Managing the Brand: Administrative Structure of the Hidden Profession of Collegiate Trademark Licensing

This study analyzes the current state of collegiate trademark licensing departments through first-hand accounts from current or past licensing professionals. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand current issues that are facing the licensing industry, particularly focusing on internal organizational structure of collegiate trademark licensing departments at institutes of higher education. Eleven participants, including licensing agents, licensees, licensing directors, and licensing experts were interviewed and the following themes emerged. Trademark licensing is a hidden profession, with little education available about the industry. Programs have greatly evolved over recent decades, but institutional infrastructure still lags in the appropriate assets and resources to sustain a growing program. Licensing directors have strong professional relationships with others in the field, but often have difficulty receiving buy-in to licensing objectives from their internal peers. A strong sense of ‘university’ versus ‘athletics’ exists, causing confusion and discrepancy in managing the multi-faceted licensing objectives

Workshop-based learning and networking: a scalable model for research capacity strengthening in low- and middle-income countries.

Science education and research have the potential to drive profound change in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through encouraging innovation, attracting industry, and creating job opportunities. However, in LMICs, research capacity is often limited, and acquisition of funding and access to state-of-the-art technologies is challenging. The Alliance for Global Health and Science (the Alliance) was founded as a partnership between the University of California, Berkeley (USA) and Makerere University (Uganda), with the goal of strengthening Makerere University's capacity for bioscience research. The flagship program of the Alliance partnership is the MU/UCB Biosciences Training Program, an in-country, hands-on workshop model that trains a large number of students from Makerere University in infectious disease and molecular biology research. This approach nucleates training of larger and more diverse groups of students, development of mentoring and bi-directional research partnerships, and support of the local economy. Here, we describe the project, its conception, implementation, challenges, and outcomes of bioscience research workshops. We aim to provide a blueprint for workshop implementation, and create a valuable resource for bioscience research capacity strengthening in LMICs

Experimental and modelling investigation of monolayer development with clustering

Standard differential equation-based models of collective cell behaviour, such as the logistic growth model, invoke a mean-field assumption which is equivalent to assuming that individuals within the population interact with each other in proportion to the average population density. Implementing such assumptions implies that the dynamics of the system are unaffected by spatial structure, such as the formation of patches or clusters within the population. Recent theoretical developments have introduced a class of models, known as moment dynamics models, which aim to account for the dynamics of individuals, pairs of individuals, triplets of individuals, and so on. Such models enable us to describe the dynamics of populations with clustering, however, little progress has been made with regard to applying moment dynamics models to experimental data. Here, we report new experimental results describing the formation of a monolayer of cells using two different cell types: 3T3 fibroblast cells and MDA MB 231 breast cancer cells. Our analysis indicates that the 3T3 fibroblast cells are relatively motile and we observe that the 3T3 fibroblast monolayer forms without clustering. Alternatively, the MDA MB 231 cells are less motile and we observe that the MDA MB 231 monolayer formation is associated with significant clustering. We calibrate a moment dynamics model and a standard mean-field model to both data sets. Our results indicate that the mean-field and moment dynamics models provide similar descriptions of the 3T3 fibroblast monolayer formation whereas these two models give very different predictions for the MDA MD 231 monolayer formation. These outcomes indicate that standard mean-field models of collective cell behaviour are not always appropriate and that care ought to be exercised when implementing such a model.Matthew J. Simpson, Benjamin J. Binder, Parvathi Haridas, Benjamin K.Wood, Katrina K. Treloar, D.L. Sean McElwain, Ruth E. Bake

Phase 1 and pharmacokinetic study of bolus-infusion flavopiridol followed by cytosine arabinoside and mitoxantrone for acute leukemias

Flavopiridol is a protein bound, cytotoxic, cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor. Flavopiridol given by 1-hour bolus at 50 mg/m2 daily 3 times followed by cytosine arabinoside and mitoxantrone (FLAM) is active in adults with poor-risk acute leukemias. A pharmacologically derived “hybrid” schedule (30-minute bolus followed by 4-hour infusion) of flavopiridol was more effective than bolus administration in refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Our phase 1 trial “hybrid FLAM” in 55 adults with relapsed/refractory acute leukemias began at a total flavopiridol dose of 50 mg/m2 per day 3 times (20-mg/m2 bolus, 30-mg/m2 infusion). Dose-limiting toxicity occurred at level 6 (30-mg/m2 bolus, 70-mg/m2 infusion) with tumor lysis, hyperbilirubinemia, and mucositis. Death occurred in 5 patients (9%). Complete remission occurred in 22 (40%) across all doses. Overall and disease-free survivals for complete remission patients are more than 60% at more than 2 years. Pharmacokinetics demonstrated a dose-response for total and unbound plasma flavopiridol unrelated to total protein, albumin, peripheral blast count, or toxicity. Pharmacodynamically, flavopiridol inhibited mRNAs of multiple cell cycle regulators, but with uniform increases in bcl-2. “Hybrid FLAM” is active in relapsed/refractory acute leukemias, with a recommended “hybrid” dose of bolus 30 mg/m2 followed by infusion of 60 mg/m2 daily for 3 days. This clinical trial is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT00470197