Has the Time (Finally!) Arrived to Talk About Sustainable Lifestyles?

Presentation at the Princeton American Chemical Society (PACS) event in recognition of the 52nd International Earth Dayhttps://digitalcommons.njit.edu/csce-resources/1000/thumbnail.jp

Structure-guided design of an Hsp90â N-terminal isoform-selective inhibitor

The 90 kDa heat shock protein (Hsp90) is a molecular chaperone responsible for folding proteins that are directly associated with cancer progression. Consequently, inhibition of the Hsp90 protein folding machinery results in a combinatorial attack on numerous oncogenic pathways. Seventeen small-molecule inhibitors of Hsp90 have entered clinical trials, all of which bind the Hsp90 N-terminus and exhibit pan-inhibitory activity against all four Hsp90 isoforms. pan-Inhibition of Hsp90 appears to be detrimental as toxicities have been reported alongside induction of the pro-survival heat shock response. The development of Hsp90 isoform-selective inhibitors represents an alternative approach towards the treatment of cancer that may limit some of the detriments. Described herein is a structure-based approach to design isoform-selective inhibitors of Hsp90β, which induces the degradation of select Hsp90 clients without concomitant induction of Hsp90 levels. Together, these initial studies support the development of Hsp90β-selective inhibitors as a method to overcome the detriments associated with pan-inhibition

Hiding or hospitalising? On dilemmas of pregnancy management in East Cameroon

Current international debates and policies on safe motherhood mainly propose biomedical interventions to reduce the risks during pregnancy and delivery. Yet, the conceptualisations of risk that underlie this framework may not correspond with local perceptions of reproductive dangers; consequently, hospital services may remain underutilised. Inspired by a growing body of anthropological literature exploring local fertility-related fears, and drawing on 15 months of fieldwork, this paper describes ideas about risky reproduction and practices of pregnancy protection in a Cameroonian village. It shows that social and supernatural threats to fertility are deemed more significant than the physical threats of fertility stressed at the (inter)national level. To protect their pregnancies from those social and supernatural influences, however, women take very physical measures. It is in this respect that biomedical interventions, physical in their very nature, do connect to local methods of pregnancy management. Furthermore, some pregnant women purposefully deploy hospital care in an attempt to reduce relational uncertainties. Explicit attention to the intersections of the social and the physical, and of the supernatural and the biomedical, furthers anthropological knowledge on fertility management and offers a starting point for more culturally sensitive safe motherhood interventions

Sustainable consumption in national context: an introduction to the symposium

International institutions over the past decade have begun to emphasize the need to reduce the environmental impacts of heavily consumerist lifestyles in affluent nations as a precondition for sustainable development. Originally outlined in Agenda 21, and discussed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, sustainable consumption has now emerged as a definable domain of global environmental politics. At the level of high environmental politics, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) have played key roles in reframing environmental deterioration as a consumption problem, rather than a production problem. However, within specific national contexts policymakers and social activists are seeking to engage with the difficult conceptual and political dilemmas posed by contemporary modes of material provisioning. This introductory overview highlights the historical background on the nascent issue of sustainable consumption and summarizes the three comparative case studies that follow: the Netherlands, France, and the United States. The experiences of these countries suggest that the concept of sustainable consumption is quite malleable, and its practical application is shaped by the political culture and policy styles of specific national contexts

Science and Society in Historical Perspective: Implications for Social Theories of Risk

Over the past decade risk society theory has become increasingly prominent within the field of environmental social theory. This perspective contends that conventional political divisions based on class are becoming less salient and are giving way to a politics predicated upon the distribution of risk. There is much in risk society theory, especially its central contention that public anxieties about high consequence-low probability events undermine the legitimacy of science, that has a distinctly German stamp. Through a comparative analysis of how national context has differently shaped science as a public epistemology this paper suggests we should tread carefully in moving to accept the general applicability of this theoretical approach.environmental sociology, public understanding of science, scientific mentality, Germany, Britain

Technological Disasters and Natural Resource Damage Assessment: An Evaluation of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Ex post analysis can enhance assessment of the social costs of technological disasters. This paper employs a market model to evaluate the economic losses of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill on southcentral Alaska's fisheries. The upper bound of the accident's first-year social costs on these resources is $108 million, approximately 27 percent of ex-vessel value. Second-year effects may have been as high as$47 million. More probable estimates of the oil spill's actual social costs are likely less than these amounts. Precise determination of the accident's impacts is constrained by the dynamic interaction of numerous biological and economic variables.