Basic sciences in higher education, and teaching approaches in the context of 21st-century advances: Time for a change?

Higher education has become a leading life goal for youth across the world. More specifically, the higher education of basic scientists is key in the creation of new developments in economics, healthcare, science, and technology. However, advances and challenges that came with the 21st century have impacted how basic science research is conducted and how basic scientists function within a rapidly changing world. Without a doubt, the way in which basic scientists are trained at higher education institutions needs to be revisited and adapted where needed. By means of a literature review, this article demonstrates the significant challenges and advances in the 21st century, and how these impact the higher education of basic scientists. To summarise, training programmes must include a digitalisation focus and teach the use of digital technology to disseminate research findings to the lay public. Training must hone the skills that will help scientists to survive job scarcity in academia, skills such as curriculum vitae writing, promoting oneself as employable to industry companies and how to repurpose academic experiences for a different job market. Other aspects that need to be included are raising awareness, among the next generation of basic scientists, of the need to conduct research that has nationally and internationally relevant foci. Training must include mentorship during postgraduate training, the use of hybrid models of teaching, curricular integration and interdisciplinary learning and practices during the early stages of these scientists’ careers. Lastly, undergraduate degrees give a general introduction to the basic sciences, but leave graduates with insufficient laboratory experience, and thus they struggle to enter the job market after their undergraduate degree is completed. In other fields, a B. in Accounting makes a graduate an accountant, B. Eng makes them an engineer, but BSc. equates to nothing besides several introductions to various fields. More must be done

Variation in HIV prevalence and the population-level effects of antiretroviral therapy in reducing tuberculosis incidence in South Africa

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From basic mechanisms to clinical applications in heart protection, new players in cardiovascular diseases and cardiac theranostics: meeting report from the third international symposium on "New frontiers in cardiovascular research"

In this meeting report, particularly addressing the topic of protection of the cardiovascular system from ischemia/reperfusion injury, highlights are presented that relate to conditioning strategies of the heart with respect to molecular mechanisms and outcome in patients' cohorts, the influence of co-morbidities and medications, as well as the contribution of innate immune reactions in cardioprotection. Moreover, developmental or systems biology approaches bear great potential in systematically uncovering unexpected components involved in ischemia-reperfusion injury or heart regeneration. Based on the characterization of particular platelet integrins, mitochondrial redox-linked proteins, or lipid-diol compounds in cardiovascular diseases, their targeting by newly developed theranostics and technologies opens new avenues for diagnosis and therapy of myocardial infarction to improve the patients' outcome

Myocardial susceptibility to ischaemia/reperfusion in obesity : a re-evaluation of the effects of age

CITATION: Webster, I., et al. 2017. Myocardial susceptibility to ischaemia/reperfusion in obesity : a re-evaluation of the effects of age. BMC Physiology, 17:3, doi:10.1186/s12899-017-0030-y.The original publication is available at https://bmcphysiol.biomedcentral.comBackground Reports on the effect of age and obesity on myocardial ischaemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury and ischaemic preconditioning are contradictory. The aim of this study was to re-evaluate the effects of age and diet-induced obesity (DIO) on myocardial I/R injury and preconditioning potential. Methods Four groups of Wistar male rats were used: age-matched controls (AMC) receiving standard rat chow for (i) 16 weeks and (ii) 16 months respectively; DIO rats receiving a sucrose-supplemented diet for (iii) 16 weeks and (iv) 16 months respectively. The ages of groups (i) and (iii) were 22 weeks (“young”) and groups (ii) and (iv) 17 months (“middle-aged”) at time of experimentation. Isolated perfused working hearts were subjected to 35 min regional ischaemia/1 h reperfusion. Endpoints were infarct size (tetrazolium staining) and functional recovery. Hearts were preconditioned by 3 × 5 min ischaemia/5 min reperfusion. Results were processed using GraphPad Prism statistical software. Results Age did not affect baseline heart function before induction of ischaemia and I/R damage as indicated by infarct size and similar values were obtained in hearts from both age groups. Age also had no effect on functional recovery of hearts during reperfusion after regional ischaemia in AMC rats, but cardiac output during reperfusion was better in hearts from middle-aged than young DIO rats. The diet reduced infarct size in hearts from young rats (% of area at risk: AMC: 32.4 ± 3.6; DIO: 20.7 ± 2.9, p < 0.05), with no differences in hearts from middle-aged rats (AMC: 24.6 ± 4.6; DIO: 28.3 ± 13.5, p = NS). Compared to their respective AMC, diet-induced obesity had no significant effect on functional recovery of hearts from both age groups after exposure to regional ischaemia. When exposed to the more severe stress of global ischaemia, the functional recovery potential of middle-aged DIO rats appeared to be impeded compared to hearts of young DIO rats, while age had no effect on the functional recovery of AMC hearts. Preconditioning reduced infarct size in hearts from young control rats and both middle-aged groups, but not from young DIO rats. Age had a significant effect on functional recovery in preconditioning: it was improved in hearts from young control and DIO rats, but depressed in both middle-aged groups. Conclusions The data showed that middle-age and obesity had no effect on baseline myocardial function and did not increase susceptibility to I/R damage upon exposure to regional ischaemia. On the contrary, obesity reduced I/R damage in young rats. Preconditioned aging hearts showed a decreased infarct size, but a reduction in functional recovery.South African National Research Foundationhttps://bmcphysiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12899-017-0030-yPublisher's versio