Breaking the Language Barrier: A Report on English Language Services in Greater Boston

Assesses Massachusetts' English for Speakers of Other Languages system, demand and supply for services, their quantity and quality, and challenges such as lack of coordination. Recommends ways to reduce gaps in services and raise efficiency and quality

Genomic Profiling of Childhood Tumor Patient-Derived Xenograft Models to Enable Rational Clinical Trial Design.

Accelerating cures for children with cancer remains an immediate challenge as a result of extensive oncogenic heterogeneity between and within histologies, distinct molecular mechanisms evolving between diagnosis and relapsed disease, and limited therapeutic options. To systematically prioritize and rationally test novel agents in preclinical murine models, researchers within the Pediatric Preclinical Testing Consortium are continuously developing patient-derived xenografts (PDXs)-many of which are refractory to current standard-of-care treatments-from high-risk childhood cancers. Here, we genomically characterize 261 PDX models from 37 unique pediatric cancers; demonstrate faithful recapitulation of histologies and subtypes; and refine our understanding of relapsed disease. In addition, we use expression signatures to classify tumors for TP53 and NF1 pathway inactivation. We anticipate that these data will serve as a resource for pediatric oncology drug development and will guide rational clinical trial design for children with cancer

Epigenomic profiling of neuroblastoma cell lines.

Understanding the aberrant transcriptional landscape of neuroblastoma is necessary to provide insight to the underlying influences of the initiation, progression and persistence of this developmental cancer. Here, we present chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-Seq) data for the oncogenic transcription factors, MYCN and MYC, as well as regulatory histone marks H3K4me1, H3K4me3, H3K27Ac, and H3K27me3 in ten commonly used human neuroblastoma-derived cell line models. In addition, for all of the profiled cell lines we provide ATAC-Seq as a measure of open chromatin. We validate specificity of global MYCN occupancy in MYCN amplified cell lines and functional redundancy of MYC occupancy in MYCN non-amplified cell lines. Finally, we show with H3K27Ac ChIP-Seq that these cell lines retain expression of key neuroblastoma super-enhancers (SE). We anticipate this dataset, coupled with available transcriptomic profiling on the same cell lines, will enable the discovery of novel gene regulatory mechanisms in neuroblastoma

Talking about women and AIDS: Normative discourses on sexuality

A close reading of popular discourses on women and the AIDS epidemic reveals patterns that could be described as attempts to produce and reiterate notions of normative and deviant sexuality. Prostitutes, one frequently depicted "kind" of woman, are presented as indiscriminate, polluting to men, and categorically different from "normal" women. Other women depicted in AIDS discourses are almost always HIV-positive mothers or pregnant women; these women are usually only of concern insofar as they may infect their babies. The themes of self-control, self-discipline, and personal responsibility may also be used to stigmatize women. Such discourses suggest that those who have AIDS are responsible for their own illness. They also deflect attention away from the socioeconomic contexts which may make it more difficult for some to avoid infection, away from the connections between poverty, illness, and disempowerment, and away from the systematic inequalities that characterize U.S. society

Abstract P303: High Birth Weight Modifies Estimated Effects of Physical Activity on Cardiometabolic Health in Females

Background: Birth weight and physical activity are independently associated with cardiometabolic health outcomes. Low or high birth weight are indicators of adverse prenatal development, which may alter physiological response to physical activity later in life. However, few studies have explored the potential interaction between birth weight and physical activity as determinants of cardiometabolic health. Objective: We evaluated the hypothesis that high or low birth weight modifies the association of early life physical activity with cardiovascular disease or diabetes later in life. Methods: We analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health (Add Health), a nationally representative cohort of US adolescents followed into adulthood ( n =20,745) with four data collection waves between 1994 and 2008. Outcomes were assessed in early adulthood: (1) predicted 30-year cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, computed by a validated algorithm based on objective measures, and (2) prevalent pre-diabetes and diabetes. Using gender-stratified multivariable regression on multiply imputed data, we modeled (1) log-transformed 30-year CVD risk (linear regression) and (2) prevalent pre-diabetes and diabetes (PDM/DM; ordinal regression) each as a function of birth weight (low, normal, high; LBW, NBW, HBW) and self-reported moderate-to-vigorous physical activity frequency (MVPA) in adolescence and young adulthood, adjusting for age, smoking, and sociodemographic factors. Results: A greater proportion of women born at LBW had diabetes than NBW and HBW women (10.8% versus 5.9% and 5.4%, respectively). In adjusted analyses, MVPA in adolescence (MVPA1) and early adulthood (MVPA3) were not significantly associated with predicted CVD risk and prevalent pre-diabetes diabetes in men or women overall. However, greater MVPA1 was associated with lower predicted 30-year CVD risk in HBW females (estimated effect coefficient -0.02 [95% CI: -0.03, -0.005, p =0.02], p =0.05 for HBWхMVPA1 interaction), and the HBWхMVPA1 interaction on PDM/DM approached significance in females ( p =0.12). In females and males of LBW or NBW, MVPA1 was not significantly associated with predicted 30-year CVD risk or PDM/DM and LBWхMVPA1 interactions were not significant. Conclusions: Greater adolescent physical activity was most strongly associated with lower 30-year CVD risk in young women born at HBW. A similar association with prevalent DM/PDM approached significance, with greater adolescent physical activity most strongly associated in HBW women. Females born at HBW may be especially sensitive to the effects of physical activity on reducing risk of cardiometabolic disease later in life, with important implications for disease prevention and health policy. </jats:p

High Birth Weight Modifies Association Between Adolescent Physical Activity and Cardiometabolic Health in Women and Not Men

Recent evidence suggests that adverse prenatal development alters physiological response to physical activity, but longitudinal epidemiologic evidence is scant. This study tested the hypothesis that lower physical activity during adolescence and young adulthood is more strongly associated with later cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk and diabetes or prediabetes (DM/PDM) in women and men who were born with high or low birth weight (HBW, LBW), compared to normal birth weight (NBW). We analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a cohort study of US adolescents followed into adulthood (1994–2009). Using sex-stratified multivariable regression, 30-year CVD risk score (calculated using objective measures; n = 12,775) and prevalent DM/PDM (n = 15,138) at 24–32 years of age were each modeled as a function of birth weight category, self-reported moderate-to-vigorous physical activity frequency in adolescence (MVPA1) and young adulthood (MVPA3), and MVPA–birth weight interactions. Greater MVPA1 was associated with lower 30-year CVD risk score and DM/PDM risk in HBW women but not NBW or LBW women. Associations between MVPA1 and 30-year CVD risk or DM/PDM were not modified by HBW in men; or by LBW in women or men. Additionally, birth weight did not modify estimated effects of MVPA3. Findings suggest that frequent MVPA in adolescence may be a particularly important cardiometabolic risk reduction strategy in girls born HBW; however, we found no evidence that birth weight and MVPA interact in cardiometabolic disease risk in men, for MVPA in adulthood, or for LBW

Epigenomic profiling of neuroblastoma cell lines v1

This protocol explains the process of how we collected MYCN, MYC, and Histone ChIP-Seq data, as well as ATAC-Seq data for neuroblastoma cell lines. This protocol is comprised of three sections: Cell Growth and Expansion for care of neuroblastoma cell lines, ChIP-Seq protocol, and ATAC-Seq Protocol. Table 1, within the document, outlines which data was collected for each cell line. </p