The Ursinus Weekly, October 21, 1940

Democrats due tomorrow for rally in gymnasium • Haines group supports Willkie but says FDR will win in November • Bears don wings to swoop down on Blue Hens, 25-0 • Student from Near East is speaker at vespers • Moritz paints picture of life in Chinese colleges • Agan appoints committees as juniors plan year\u27s activities • Pre-legal society to hear about criminal law action • Vocalists from Phila. Opera Company please in musical • College president is named head of local draft board • IRC to discuss new eastern axis at afternoon session • Bears take to passing for air raid on Delaware Hens • F.M. penalty kick takes soccer game from booters, 1-0 • Men\u27s debating society admits two juniors and four frosh • Women debaters hear report on college debate conference • McClure represents Ursinus at Haverford inauguration • Freshmen entertained at tea by the combined YM-YWCA • Noted scholar reviews book written by president McClure • Carter and Miller journey to convention of history associationhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1795/thumbnail.jp

An Optogenetic Method to Modulate Cell Contractility during Tissue Morphogenesis

SummaryMorphogenesis of multicellular organisms is driven by localized cell shape changes. How, and to what extent, changes in behavior in single cells or groups of cells influence neighboring cells and large-scale tissue remodeling remains an open question. Indeed, our understanding of multicellular dynamics is limited by the lack of methods allowing the modulation of cell behavior with high spatiotemporal precision. Here, we developed an optogenetic approach to achieve local modulation of cell contractility and used it to control morphogenetic movements during Drosophila embryogenesis. We show that local inhibition of apical constriction is sufficient to cause a global arrest of mesoderm invagination. By varying the spatial pattern of inhibition during invagination, we further demonstrate that coordinated contractile behavior responds to local tissue geometrical constraints. Together, these results show the efficacy of this optogenetic approach to dissect the interplay between cell-cell interaction, force transmission, and tissue geometry during complex morphogenetic processes

The Ursinus Weekly, May 19, 1941

Meeting post to direct grads on Alumni Day • Plans near completion for graduation weekend activities, June 6,7,8, and 9 • Invitation to revolution is vespers\u27 challenge • Tyson to address bear athletes at Varsity Club dinner • Woody Leh and orchestra syncopate for May hop • Debaters hold joint banquet at close of year\u27s activity • Waltz dream by Straus is commencement operetta • Morris\u27 varied program scores big success as his valedictory concert • Y prexies announce cabinets for next year • Students in science look forward to work in graduate schools • Final examination: Second semester 1941 • Britannica cites Dr. Price as authority on common colds • Baseballers win four straight; defeat Juniata Friday 4-1 • Cindermen hit stride and defeat Lions in close meet Saturday; Hartzell stars • Co-eds defeat Temple and Rhode Island, 5-0 • Baker wicketmen defeat Penn but lose to Princeton 35-20 • Slotter fans 18 as Perkiomen preppers stop jay-vees 9-6 • Women golfers lose to Beaverhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1819/thumbnail.jp

THE PRODUCTION OF VESICULAR STOMATITIS VIRUS BY ANTIGEN- OR MITOGEN-STIMULATED LYMPHOCYTES AND CONTINUOUS LYMPHOBLASTOID LINES

A variety of lymphoid cell populations were examined in terms of their ability to replicate vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), a lytic, RNA-containing virus maturing at the cell surface. The number of cells capable of producing VSV was estimated in terms of infectious centers by the virus plaque assay (VPA), and morphologically by electron microscopy (EM). The lymphoid cells examined in this study included: (a) lymph node cells from delayed hypersensitive guinea pigs stimulated by specific antigen, (b) mouse spleen cells activated by selective bone marrow-derived (B) cell and thymus derived (T) cell mitogens, and (c) cells of human and murine continuous lymphoblastoid or lymphoma lines. In unstimulated cultures of guinea pig lymph node cells there is a background of approximately 1 in 1,000 cells which produces VSV; in purified protein derivative (PPD)-stimulated cultures the number of cells producing virus was 1.6% in the VPA and 1.9% by EM. These cells were large lymphocytes with some morphological features of transformed lymphocytes but were not typical blast cells. A few macrophages were associated with virus in both stimulated and control cultures. These observations indicate that (a) cells responsive to antigens, as detected by a marker virus, were lymphocytes; (b) cells other than lymphocytes (macrophages) were capable of replicating VSV even without antigenic stimulation; and (c) the correlation of results obtained by VPA and morphologic examination was usually quite good. Of the total number of mouse spleen cells stimulated with concanavalin (Con A), a T cell mitogen, 4.5 (EM)–5.7% (VPA) were associated with VSV. These were characteristic transformed lymphocytes, similar to phytohemagglutinin (PHA)-stimulated human lymphocytes. In contrast Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated mouse spleen cultures contained lower numbers of virus plaque-forming cells. The majority of such cells associated with virus displayed extensive rough endoplasmic reticulum. Two cultured murine lymphomas containing lymphocytes with the θ surface marker (L5178Y and EL-4) showed a 15–100-fold higher incidence of virus-producing cells than leukemias (L1210 and C57Bl/6) which did not carry this marker. Similarly, the L2C guinea pig leukemia, a known B cell leukemia, yielded a low percent of virus plaque-forming cells (<2%). However, MOPC-104, a plasma cell tumor presumed to be of B cell origin, was found to be an efficient virus producer. There was a wide variation in the efficiency of VSV replication among human lymphoblastoid lines. One line, Wil-2, produced 80% infectious centers after 24 h of exposure to VSV, and all cells were associated with virus at the EM level. The relationship between the virus-producing cells and different lymphocyte subpopulations as well as the efficiency of the two assays for studying virus-producing lymphocytes is discussed

First-in-man evaluation of 124I-PGN650: A PET tracer for detecting phosphatidylserine as a biomarker of the solid tumor microenvironment

Purpose: PGN650 is a F(ab′) 2 antibody fragment that targets phosphatidylserine (PS), a marker normally absent that becomes exposed on tumor cells and tumor vasculature in response to oxidative stress and increases in response to therapy. PGN650 was labeled with 124 I to create a positron emission tomography (PET) agent as an in vivo biomarker for tumor microenvironment and response to therapy. In this phase 0 study, we evaluated the pharmacokinetics, safety, radiation dosimetry, and tumor targeting of this tracer in a cohort of patients with cancer. Methods: Eleven patients with known solid tumors received approximately 140 MBq (3.8 mCi) 124 I-PGN650 intravenously and underwent positron emission tomography–computed tomography (PET/CT) approximately 1 hour, 3 hours, and either 24 hours or 48 hours later to establish tracer kinetics for the purpose of calculating radiation dosimetry (from integration of the organ time-activity curves and OLINDA/EXM using the adult male and female models). Results: Known tumor foci demonstrated mildly increased uptake, with the highest activity at the latest imaging time. There were no unexpected adverse events. The liver was the organ receiving the highest radiation dose (0.77 mGy/MBq); the effective dose was 0.41 mSv/MBq. Conclusion: Although 124 I-PGN650 is safe for human PET imaging, the tumor targeting with this agent in patients was less than previously observed in animal studies

The Ursinus Weekly, February 24, 1941

Kathryn Boghetti gives brilliant performance in contralto recital • Purity of the heart is vespers theme • Hitchler describes wide opportunities in law • Buck Hills conference to be held March 7-9 • Atkinson, Howarth and Scott nominated for May queen contest • Pre-meds to hear talk by Ursinus graduate • G. Adams raised to editorial staff by \u27Weekly\u27 board • Ursinus debaters travel • Women debate \u27plan for union\u27 with Moravian • Beware Joe Louis! Ursinus boxers show great ability for coming intramurals • Co-eds bag 138 braves at Indian motif Lorelei • Byron, Patterson to speak at meeting of IRC Tuesday • Ken Hashagen came to Ursinus via many honors at Penn • A.A.U.W. will consider national defense at Freeland dinner • Gettysburg tosses varsity wrestlers; cubs are pinned by Mercersburg • Varsity court team loses two contests on week-end trip • Freshman quintet loses to Diplomats by 32-30 • Bears wilt in second half: lose to Diplomats, 41-27 • Frosh triumph 48-34 over Norristown YMCAhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1809/thumbnail.jp

Ethical Concerns of and Risk Mitigation Strategies for Crowdsourcing Contests and Innovation Challenges: Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: Crowdsourcing contests (also called innovation challenges, innovation contests, and inducement prize contests) can be used to solicit multisectoral feedback on health programs and design public health campaigns. They consist of organizing a steering committee, soliciting contributions, engaging the community, judging contributions, recognizing a subset of contributors, and sharing with the community. OBJECTIVE: This scoping review describes crowdsourcing contests by stage, examines ethical problems at each stage, and proposes potential ways of mitigating risk. METHODS: Our analysis was anchored in the specific example of a crowdsourcing contest that our team organized to solicit videos promoting condom use in China. The purpose of this contest was to create compelling 1-min videos to promote condom use. We used a scoping review to examine the existing ethical literature on crowdsourcing to help identify and frame ethical concerns at each stage. RESULTS: Crowdsourcing has a group of individuals solve a problem and then share the solution with the public. Crowdsourcing contests provide an opportunity for community engagement at each stage: organizing, soliciting, promoting, judging, recognizing, and sharing. Crowdsourcing poses several ethical concerns: organizing-potential for excluding community voices; soliciting-potential for overly narrow participation; promoting-potential for divulging confidential information; judging-potential for biased evaluation; recognizing-potential for insufficient recognition of the finalist; and sharing-potential for the solution to not be implemented or widely disseminated. CONCLUSIONS: Crowdsourcing contests can be effective and engaging public health tools but also introduce potential ethical problems. We present methods for the responsible conduct of crowdsourcing contests

Fundamental physical cellular constraints drive self-organization of tissues

Morphogenesis is driven by small cell shape changes that modulate tissue organization. Apical surfaces of proliferating epithelial sheets have been particularly well studied. Currently, it is accepted that a stereotyped distribution of cellular polygons is conserved in proliferating tissues among metazoans. In this work, we challenge these previous findings showing that diverse natural packed tissues have very different polygon distributions. We use Voronoi tessellations as a mathematical framework that predicts this diversity. We demonstrate that Voronoi tessellations and the very different tissues analysed share an overriding restriction: the frequency of polygon types correlates with the distribution of cell areas. By altering the balance of tensions and pressures within the packed tissues using disease, genetic or computer model perturbations, we show that as long as packed cells present a balance of forces within tissue, they will be under a physical constraint that limits its organization. Our discoveries establish a new framework to understand tissue architecture in development and disease. Synopsis Cell shapes in naturally packed tissues have different polygon distributions. Voronoi tessellations-based analysis suggests that polygon frequencies are restricted by the distribution of cell areas, and that this restriction emanates from the balance of forces within the tissue. Cell shapes in natural packed tissues present very different polygon distributions. These patterns can be reproduced by Voronoi tessellations. Natural tissues and Voronoi diagrams share some geometrical properties. There is a physical constraint that limits the organization of natural tissues. Unbalance of forces within the natural tissue breaks this restriction. Cell shapes in naturally packed tissues have different polygon distributions. Voronoi tessellations-based analysis suggests that polygon frequencies are restricted by the distribution of cell areas, and that this restriction emanates from the balance of forces within the tissue.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación BFU2011-2573