A Critical Woman

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Barbara Wootton was one of the extraordinary public figures of the twentieth century. She was an outstanding social scientist, an architect of the welfare state, an iconoclast who challenged conventional wisdoms and the first woman to sit on the Woolsack in the House of Lords. Ann Oakley has written a fascinating and highly readable account of the life and work of this singular woman, but the book goes much further. It is an engaged account of the making of British social policy at a critical period seen through the lens of the life and work of a pivotal figure. Oakley tells a story about the intersections of the public and the private and about the way her subject's life unfolded within, was shaped by, and helped to shape a particular social and intellectual context

A Critical Woman

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Barbara Wootton was one of the extraordinary public figures of the twentieth century. She was an outstanding social scientist, an architect of the welfare state, an iconoclast who challenged conventional wisdoms and the first woman to sit on the Woolsack in the House of Lords. Ann Oakley has written a fascinating and highly readable account of the life and work of this singular woman, but the book goes much further. It is an engaged account of the making of British social policy at a critical period seen through the lens of the life and work of a pivotal figure. Oakley tells a story about the intersections of the public and the private and about the way her subject's life unfolded within, was shaped by, and helped to shape a particular social and intellectual context

Characteristics of epidermolysis bullosa skin fibroblasts in vitro

Epidermolysis bullosa (EB) is a heterogeneous group of rare hereditary mechanobullous diseases. Three different sub-groups exist: simplex (EBS), with blistering within the epidermis; junctional (EBL) with blistering at the dermo-epidermal junction and dystrophic, either dominantly (EBDD) or recessively (EBDr) inherited where blisters form within the dermis. The aim of this project was to characterise collagen, collagenase and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) metabolism in fibroblasts cultured from the skin of patients with different forms of EB and to determine as far as possible how two drugs currently used to treat the disease, phenytoin and vitamin E, affect these functions. Thirty patients donated skin samples to establish fibroblast cultures and fibroblast lines were cultivated from 18 (7 from EBS, 6 from EBDr, 3 from EBDD and 2 from EBL)Twenty four skin samples were examined by electron microscopy for confirmation of diagnosis and to study certain ultrastructural features of the disease. No difference was found between the proliferation rates of any of the EB groups and an age-matched healthy control group (mean - SEM: 88 - 13%). Similarly no statistically significant difference was found between the GAG outputs of control and EB groups. Protein synthesis in the EB group differed significantly from the controls, with a selective increase in collagen synthesis over synthes of non-collagenous protein. Collagenase levels were highest in the EBDr fibroblast cultures and the bulk of the enzyme appeared to be in the active form. The EBS cultures gave collagenase levels which were intermediate between those of controls and EBDr, and most of the enzyme was in the latent form which requires activation by trypsin in vitro. Phenytoin did not affect the proliferation rate of any of the groups but vitamin E caused a significant increase in the rate of I proliferation of control fibroblasts. Phenytoin produced a decrease in protein synthesis at 300-500 μM. The effect of phenytoin on GAG output differed between groups; the drug increasing GAG accumulation in controls whilst depressing levels in the EBS group. Vitamin E did not directly affect GAG secretion

Development of an electro-kinetically driven integrated DNA profile separation and detection system

Described in current literature is the methodology of different aspects of creating a DNA profile which has been successfully performed within a micro-fluidic environment; however integration of each of the different procedures onto a single device has not been documented. This thesis presents briefly the application of a gel supported reagent matrix to aid in the integration of DNA extraction, PCR amplification, and the injection, separation and detection of a DNA sample onto one single micro-fluidic device. The gel supported system was designed to provide greater stability to the reagents during the analysis process and also during long periods of dormancy, enabling the mass production of one use micro-fluidic device, encapsulating all required reagents at time of manufacturing.Described is the application of electro-osmotic pumping through a gel supported reagent matrix, where a silica monolith was used to support both the electro-osmotic pumping mechanism and the extraction of DNA from cellular debris. The gel supported system also enabled the delivery of a precise and accurate sample plug by an electro-kinetic pinched injection across a gel-to-gel interface, contributing to the improvement and optimisation of the separation of the DNA by capillary electrophoresis. The approach taken in this thesis and the results documented suggest several advantages of integration, including simplification of instrumentation with no need for moving parts and reduction of macro to micro interfacing and power requirements