Re/diss/assembling “Educational Imaginaries” through Regionalism – The Construction of the Caribbean Education Policy Space

This paper uses a Cultural Political Economy (CPE) approach to examine the rise of what we call "educational imaginaries" within the  Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) educational policy space by looking at how this has occurred through the four modes of selectivity –  structural selectivity, agential selectivity, discursive selectivity, and technological selectivity.   

Non-parental Adults and Sexual Health Behaviors Among Young Minority Men: A Qualitative Examination

Young Black and Latino sexual minority men (YBLSM) exhibit disproportionately high rates of negative sexual health outcomes, including HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, compared to other groups, partly due to relatively higher rates of exposure to a host of socio-structural risk factors (e.g., unstable housing and under-employment). However, an under-studied interpersonal resource exists for many YBLSM, non-parental adults (NPAs, i.e., adults who act as role models and provide social support), who may be able to influence contextual (e.g., unemployment) and individual (e.g., reduced health expectations) factors underlying sexual health disparities. Aims: This study sought to examine the role of NPAs in factors that affect sexual health behaviors and in supporting those health behaviors directly, among YBLSM living in a mid-sized city in the southern United States. A total of n=20 participants, n=10 YBLSM (ages 16 to 22), and n=10 NPAs (ages 26 to 52) were interviewed using semi-structured guides to examine NPA involvement in the lives of YBLSM from both sides of the relationship. The research team used a framework analysis approach to iteratively identify and define meaningful codes and sub-codes. Both YBLSM and NPAs described NPAs helping YBLSM through role modeling and social support in a variety of areas found to affect sexual health behaviors, such as housing instability and psychological distress, as well as in specific behaviors, such as condom use and HIV medication adherence. Given the multiple socio-structural obstacles facing YBLSM and their multifaceted relationships with NPAs, NPAs may be a promising resource to help address these impediments to health. Partnering more intentionally with NPAs is a potentially promising strategy to help reduce HIV-related disparities affecting YBLSM that is worthy of additional empirical attention

From Start to Finish: Examining Factors Associated With Higher Likelihood of Publication Among Abstracts Presented at an International Infectious Diseases Scientific Meeting

Background The landscape of infectious diseases research by interprofessional teams continues to change in both scope and engagement. Limited information exists regarding publication metrics and factors associated with publication of abstracts presented at professional infectious diseases meetings. Methods This was a retrospective, observational study evaluating abstracts presented at IDWeek in 2017 and 2018. The primary endpoint was the proportion of abstracts that were subsequently published in peer-reviewed journals. Factors associated with publication were evaluated, and a description of publication metrics was reported. Results Of the 887 abstracts analyzed from the IDWeek meetings, 236 (26.6%) were published. Significantly more abstracts were published if they were presented as a platform presentation versus poster presentation (35% vs 21%, P \u3c .001). Inclusion of a PhD author significantly increased the likelihood of publication (P = .0014). Prospective studies, greater number of authors, and greater number of study subjects were more common among published abstracts. Median time to publication was 10.9 months, and the majority were published in infectious diseases journals, with an overall average impact factor of 7.7 across all journals. Conclusions Abstracts from IDWeek presented as oral platforms and those including a PhD author were more likely to be published. Large, diverse authorship teams were common among published abstracts. The high quality of resulting manuscripts is evident by the destination journals and their respective impact factors. These data may be used to inform and motivate clinicians and trainees engaging in infectious diseases–related research

Genomic Relationships, Novel Loci, and Pleiotropic Mechanisms across Eight Psychiatric Disorders

Genetic influences on psychiatric disorders transcend diagnostic boundaries, suggesting substantial pleiotropy of contributing loci. However, the nature and mechanisms of these pleiotropic effects remain unclear. We performed analyses of 232,964 cases and 494,162 controls from genome-wide studies of anorexia nervosa, attention-deficit/hyper-activity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and Tourette syndrome. Genetic correlation analyses revealed a meaningful structure within the eight disorders, identifying three groups of inter-related disorders. Meta-analysis across these eight disorders detected 109 loci associated with at least two psychiatric disorders, including 23 loci with pleiotropic effects on four or more disorders and 11 loci with antagonistic effects on multiple disorders. The pleiotropic loci are located within genes that show heightened expression in the brain throughout the lifespan, beginning prenatally in the second trimester, and play prominent roles in neurodevelopmental processes. These findings have important implications for psychiatric nosology, drug development, and risk prediction.Peer reviewe

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

From Nervous System Changes to Systemic Change in Science: Investigating Sex Differences in the Impact of Maternal Immune Activation on Offspring Brain Development and Behavior, and Building Social Justice in Science Through Pedagogy and Community Initiatives to Increase Belonging

Laboratory research on sex differences in response to maternal immune activation:We investigated sex differences in molecular and behavioral responses to maternal immune activation during pregnancy. Epidemiological evidence indicates that immune activation during pregnancy impacts brain development, leading to increased incidence of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia. Researchers have modeled this association in the laboratory using maternal immune activation (MIA) animal models, in which offspring exposed to MIA in development demonstrate changes in social and restricted repetitive behavior that recapitulate aspects of autistic behaviors in humans. My research seeks to understand the nature of and mechanisms underlying sex differences in the fetal response to maternal immune activation. Male offspring generally demonstrate greater magnitude and/or number of molecular and behavioral changes in response to immune activation during gestation compared to females. Sex differences in the MIA model are understudied, and little research has considered sex as a biological variable with the potential to impact immune response mechanisms in the MIA context.We first used a hypothesis-driven approach to investigate the role of sex hormone pathways in macrophages as a potential sex-specific mechanism regulating the immune response in the fetal brain. The estrogen receptor β (ERβ) has been shown to negatively regulate transcription of pro-inflammatory immune response genes in microglia. We hypothesized that female and male embryos may differ in the level of ERβ signalling in brain macrophages, leading to differential immune responses and therefore the observed sex differences in neurodevelopment after maternal immune activation. To test this hypothesis, we used the Cre-Lox system to generate mouse offspring with a knockdown of estrogen receptor β (ERβ) expression in myeloid cells using cre recombinase driven by the Cx3cr1 promoter (Cre+). We then compared the behavior of Cre+ and Cre- offspring, with or without maternal immune activation via polyinosinic–polycytidylic acid (Poly(I:C)) at embryonic day 12.5. We observed the adult behavior of 94 offspring from 6 vehicle-treated and 9 Poly(I:C)-treated litters, using 11 assays measuring social, restricted repetitive, anxiety-like, depression-like, and motor behaviors. Overall we found few significant differences between experimental groups in this study, potentially due to a low 2mg/kg dose of Poly(I:C), reduced statistical power because of unexpectedly low sample sizes for control groups, and sources of variability specific to the MIA model such as maternal immune responsiveness. However, we did observe a few significant behavior differences, including: 1) baseline sex differences in marble burying with increased number of buried marbles in males, 2) female-specific effects of Cre genotype and Poly(I:C) treatment in the tail suspension test (TST), a measure of depression-like behavior, and 3) a decrease in distance traveled in the elevated plus maze in Poly(I:C)-treated animals. These findings suggest potential roles for sex in modulating restricted repetitive behavior and depression-like behavior, for macrophage ERβ signaling in regulating depression-like behavior in females, and for Poly(I:C) maternal immune activation in altering depression- and anxiety-like behavior. However, the lack of expected Poly(I:C)-induced changes in social and restricted repetitive behavior made it difficult to evaluate our hypothesis about the role of macrophage ERβ in sex differences after MIA.We next undertook an exploratory single-cell RNA sequencing study to better understand sex differences in molecular pathways in the fetal brain in response to maternal immune activation. We stimulated pregnant female mice with 10mg/kg Poly(I:C) at E12.5 based on a dosing study that found sickness phenotypes but not litter loss at this dose. We isolated fetal brains 6 or 24 hours after injection, pooling equal numbers of fetal female and male brains at 6 hours and preparing separate female and male samples at 24 hours. We enriched for myeloid cells and prepared single cell RNA sequencing libraries using a fixation and plate-based protocol. We sequenced 975 million 150bp paired-end reads, resulting in 18465 cells and 16091 features in the final data set after filtering. Clustering resulted in 13 clusters, and cell types were identified using marker gene expression as well as comparison to reference data sets. Cell types included ependymal cells, myeloid cells, neural cells, and endothelial cells. Differential gene expression analysis between experimental groups within cell type clusters found 62 significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs), with the majority observed in ependymal cells. Further examining the DEGs using gene set analysis, we observed 66 significant gene ontology terms for the set of 11 genes upregulated in female ependymal cells 24hr after injection with Poly(I:C) compared to vehicle, primarily relating to regulation of the immune response. We also found significant gene ontology terms relating to cilia, cell transport, and motility when examining the genes differentially expressed in male neural progenitor cells/radial glia 24hr after injection with Poly(I:C) compared to vehicle. These findings represent the first evidence to our knowledge that ependymal cells in the fetal brain may be responding to maternal immune activation. In addition, sex differences in fetal ependymal cells have not been previously reported. The observed transcriptional immune response in female ependymal cells and upregulation of cilia genes in male neural progenitor cells 24hr after Poly(I:C) treatment add to our understanding of fetal responses to MIA as well as sex differences in early brain development.Evidence-based teaching and learning with the MCB Distance Learning Task Force:In Spring 2020, instruction and learning at UC Berkeley largely shifted from in-person to online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To assist this transition within the Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) Department and promote effective and equitable pedagogy, I founded and led the MCB Distance Learning Task Force. Collectively we designed and analyzed an undergraduate survey on the remote learning experience, and published a website for instructors with recommendations on teaching remotely based on the education literature. In our survey, administered in July 2020, 134 students reported their experience on a breadth of issues, including: 1) an overall negative impact of remote instruction on their learning, 2) their preferences for specific learning formats and technologies. 3) barriers to attending synchronous classes, 4) generally reliable access to technology and internet, 5) service needs, 6) understanding of and preferences for grading policies, and 7) concerns about cheating and equity on exams. These findings expand our understanding of MCB students' experiences and preferences about remote learning during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our literature review of best practices in STEM and online education was summarized in four main recommendations to instructors and published as a website with supporting information. Our main recommendations included: 1) Create an inclusive online learning environment, 2) Provide clear course materials organized within a structured website, 3) Help students connect with each other and instructors, and 4) Develop effective and fair assessments. Combining information gathered from our survey as well as our literature review, we compiled recommendations for MCB departmental leadership on actions to take to improve the remote learning and teaching experience, as well as hosted 2 training sessions for faculty and graduate student instructors on best practices. The information and recommendations the Task Force gathered apply beyond the specific context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we hope the resources we developed will continue to be used during in-person learning and to weather future crises. Improving classroom culture, increasing student engagement, communicating about course and department policies, updating assessment structures, and providing services to students in need will always be critical to teaching and learning effectively.Program evaluation with the Inclusive MCB initiative:Systems of oppression within science and academia have led to discrimination of under-represented minority (URM) and other marginalized scientists. The Inclusive MCB (iMCB) initiative was formed to create capacity within the MCB department at UC Berkeley to discuss and address issues affecting URM scientists. Among the programs initiated by iMCB include annual conferences presenting scholarly research about improving scientific culture and practices in pursuit of equity, highlighting the experiences of URM scientists, and providing opportunities to build community. The impact of the conferences were assessed by the iMCB Assessment Team using pre- and post-conference surveys. Here, I present findings from our assessment of the Fall 2020 "Building a Sense of Belonging" iMCB Conference. We found that the keynote talks and affinity groups were the most impactful components of the conference program, and that keynotes were rated more impactful by URM participants than non-URM participants. Attendees also had a stronger sense of belonging to the community of scientists and an increased comfort sharing about their values and identities after the conference. Sense of belonging increased for both URM and non-URM groups, and gaps in sense of belonging were observed both before and after the conference, with non-URMs having a higher sense of belonging in both samples. We found that respondents planned to be involved in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion work in the coming year to a greater extent after the conference. Our results showed a clear positive impact of the conference for both URM and non-URM participants, leading to increased personal sense of belonging as well as sentiments like comfort sharing values and plans to be involved that have the potential to impact interpersonal and organizational culture. Our results also demonstrate the continued inequities in science, with non-URM participants having a higher sense of belonging than URM participants overall. These findings underscore the need to continue improving culture and policies in science and point toward potential avenues for organizing. Indeed, these results inspired organizers to create an 8-week affinity groups program in summer 2021 and continue hosting keynotes and affinity groups at future annual conferences