PNG Voices: Listening to Australia's Closest Neighbour: Papua New Guinean Perspectives on Australia and the World

In 2021, a broad coalition of researchers embarked on an unprecedented endeavour: to ask hundreds of ordinary Papua New Guineans about the strengths and challenges of Papua New Guinea (PNG), their dreams for PNG’s future, and how they see Australia’s relationship with PNG. PNG is Australia’s closest neighbour, and the single largest recipient of Australian development assistance. The two nations share a prehistory, and more recently, a colonial history. But despite this apparent closeness, few Australians today can say that they know how people in PNG feel about their own communities or about Australia, or about the impacts of Australian tax monies in PNG. The present study, PNG Voices, represents the first time, to our knowledge, that an Australian institution has sought the opinions of a wide swathe of PNG citizens about their realities and their perception of Australia. We asked 536 Papua New Guineans, originating in 21 of PNG’s 22 Provinces, to reflect on: the strengths and assets of their communities and of PNG as a whole; the challenges facing their communities and PNG as a whole; their dreams for their communities; Australia and Australians, and Australia’s relationship with PNG; the types of foreign investment in PNG by different actors. In sum, this has been the first major survey of Papua New Guinean attitudes toward PNG and Australia’s role in it. The key findings of PNG Voices do not always make for easy reading. Some readers may find points of dissonance between how some in PNG view Australia and how the Australia-PNG relationship is framed and understood by Australian policymakers. Let those points, along with the detail and subtleties of the responses as a whole, guide renewed reflection on Australia’s relationship with PNG and, perhaps, recalibration of Australian policies with our closest neighbour

Expression of CDK7, cyclin H and MAT1 is elevated in breast cancer and is prognostic in estrogen receptor- positive breast cancer

Purpose: CDK-activation kinase (CAK) is required for the regulation of the cell-cycle and is a trimeric complex consisting of Cyclin Dependent Kinase 7 (CDK7), Cyclin H and the accessory protein, MAT1. CDK7 also plays a critical role in regulating transcription, primarily by phosphorylating RNA polymerase II, as well as transcription factors such as estrogen receptor-α (ER). Deregulation of cell cycle and transcriptional control are general features of tumor cells, highlighting the potential for the use of CDK7 inhibitors as novel cancer therapeutics. Experimental Design: mRNA and protein expression of CDK7 and its essential co-factors cyclinH and MAT1, were evaluated in breast cancer samples to determine if their levels are altered in cancer. Immunohistochemical staining of >900 breast cancers was used to determine the association with clinicopathological features and patient outcome. Results: We show that expression of CDK7, cyclinH and MAT1 are all closely linked at the mRNA and protein level and their expression is elevated in breast cancer compared with the normal breast tissue. Intriguingly, CDK7 expression was inversely proportional to tumour grade and size and outcome analysis showed an association between CAK levels and better outcome. Moreover, CDK7 expression was positively associated with ER expression and in particular with phosphorylation of ER at serine 118, a site important for ER transcriptional activity. Conclusions: Expression of components of the CAK complex, CDK7, MAT1 and Cyclin H are elevated in breast cancer and correlates with ER. Like ERα , CDK7 expression is inversely proportional to poor prognostic factors and survival

The Next Generation of Axion Helioscopes: The International Axion Observatory (IAXO)

The International Axion Observatory (IAXO) is a proposed 4th-generation axion helioscope with the primary physics research goal to search for solar axions via their Primakoff conversion into photons of 1 \u2013 10 keV energies in a strong magnetic field. IAXO will achieve a sensitivity to the axion-photon coupling ga\u3b3 down to a few 710 1212 GeV 121 for a wide range of axion masses up to 3c 0.25 eV. This is an improvement over the currently best (3rd generation) axion helioscope, the CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST), of about 5 orders of magnitude in signal strength, corresponding to a factor 3c 20 in the axion photon coupling. IAXO's sensitivity relies on the construction of a large superconducting 8-coil toroidal magnet of 20 m length optimized for axion research. Each of the eight 60 cm diameter magnet bores is equipped with x-ray optics focusing the signal photons into 3c 0.2 cm2 spots that are imaged by very low background x-ray detectors. The magnet will be built into a structure with elevation and azimuth drives that will allow solar tracking for 12 hours each day. This contribution is a summary of our papers [1], [2] and [3] and we refer to these for further details

The Preclinical Natural History of Serous Ovarian Cancer: Defining the Target for Early Detection

Pat Brown and colleagues carry out a modeling study and define what properties a biomarker-based screening test would require in order to be clinically useful