\u27\u27Reflections on Being a Christian Who Enjoys Being a Scientist: (How) Does My Christianity Influence the Practice of My Vocation? How Does My Vocation Impact My Christianity?

Messiah College faculty scholarship papers : submitted by faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for promotion to the rank of professo

Don\u27t Go near the Water: Following the Fate of the Clean Water Rule

On August 28, 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers released their hotly debated Clean Water Rule (the Rule) redefining what are federally protected jurisdictional waters of the United States. The Rule clarifies, and attempts to resolve, years of different interpretation and confusing rulings by the Supreme Court on which waterways are under the jurisdiction of the federal government and therefore subject to regulations under the Clean Water Act. This article addresses which waters are explicitly covered under the Rule and how opponents of this definition are distorting the plain language of the Rule. After facing more than a dozen lawsuits across the country, the United States Supreme Court granted a petition for certiorari in January 2017 to determine the fate of the Rule. The issues posed by the Rule arising under the CWA will likely be settled soon by the Supreme Court, and will hopefully be implemented, as the Rule seeks to provide greater predictability, clarity, and consistency on how Clean Water Act jurisdictional determinations are made

A COMMUNICATION LINK RELIABILITY STUDY FOR SMALL UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES

Dependable communication links for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are crucial to operational reliability and mission success. This study is focused on evaluating the probability of successful communication links for small UAVs. A program based on the Friis Transmission Equation was developed to calculate the power received in a line-of-sight communication link. The program was used to evaluate the probability of success for a variety of flight p

Comparison of ELISA and ELISPOT methods in measuring CD4+ T cell responses to a newly identified MHC class II-restricted epitope within Simian Virus 40 T antigen

ELISA and ELI SPOT were used to monitor CD4+ and CD8+ responses to SV 40 Tag MHC class I and class II-restricted epitopes. It was found that freezing and thawing IFN-y samples decreased their ability to be detected by ELISA. Therefore, Femto-HS ELISA reagents were necessary to detect weaker CD4+ responses when using frozen supernatants; responses detected were comparable to those detected by ELISPOT. Later experiments using direct capture ELISA, ELISA of fresh supernatants and ELIS POT showed that the CD4+ responses were stronger when MHC class I-restricted epitopes were absent from the SV40 T ag

Production and In Vitro Characterization of Altered Tag Transformed Morine Fibroblasts

CDS+ Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) have been known to play a significant role in tumor suppression through their role in adaptive cell-mediated immunity. CTL operate in conjunction with the Major Histocompatibility Complex Class I (MHC I) mediated presentation of intracellular proteins by all nucleated somatic cells. To be effective, the CDS+ T cell receptor (TCR) must be able to detect specific amino acids of intracellular processed peptides bound and presented by MHC I molecules. MHC I function in binding small polypeptide segments of 8-10 amino acids in length in the endoplasmic reticulum and transporting them to the cell surface to be observed by sentry CD g+ Lymphocytes. The MHC I binding peptides are produced by proteolytic processing of the transient pool of proteins actively translated on cellular ribosomes. Biochemically MHC I-mediated peptide presentation to CDS+ T killer cells (CTL) requires efficient binding of peptide anchor residues ( single amino acids with extruding side chains) to specific sites on the external face of the MHC I, spatially located between two a-helices. Additional amino acid side chains require projection up from the MHC I face to be available for TCR interaction. Each different allelic MHC I molecule cannot bind all possible peptides; thus, to present the broadest spectrum there must be a balance between high binding affinity and a wide specificity (Madden 1995). When bound, the MHC I complex containing the bound peptide is targeted for localization to the cell membrane, where the MHC I/bound peptide complex is extruded on the cell surface. In the presence of epitope-specific CTL, the bound peptide should trigger recognition by CTL via the physicochemical interaction of the TCR with spatially available amino acid side chains of the presented MHC bound peptide and the MHC molecule itself. Upon CTL recognition of foreign antigen, intracellular signal transduction events are initiated terminating with the observer activated CTL effecting a directly targeted cytolytic response against the peptide presenting target cell (Janeway and Travers 1994)

Identifying H-2b-restricted CD4+ T Lymphocyte Recognition Epitopes Within Simian Virus 40 Large Tumor Antigen

CD4+ T lymphocytes play a vital role in immune system function but little is known about their role in controlling SV40 T ag-induced tumors in C57BL/6 mice. In order to better investigate their role in the control of tumors, it is necessary to identify CD4 epitope(s) within the Tag. Four CDS epitopes have been identified but the CD4 epitopes have not been identified. To facilitate the identification of the epitopes, T cell hybridomas containing a Lacz reporter gene were used. CD4+ hybridoma clones capable of recognizing SV 40 Large Tumor Antigen (T ag) were obtained from heterogeneous populations through serial dilution and screening with a colorimetric (CPRG) assay in which bone marrow-derived dendritic cells were pulsed with purified SV 40 T ag protein. To map the location of the epitope target of each clone, four of the clones were chosen for use in a screening assay utilizing a library of overlapping synthetic 15mer peptides representing the entire SV 40 T ag amino acid sequence. The identification of such CD4+ epitopes within the T ag will make it possible to determine the immunogenic and regulatory properties of each epitope (in vivo) and determine whether differences in reactivity demonstrated by the various hybridoma clones against the purified SV 40 T ag protein are epitope or hybrid dependent