Making the 'genetic counsellor' in the UK, 1980-1995.

The professional identity of the 'genetic counsellor' first took shape in the UK in the early 1990s, when the University of Manchester established the country's first masters-level training course. Postwar, genetic counselling had been carried out by (male) clinical geneticists, who, alongside their research, clinical and field-building activities, met patients and families to discuss inherited conditions and risk estimates, and who sometimes advised parents whether to attempt or continue pregnancies. By contrast, the new cohort of students in Manchester in the 1990s were not medically trained, were mostly women, and were schooled in the psychological and social consequences of genetic testing and diagnosis, as well as methods for the care, support and emotional management of patients and families. This was a significant change both in the practices of 'genetic counselling' and who was expected to practise it. Focusing on a small section of this history, between 1980 and 1995, this paper describes some of the historical threads that contributed to this change. It charts the early work of genetic nurses and social workers, who in the 1980s carved out distinctive roles within National Health Service genetics centres. It describes the separate, specialist provision developed by sickle cell and thalassaemia counsellors, who developed new approaches in dialogue with racialised and underserved patient communities. It examines growing interest in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the tacit social and cultural conditions of genetic counselling encounters, and how this cohered with attention from disability scholars, psychologists and social scientists. By describing these historical contributions, this paper explores how the intersecting gendered, racialised and disciplinary politics of clinical genetics shaped the new professional role of the 'genetic counsellor'

New Meanings in the Archive: Privacy, Technological Change and the Status of Sources

This essay reflects on how technological changes in biomedicine can affect what archival sources are available for historical research. Historians and anthropologists have examined the ways in which old biomedical samples can be made to serve novel scientific purposes, such as when decades‐old frozen tissue specimens are analyzed using new genomic techniques. Those uses are also affected by shifting ethical regimes, which affect who can do what with old samples, or whether anything can be done with them at all. Archival collections are subject to similar dynamics, as institutional change and shifts in ethical guidelines and privacy laws affect which sources can be accessed and which are closed. I witnessed just such a change during my research into human genetics using archives in the Wellcome Collection. A few years into my project, those archives had their privacy conditions reassessed, and I saw how some sources previously seen as neutral were now understood to contain personal sensitive information. This paper describes the conditions of this shift—including the effects of technological change, new ethical considerations, and changing laws around privacy. I reflect on how these affected my understanding of the history of human genetics, and how I and others might narrate it

The Formation and Properties of Thin Lipid Membranes from HK and LK Sheep Red Cell Lipids

Lipids were obtained from high potassium (HK) and low potassium (LK) sheep red cells by sequential extraction of the erythrocytes with isopropanol-chloroform, chloroform-methanol-0.1 M KCl, and chloroform. The extract contained cholesterol and phospholipid in a molar ratio of 0.8:1.0, and less than 1% protein contaminant. Stable thin lipid membranes separating two aqueous compartments were formed from an erythrocyte lipid-hydrocarbon solution, and had an electrical resistance of ∼108 ohm-cm2 and a capacitance of 0.38–0.4 µf/cm2. From the capacitance values, membrane thickness was estimated to be 46–132 A, depending on the assumed value for the dielectric constant (2.0–4.5). Membrane voltage was recorded in the presence of ionic (NaCl and/or KCl) concentration gradients in the solutions bathing the membrane. The permeability of the membrane to Na+, K+, and Cl- (expressed as the transference number, Tion) was computed from the steady-state membrane voltage and the activity ratio of the ions in the compartments bathing the membrane. TNa and TK were approximately equal (∼0.8) and considerably greater than TCl (∼0.2). The ionic transference numbers were independent of temperature, the hydrocarbon solvent, the osmolarity of the solutions bathing the membranes, and the cholesterol content of the membranes, over the range 21–38°C. The high degree of membrane cation selectivity was tentatively attributed to the negatively charged phospholipids (phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylserine) present in the lipid extract

Droplet actuation induced by coalescence: experimental evidences and phenomenological modeling

This paper considers the interaction between two droplets placed on a substrate in immediate vicinity. We show here that when the two droplets are of different fluids and especially when one of the droplet is highly volatile, a wealth of fascinating phenomena can be observed. In particular, the interaction may result in the actuation of the droplet system, i.e. its displacement over a finite length. In order to control this displacement, we consider droplets confined on a hydrophilic stripe created by plasma-treating a PDMS substrate. This controlled actuation opens up unexplored opportunities in the field of microfluidics. In order to explain the observed actuation phenomenon, we propose a simple phenomenological model based on Newton's second law and a simple balance between the driving force arising from surface energy gradients and the viscous resistive force. This simple model is able to reproduce qualitatively and quantitatively the observed droplet dynamics

Drying Shrinkage Mechanisms in Portland Cement Paste

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65426/1/j.1151-2916.1987.tb05002.x.pd

Quantification of the virus-host interaction in human T lymphotropic virus I infection

BACKGROUND: HTLV-I causes the disabling inflammatory disease HAM/TSP: there is no vaccine, no satisfactory treatment and no means of assessing the risk of disease or prognosis in infected people. Like many immunopathological diseases with a viral etiology the outcome of infection is thought to depend on the virus-host immunology interaction. However the dynamic virus-host interaction is complex and current models of HAM/TSP pathogenesis are conflicting. The CD8+ cell response is thought to be a determinant of both HTLV-I proviral load and disease status but its effects can obscure other factors. RESULTS: We show here that in the absence of CD8+ cells, CD4+ lymphocytes from HAM/TSP patients expressed HTLV-I protein significantly more readily than lymphocytes from asymptomatic carriers of similar proviral load (P = 0.017). A high rate of viral protein expression was significantly associated with a large increase in the prevalence of HAM/TSP (P = 0.031, 89% of cases correctly classified). Additionally, a high rate of Tax expression and a low CD8+ cell efficiency were independently significantly associated with a high proviral load (P = 0.005, P = 0.003 respectively). CONCLUSION: These results disentangle the complex relationship between immune surveillance, proviral load, inflammatory disease and viral protein expression and indicate that increased protein expression may play an important role in HAM/TSP pathogenesis. This has important implications for therapy since it suggests that interventions should aim to reduce Tax expression rather than proviral load per se