disciplinary peers). Solving many of the world\u27s complex and pressing problems (e.g., climate change, sustainable agriculture, the burden of chronic disease, and aging populations) demands thinking and working across long-standing, but in some ways restrictive, academic boundaries. Academic institutions and key support structures, especially funding bodies, will play an important role in helping to realize what is readily apparent to all who contributed to this paper-that interdisciplinarity is essential for solving complex problems; it is the new norm. Failure to empower and encourage those doing this research will serve as a great impediment to training, knowledge, and addressing societal issues