Enactments of race in the UK’s blood stem cell inventory

Recent sociological analyses of the intersections of race and science recognize race’s quality as an enacted object. Through this analytic lens, race is always materializing in the practices and processes that enroll it and therefore enjoys a kind of multiplicity. The context of blood stem cell transplantation, a scientific domain marked by a more and less explicitly racialised logic, offers an opportunity to see the conceptual assertion of race’s multiplicity play out. Indeed, an exploration of the UK’s stem cell inventory reveals – through analysis of interviews, policy and parliamentary meetings – how race materialises in the various practices that comprise this increasingly popular cancer treatment option. Looking at practices of recruitment, inventory management and tissue selection in particular provides an interesting window to look upon race and the many signifiers that implicate it. These cases reveal moments of race’s stablisation and silencing; its oscillation between the status of vital information to the life of a public stem cell inventory, and of secondary data that provides little useful information to clinicians selecting tissue. Adopting an analytic lens that attends to race’s multiple enactments allows us to begin asking why enactments take the shape they do, and why the particular practices that mobilise them come to be

Enactments of race in the UK’s blood stem cell inventory

Recent sociological analyses of the intersections of race and science recognize race’s quality as an enacted object. Through this analytic lens, race is always materializing in the practices and processes that enroll it and therefore enjoys a kind of multiplicity. The context of blood stem cell transplantation, a scientific domain marked by a more and less explicitly racialised logic, offers an opportunity to see the conceptual assertion of race’s multiplicity play out. Indeed, an exploration of the UK’s stem cell inventory reveals – through analysis of interviews, policy and parliamentary meetings – how race materialises in the various practices that comprise this increasingly popular cancer treatment option. Looking at practices of recruitment, inventory management and tissue selection in particular provides an interesting window to look upon race and the many signifiers that implicate it. These cases reveal moments of race’s stablisation and silencing; its oscillation between the status of vital information to the life of a public stem cell inventory, and of secondary data that provides little useful information to clinicians selecting tissue. Adopting an analytic lens that attends to race’s multiple enactments allows us to begin asking why enactments take the shape they do, and why the particular practices that mobilise them come to be

Bloody infrastructures!: Exploring challenges in cord blood collection maintenance

The collection of umbilical cord blood, a source of stem cells for cancer treatment, has become a highly strategised process. STS scholarship has explored the moral/economic tensions of this case but focuses less on questions of infrastructure. This paper aims to flesh out our understanding of how stem cell collections maintain usefulness whilst clinical requirements change. It borrows from literature on studying ‘infrastructure’ to analyse qualitative data on the UK context, exploring how it might help to think of these collections not simply as banks, but as infrastructures. It attends to how maintenance relies on alertness to the shifting standards of ‘users’, and demonstrates that infrastructural thinking offers the heuristic richness needed to explore these important aspects of maintaining collections of biological material and sustaining them into the future. It thus provides a contribution to the STS literature on tissue banking and the growing interdisciplinary corpus on issues of infrastructure

An Active Turbulence Generation System for the Simulation of Aerodynamic Transients in a Model Wind Tunnel

This paper outlines the creation and validation of an active turbulence generation system (TGS) for the simulation of wind and vehicle-induced transients in a model scale, ¾ open jet, wind tunnel

‘We All Have a Responsibility to Each Other’: Valuing Racialised Bodies in the Neoliberal Bioeconomy

In neoliberalism, human tissue has been targeted as a novel source for the extraction of surplus value. Entire new markets for human biomaterials such as reproductive tissue, organs and clinical data have emerged. Commercial attention has also turned to ethnic and racial minorities, resulting in myriad products and services specifically developed for them. In this paper, we focus on this market interest in racialised tissue by exploring two contested empirical examples: clinical trials for pharmaceuticals in the United States and stem cell transplantation in the United Kingdom. Both examples use racial taxonomies as useful tools in discerning human biological difference to draw conclusions about the economic potential of donors’ and participants’ genetic constitutions. We will show, first, how they do so by appealing to racialised minorities’ sense of responsibility toward ‘their’ communities, not only actively buttressing the conflation of the social and biological registers of human variation but also demonstrating neoliberalism’s mobilisation of discourses of community. However, while the inclusion of racialised minorities is hoped to bring economic benefits, it also aims to work towards the beneficent ends of addressing racial inequalities in healthcare provision. Drawing on debates in Science and Technology Studies, we argue, second, that in our examples, economic, social and cultural values cannot be disentangled. This compels us to complement narratives of the commodification of racialised difference in neoliberal (consumer) culture, and focus on the intersections between different values pertaining simultaneously to economic and ethical realms. Ultimately though, we find that whilst important work is being done to ameliorate racial inequities, the broader socio-economic and political inequalities minority communities face go unaddressed, likely precluding the realisation of bioscience’s promise of health equality

Double-Stranded RNA-Dependent Protein Kinase (PKR) is Downregulated by Phorbol Ester

The double-stranded RNA-dependent protein kinase (PKR) is one of the key mediators of interferon (IFN) action against certain viruses. PKR also plays an important role in signal transduction and immunomodulation. Understanding the regulation of PKR activity is important for the use of PKR as a tool to discover and develop novel therapeutics for viral infections, cancer and immune dysfunction. We found that phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA), a potent activator of protein kinase C (PKC), decreased the level of autophosphorylated PKR in a dose- and time-dependent manner in IFN-treated mouse fibroblast cells. Polyinosinic–polycytidylic acid (poly I:C) treatment enhanced the activity of PKR induced by IFN, but did not overcome the PMA-induced reduction of PKR autophosphorylation. Western blot analysis with a monoclonal antibody to mouse PKR revealed that the decrease of PKR autophosphorylation in cells by PMA was a result of PKR protein degradation. Selective PKC inhibitors blocked the degradation of PKR stimulated by PMA, indicating that PKC activity was required for the effect. Furthermore, we also found that proteasome inhibitors prevented PMA-induced down regulation of PKR, indicating that an active proteasome is required. Our results identify a novel mechanism for the post-translational regulation of PKR

Double-Stranded RNA-Dependent Protein Kinase (PKR) is Downregulated by Phorbol Ester

The double-stranded RNA-dependent protein kinase (PKR) is one of the key mediators of interferon (IFN) action against certain viruses. PKR also plays an important role in signal transduction and immunomodulation. Understanding the regulation of PKR activity is important for the use of PKR as a tool to discover and develop novel therapeutics for viral infections, cancer and immune dysfunction. We found that phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA), a potent activator of protein kinase C (PKC), decreased the level of autophosphorylated PKR in a dose- and time-dependent manner in IFN-treated mouse fibroblast cells. Polyinosinic–polycytidylic acid (poly I:C) treatment enhanced the activity of PKR induced by IFN, but did not overcome the PMA-induced reduction of PKR autophosphorylation. Western blot analysis with a monoclonal antibody to mouse PKR revealed that the decrease of PKR autophosphorylation in cells by PMA was a result of PKR protein degradation. Selective PKC inhibitors blocked the degradation of PKR stimulated by PMA, indicating that PKC activity was required for the effect. Furthermore, we also found that proteasome inhibitors prevented PMA-induced down regulation of PKR, indicating that an active proteasome is required. Our results identify a novel mechanism for the post-translational regulation of PKR

Review of Dental Impression Materials

Major advances in impression materials and their application have occurred during the last decade, with greater emphasis being placed on rubber impression materials than on dental compound, zinc oxide-eugenol, and agar and alginate. Of particular interest has been the effect of disinfection solutions on the qualities of impressions and the biocompatibility of impression materials. The principal advance in hydrocolloids has been the introduction of the agar/alginate impression technique, which has simplified the procedure and improved the quality of gypsum dies compared with those prepared in alginate impressions. The tear strength of some alginates has been improved, and some have been formulated so that the powder is dustless, thus reducing the health hazard as a result of patient inhalation of dust during the dispensing process. Polyether and silicone impression materials have been modified so that the working time, viscosity, and flexibility of the polyethers have been improved and, with the introduction of addition silicones, their accuracy has become exceptional. Although the early addition silicones liberated hydrogen after setting, thus delaying the pouring of models and dies, most addition silicones have been improved so that no hydrogen is released and dies can be poured immediately. The introduction of automatic mixing systems for addition silicones has simplified their manipulation, has reduced the number of voids in impressions, and has reduced the amount of material wasted. The incorporation of surfactants into addition silicones has made them hydrophilic, with wetting properties similar to those of polyethers, and has made pouring bubble-free gypsum dies easier. This review is confined to published and unpublished information of the past decade. It will also suggest trends that should be anticipated in the near future based on this information. The review will not present information developed before 1975, which is available in several textbooks on dental materials by Craig (1985a), Phillips (1982), and Williams and Cunningham (1979).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66604/2/10.1177_08959374880020012001.pd

Hospital food service: a comparative analysis of systems and introducing the ‘Steamplicity’ concept

Background Patient meals are an integral part of treatment hence the provision and consumption of a balanced diet, essential to aid recovery. A number of food service systems are used to provide meals and the Steamplicity concept has recently been introduced. This seeks, through the application of a static, extended choice menu, revised patient ordering procedures, new cooking processes and individual patient food heated/cooked at ward level, to address some of the current hospital food service concerns. The aim of this small-scale study, therefore, was to compare a cook-chill food service operation against Steamplicity. Specifically, the goals were to measure food intake and wastage at ward level; ‘stakeholders’ (i.e. patients, staff, etc.) satisfaction with both systems; and patients’ acceptability of the food provided. Method The study used both quantitative (self-completed patient questionnaires, n = 52) and qualitative methods (semi-structured interviews, n = 16) with appropriate stakeholders including medical and food service staff, patients and their visitors. Results Patients preferred the Steamplicity system overall and in particular in terms of food choice, ordering, delivery and food quality. Wastage was considerably less with the Steamplicity system, although care must be taken to ensure that poor operating procedures do not negate this advantage. When the total weight of food consumed in the ward at each meal is divided by the number of main courses served, at lunch, the mean intake with the cook-chill system was 202 g whilst that for the Steamplicity system was 282 g and for the evening meal, 226 g compared with 310 g. Conclusions The results of this small study suggest that Steamplicity is more acceptable to patients and encourages the consumption of larger portions. Further evaluation of the Steamplicity system is warranted. The purpose of this study was to directly compare selected aspects (food wastage at ward level; satisfaction with systems and food provided) of a traditional cook-chill food service operation against ‘Steamplicity’. Results indicate that patients preferred the ‘Steamplicty’ system in all areas: food choice, ordering, delivery, food quality and overall. Wastage was considerably less with the ‘Steamplicity’ system; although care must be taken to ensure that poor operating procedures do not negate this advantage. When the total weight of food consumed in the ward at each meal is divided by the number of main courses served, results show that at lunch, mean intake with the cook-chill system was 202g whilst that for the ‘Steamplicity’ system was 282g and for the evening meal, 226g compared with 310g

Detection and characterisation of papillomavirus in skin lesions of giraffe and sable antelope in South Africa

Papillomavirus was detected electron microscopically in cutaneous fibropapillomas of a giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) and a sable antelope (Hippotragus niger). The virus particles measured 45 nm in diameter. Histopathologically, the lesions showed histopathological features similar to those of equine sarcoid as well as positive immunoperoxidase-staining of tissue sections for papillomavirus antigen. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detected bovine papillomavirus (BPV) DNA. Bovine papillomavirus-1 was characterised by real-time PCR in the sable and giraffe, and cloning and sequencing of the PCR product revealed a similarity to BPV-1. As in the 1st giraffe, the lesions from a 2nd giraffe revealed locally malignant pleomorphism, possibly indicating the lesional end-point of papilloma infection. Neither virus particles nor positively staining papillomavirus antigen could be demonstrated in the 2nd giraffe but papillomavirus DNA was detected by real-time PCR which corresponded with BPV-1 and BPV-2