A Narrative and Performative Methodology for Understanding Adolescent Cancer Stories

The field of health communication places considerable attention on coping with cancer, typically using social scientific approaches to investigate uncertainty, information, and/or social networks. Social scientific models of coping with adolescent cancer often measure how behaviors seek to manage cancer’s uncontrollability and/or uncertainty; however, how adolescents cope with cancer has been unclear. Short-term studies show adolescents typically and atypically cope. Long-term studies show a significant portion of survivors exhibit post-traumatic stress. The narrative and performative turns expose the role narratives and performatives play in shaping human subjects as meaning makers rather than merely information sharers. A narrative subject reframes cancer’s uncertainty and uncontrollability to be a matter of storytelling through which patients embark on a liminal journey of illness situated in socially shared narratives. The performative turn adds to a narrative perspective by foregrounding the contingency of the body and how bodily acts (re)produce subjective identities, and where performed actions (re)materialize sociocultural meanings. From this perspective, coping with a cancer identity is a matter of the performative, through which patient bodies negotiate liminal identities. I view coping as an act of embodied apperception: a series of acts by a narrative and performative subject. What the patient says and does while telling a cancer story exposes complex narrative and performative negotiations of coping with a cancer identity. To explore coping with an adolescent cancer identity, I apply critical self-reflexive (auto)ethnography through which I first tell my cancer story. By foregrounding the narrative and performative approach, I reveal: (1) a cancer diagnosis and its narrative as language in action; (2) the uncertain and uncontrollable narrative liminality of adolescent cancer patients; and (3) narratives and their discursive structures create performed actions, narratives, and narrative identities as much as they are created by performed actions, narratives, and narrative identities. Next, I apply a narrative and performative analytic as I critically and reflexively engage four videos of adolescents telling a “my cancer story.” The analysis of these videos maps a dramatic framework for these cancer stories through which adolescent patients embody liminality’s redress through reintegration as normative and/or embody schism through embracing a non-normal body

What gives life to critical pedagogy in the lifelong learning sector?

Critical pedagogy is an educational philosophy and approach to teaching and learning which challenges social and political hierarchies, and questions of power. Teachers and students co-create knowledge in order to develop an awareness of oppressive structures and forces at work in their own lives and in the wider world. This awareness leads to agency, in the form of social action, personal empowerment and transformation. It can be argued that this is vital if we are to progress morally, socially, politically, economically and ecologically, and for the development of democracy. Critical pedagogy is therefore an important area to research and develop. In the UK, critical pedagogy has traditionally been practised in the lifelong learning sector. However, the sector has become constrained by funding cuts, instrumental curricula and accountability measures, and lecturers can feel that they have little room for professional autonomy and therefore the practice of critical pedagogy. Yet some do continue to practice critical pedagogy, often in relatively isolated circumstances, by working within the system but drawing upon their personal and professional identities. This research examines what inspires, motivates and sustains such practitioners in the face of constraints, the teaching strategies they consider to be successful, and how their experiences could be harnessed and mobilised to enable critical pedagogy to flourish. The research draws upon the philosophy and methodology of Appreciative Inquiry to capture critical pedagogues’ positive stories of success. This contrasts with the well-documented difficulties of using critical pedagogy in the current educational climate. A qualitative research strategy was used, including twelve face to face, semi-structured interviews with practitioners of critical pedagogy across a range of lifelong learning contexts, in the West Midlands, UK. The participants’ narratives were analysed thematically, which revealed themes related to four dimensions: Society, Education System, Self and Others. Each participant acted as a conduit between the four dimensions, whereby experiences in each dimension led to praxis in the other dimensions, in an iterative process. The participants suggested a number of methods of mobilising critical pedagogy across the lifelong learning sector, including networks and connections with other like-minded people, teacher education and continuing professional development. The research illuminates what brings critical pedagogy to life, shining a light of hope for others who wish to practice in this way. It demonstrates the need to sustain hope, and to continue to fight for the education we believe in. It calls to us to join with others to make critical pedagogy happen, enlivening our deepest yearnings for social justice and humanisation, and encourages us to reclaim our agency

What 'Gives Life' to Critical Pedagogy in the Lifelong Learning Sector? Some Early Findings

Critical pedagogy in the UK has traditionally been practised in the Lifelong Learning sector. However, the sector has become constrained by funding cuts, instrumental curricula and accountability measures, and teachers can feel that they have little room for professional autonomy and therefore the practice of critical pedagogy. Yet some do continue to do practice, often in relatively isolated circumstances, by working within the system but drawing upon their personal and professional identities. This paper presents the rationale and methodology, together with some very early findings, of a study examining what inspires, motivates and sustains practitioners of critical pedagogy in the face of constraints, the teaching strategies they consider to be successful, and how these stories could be harnessed and mobilised to enable critical pedagogy to flourish. The research draws on the philosophy of Appreciative Inquiry to capture these stories of success. This contrasts with the documented difficulties of using critical pedagogy in the current educational climate. A qualitative research strategy is used, comprising 12 in depth, semi-structured interviews with practitioners of critical pedagogy in the Lifelong Learning sector in the West Midlands

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Application of -omics knowledge yields enhanced bioprocess performance

The classic phrase to describe cell culture is “every cell line is different.” The unfortunate part of this idiom is the actual concealment of a crucial lack of fundamental understanding. Furthermore the phrase ignores the substantial success achieved to date in developing robust industrial cell culture platforms that are applied to all cell lines regardless of their intrinsic variation. At Biogen, our cell culture medium platform is agnostic to CHO host cell line, and the platform can accommodate this inherent genomic variation as cell lines come from different host backgrounds. This is also an opportunity for -omics work then as the differences in cell line performance can be linked back to fundamental differences within those host cell lines. However, the power of -omics technologies to influence process optimization is limited by the difficulty and time scale for execution and interpreting such studies. Our approach to -omics implementation has been to utilize multiple targeted investigations and combine the learnings into an implementation strategy focused on enhancing the efficiency of manufacturing. Metabolic flux analysis was used to establish a baseline knowledge of central metabolism in the Biogen platform. The next step was to incorporate transcriptomics and proteomics with our metabolomics knowledge. With Biogen’s toolbox of CHO host cell lines, this approach identified intrinsic host cell line differences as well as unique limitations in cell culture. Specifically, we have determined sources of novel metabolic inhibitors that suppress cell growth as well as differences in lactate and ammonium metabolism that split according to host cell source. These conclusions ultimately lead to the optimized platform process yielding the desired product quality. Determining these differences led to an increased growth rate in scale up for cell lines from a more sensitive host as well as maintaining robust cell growth and productivity in production bioreactors. Ultimately still “every cell line is different.” Yet the more we know, the more opportunities there are to exploit both the similarities and the differences

Understanding and overcoming process insults through application of ‘omics technologies

Modern industrial process development, at both small and large corporations, usually consists of applying a well-characterized and established cell culture platform. Despite the high productivity available from these process platforms, difficult challenges remain, including with respect to the ability of the process to endure insults or disruptions. We previously demonstrated that overfeeding resulted in an undesirable increase in lactate production late in fed batch culture, which decreased productivity[i]. Here we report on metabolic flux analysis performed utilizing this process and isotopically labeling with multiple tracers (glucose and glutamate) delivered at five distinct time points of the cell culture process. Notably, we identified unexpected behavior within the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. The corresponding labeling data indicated a significant redistribution of the fluxes in and around the TCA cycle. Understanding the intracellular changes occurring when cells are challenged with a process insult, such as overfeeding, should lead to enhanced process development. Consequently metabolic flux analysis is only the first step in improving the process. We have identified two medium supplements which each independently permit the cell culture to endure overfeeding and result in maintaining or increasing titer despite the process insult. The overfed process and the supplemented processes were utilized to evaluate changes in the cellular metabolism with an untargeted metabolomics approach. Novel findings from the untargeted metabolomics approach when combined with metabolic flux analysis give a complete picture of the cellular metabolism as both reaction rates and relative concentrations are known over the full process duration. With this knowledge in hand, the platform process can evolve to routinely overcome process insults such as overfeeding

Process optimization for high volumetric productivity with product quality control

High commercial demands of biotherapeutics require high volumetric productivities to accommodate their production with the existing manufacturing infrastructure. While titers are exceeding 5 grams per liter in fed-batch processes, it is imperative that these processes result in consistent and desirable product quality. Here we describe a fed batch process optimization effort resulting in significant increased titer than the initial process. During the optimization, we identified a medium component capable of impacting productivity and two different critical product quality attributes. Through complex screening, the component concentration was shown to be proportional to these product quality modifications in opposing directions, thereby requiring a careful optimization of the delivery range. One of these modifications was recapitulated in a cell free system with media and protein indicating that this was not a result of shift in cellular metabolism unlike the other modification. The mechanism of action and strategies to mitigate this issue were also evaluated. Through this work, a well-controlled process without impacting productivity during large scale manufacturing was designed