“That's a good question”: University researchers' views on ownership and retention of human genetic specimens

To explore the views of university-based investigators conducting genetic research with human specimens regarding ownership and retention of specimens, and knowledge of related institutional review board and university policies

The RNA-Binding Protein KSRP Promotes Decay of β-Catenin mRNA and Is Inactivated by PI3K-AKT Signaling

β-catenin plays an essential role in several biological events including cell fate determination, cell proliferation, and transformation. Here we report that β-catenin is encoded by a labile transcript whose half-life is prolonged by Wnt and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase–AKT signaling. AKT phosphorylates the mRNA decay-promoting factor KSRP at a unique serine residue, induces its association with the multifunctional protein 14-3-3, and prevents KSRP interaction with the exoribonucleolytic complex exosome. This impairs KSRP's ability to promote rapid mRNA decay. Our results uncover an unanticipated level of control of β-catenin expression pointing to KSRP as a required factor to ensure rapid degradation of β-catenin in unstimulated cells. We propose KSRP phosphorylation as a link between phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase–AKT signaling and β-catenin accumulation

Becoming an Expert Cannabis Connoisseur: Toward a Theory of Moralizing Labor

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2018Economic sociologists have shown that legitimacy is an important part of market success (Fourcade and Healy 2007; Meyer and Rowan 1977) and that workers play a central role in establishing a contested trade as legitimate (Anteby 2010; Quinn 2008; Turco 2012). However, researchers have yet to adequately theorize how the process of working within contested or newly moralized markets matters for employee’s sense of self. This is a problem because we know that a person’s job has profound ramifications for their sense of worth (Lamont 2000). This paper addresses this gap by investigating the experiences of workers in a newly formed market for recreational cannabis. Drawing from a year of ethnographic work in three Seattle cannabis shops, and thirty interviews with workers, this study reveals that workers participating in constructing a moral market can gain large returns to a sense of themselves as moral and worthy individuals. However, these positive emotional returns were not evenly distributed. In the case of recreational cannabis, men were better able to position themselves as experts with unique scientific knowledge and insight into how cannabis interacted with the body; women were typically met with suspicion by customers and sometimes from employers and coworkers. This indicates that working in a moralized market matters for workers, but in ways that are moderated by social status

Cannabis-Infused Dreams: A Market at the Crossroads of Criminal and Conventional

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2023Moral legitimacy of market activities is important in determining how commodities are traded and market success (Anteby 2010; Fourcade and Healy 2007; Zelizer 1979). Economic sociologists studying morally contested markets document how market actors actively work to construct new moral meanings of their activities and align their practices with these narratives (Chan 2009; Quinn 2008a; Turco 2012). However, much of this work treats the organizational spaces where these exchanges take place abstractly, overlooking how these narratives operate in real time by employees who are classed, gendered, and racialized individuals. As such, we undertheorize how power and status manifest in moralizing labor through interactions in these spaces that ultimately matter for market development and inequality. In this dissertation, I use the emerging recreational cannabis market as a case of a morally contested market to present three empirical chapters that together, begin to address this gap by highlighting the central role employees play in the moral and social construction of markets. Specifically, I draw on sixty semi-structured interviews with cannabis retail staff, managers, and owners across twenty-six state licensed cannabis stores in Seattle and 107 hours of ethnographic observation within three of these stores to understanding how staff engaged in moral meaning making around how products were sold and how this shaped inequality in these market organizations. In doing so, I make important empirical and theoretical contributions to the study of markets by showing how the market moralization process is carried out at the level of the employee through interactions with consumers and other market actors in these organizational spaces

“That's a good question”: University researchers' views on ownership and retention of human genetic specimens

PURPOSE: To explore the views of university-based investigators conducting genetic research with human specimens regarding ownership and retention of specimens, and knowledge of related institutional review board and university policies. METHODS: Data were collected in three phases: a qualitative pilot study of 14 investigators; a web-based survey taken by 80 investigators; and follow-up, in-depth interviews with 12 survey respondents. RESULTS: Investigators named a variety of single or multiple owners of human specimens and often expressed confusion regarding specimen ownership. Most associated ownership with rights to control, and responsibilities to maintain, specimens. Investigators viewed specimens as “precious” resources whose value could be increased through long-term or infinite retention, particularly in light of anticipated technological advances in genome science. Their views on ownership and retention were shaped by perceptions of institutional review board policies as immortalized in subject informed consent documents, rather than knowledge of actual policies. CONCLUSION: Long-term retention of human specimens makes confusion about ownership particularly problematic. Given findings that investigators’ views on ownership and retention are largely guided by their perception of university policies, the need for clear, consistent policies at the institution level is urgent