Shaping Wikipedia editing as a teaching and learning tool to promote deep learning and information literacy

Research has shown that at least 94% of medical students use Wikipedia as an information resource (Usaid, 2012), despite medical school faculty telling them not to. In fact, medical schools do not train students to improve Wikipedia or use it critically (Azzam, 2017). The Wikiproject Medicine course was created at the invitation and in partnership with Dr. Amin Azzam at the University of California San Francisco, who started the original program in 2013. This class is offered to 4th year medical students and gives students an opportunity to edit already existing health related articles in Wikipedia to improve their quality and make them more accurate. This course enables students to improve and enrich the quality of reliable information read by patients on Wikipedia by becoming a WikiProject Medicine Editor

Wikipedia-editing as a teaching strategy in health professional schools: 6 years, 5 countries, 5 professions...and counting.

poster presentation● Wikipedia is the world’s most frequently used health-information source. ● Embracing the platform helps fulfill health professional schools’ teaching & service missions. ● Student & faculty effort searching, analyzing, writing & editing Wikipedia is scholarly work. ● The Wiki Education Foundation’s “Students in the Health Professions” campaign aggregates all efforts of these students editing WIkipedia as part of formal coursework. ● Since 2013, there have been 1,271 students who have added 711,000 words, 86 images and 9,030 references to 642 health-related Wikipedia pages. ● These Wikipedia pages have been viewed 55.2 million times since students began contributing. ● Participants highlight the refreshingly collaborative nature of the work-- for students, librarians, and faculty alike

Tissue‐Engineered Disease Modeling of Lymphangioleiomyomatosis Exposes a Therapeutic Vulnerability to HDAC Inhibition

Abstract Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) is a rare disease involving cystic lung destruction by invasive LAM cells. These cells harbor loss‐of‐function mutations in TSC2, conferring hyperactive mTORC1 signaling. Here, tissue engineering tools are employed to model LAM and identify new therapeutic candidates. Biomimetic hydrogel culture of LAM cells is found to recapitulate the molecular and phenotypic characteristics of human disease more faithfully than culture on plastic. A 3D drug screen is conducted, identifying histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors as anti‐invasive agents that are also selectively cytotoxic toward TSC2−/− cells. The anti‐invasive effects of HDAC inhibitors are independent of genotype, while selective cell death is mTORC1‐dependent and mediated by apoptosis. Genotype‐selective cytotoxicity is seen exclusively in hydrogel culture due to potentiated differential mTORC1 signaling, a feature that is abrogated in cell culture on plastic. Importantly, HDAC inhibitors block invasion and selectively eradicate LAM cells in vivo in zebrafish xenografts. These findings demonstrate that tissue‐engineered disease modeling exposes a physiologically relevant therapeutic vulnerability that would be otherwise missed by conventional culture on plastic. This work substantiates HDAC inhibitors as possible therapeutic candidates for the treatment of patients with LAM and requires further study