5 research outputs found
Postgraduate writing groups as spaces of agency development
AbstractAcademic writing is a peculiar phenomenon – it varies greatly from discipline to discipline and its requirements are rarely made overt. Taking on the writing practices of the academy has implications for identity and it is thus unsurprising that it is seen to be a risky endeavour. This article analyses the experiences of postgraduate scholars who have participated in writing groups that meet weekly to read each other’s work and provide supportive critique. Thirty-two people provided detailed, anonymous evaluations of their writing groups and these were analysed using a discourse analysis. Three main findings are discussed here. Firstly, writing circles allowed for academic writing development to be engaged with as a social practice, where the disciplinary norms could be made more explicit through peer deliberation, and where they could also be challenged. Secondly, the lack of hierarchical power in the writing groups was key to making safe spaces for agency development, and also for providing positive peer pressure whereby participants were spurred on to work on their writing. Thirdly, the fact that the groups were interdisciplinary, within cognate disciplinary families, provided an interesting challenge in that the students had to consider what these non-specialist readers would or would not understand. This process assisted students in clarifying their writing. Participants’ evaluation of the writing groups revealed an overall sense that these contributed to postgraduate student wellbeing and were places of significant agential development
Integrating crops and livestock for improved food security and livelihoods in rural Zimbabwe (ZimCLIFS)
Discovery of Highly Potent and Selective Small Molecule ADAMTS‑5 Inhibitors That Inhibit Human Cartilage Degradation via Encoded Library Technology (ELT)
The metalloprotease ADAMTS-5 is considered a potential
target for
the treatment of osteoarthritis. To identify selective inhibitors
of ADAMTS-5, we employed encoded library technology (ELT), which enables
affinity selection of small molecule binders from complex mixtures
by DNA tagging. Selection of ADAMTS-5 against a four-billion member
ELT library led to a novel inhibitor scaffold not containing a classical
zinc-binding functionality. One exemplar, (<i>R</i>)-<i>N</i>-((1-(4-(but-3-en-1-ylamino)-6-(((2-(thiophen-2-yl)Âthiazol-4-yl)Âmethyl)Âamino)-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)Âpyrrolidin-2-yl)Âmethyl)-4-propylbenzenesulfonamide
(<b>8)</b>, inhibited ADAMTS-5 with IC<sub>50</sub> = 30 nM,
showing >50-fold selectivity against ADAMTS-4 and >1000-fold
selectivity
against ADAMTS-1, ADAMTS-13, MMP-13, and TACE. Extensive SAR studies
showed that potency and physicochemical properties of the scaffold
could be further improved. Furthermore, in a human osteoarthritis
cartilage explant study, compounds <b>8</b> and <b>15f</b> inhibited aggrecanase-mediated <sup>374</sup>ARGS neoepitope release
from aggrecan and glycosaminoglycan in response to IL-1β/OSM
stimulation. This study provides the first small molecule evidence
for the critical role of ADAMTS-5 in human cartilage degradation