Telling stories in science communication: case studies of scholar-practitioner collaboration

Reflecting on the practice of storytelling, this practice insight explores how collaborations between scholars and practitioners can improve storytelling for science communication outcomes with publics. The case studies presented demonstrate the benefits of collaborative storytelling for inspiring publics, promoting understanding of science, and engaging publics more deliberatively in science. The projects show how collaboration between scholars and practitioners [in storytelling] can happen across a continuum of scholarship from evaluation and action research to more critical thinking perspectives. They also show how stories of possible futures and community efficacy can support greater engagement of publics in evidence-informed policymaking. Storytelling in collaborations between scholars and practitioners involves many activities: combining cultural and scientific understandings; making publics central to storytelling; equipping scientists to tell their own stories directly to publics; co-creating stories; and retelling collaborative success stories. Collaborative storytelling, as demonstrated in these case studies, may improve the efficacy of science communication practice as well as its scholarship.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Roadmap to a Comprehensive Clinical Data Warehouse for Precision Medicine Applications in Oncology

Leading institutions throughout the country have established Precision Medicine programs to support personalized treatment of patients. A cornerstone for these programs is the establishment of enterprise-wide Clinical Data Warehouses. Working shoulder-to-shoulder, a team of physicians, systems biologists, engineers, and scientists at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey have designed, developed, and implemented the Warehouse with information originating from data sources, including Electronic Medical Records, Clinical Trial Management Systems, Tumor Registries, Biospecimen Repositories, Radiology and Pathology archives, and Next Generation Sequencing services. Innovative solutions were implemented to detect and extract unstructured clinical information that was embedded in paper/text documents, including synoptic pathology reports. Supporting important precision medicine use cases, the growing Warehouse enables physicians to systematically mine and review the molecular, genomic, image-based, and correlated clinical information of patient tumors individually or as part of large cohorts to identify changes and patterns that may influence treatment decisions and potential outcomes

Blood-sampling collection prior to surgery may have a significant influence upon biomarker concentrations measured

Abstract Background Biomarkers can be subtle tools to aid the diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of therapy and disease progression. The validation of biomarkers is a cumbersome process involving many steps. Serum samples from lung cancer patients were collected in the framework of a larger study for evaluation of biomarkers for early detection of lung cancer. The analysis of biomarker levels measured revealed a noticeable difference in certain biomarker values that exhibited a dependence of the time point and setting of the sampling. Biomarker concentrations differed significantly if taken before or after the induction of anesthesia and if sampled via venipuncture or arterial catheter. Methods To investigate this observation, blood samples from 13 patients were drawn 1–2 days prior to surgery (T1), on the same day by venipuncture (T2) and after induction of anesthesia via arterial catheter (T3). The biomarkers Squamous Cell Carcinoma antigen (CanAG SCC EIA, Fujirebio Diagnostics, Malvern, USA), Carcinoembrionic Antigen (CEA), and CYFRA 21-1 (Roche Diagnostics GmbH, Mannheim, Germany) were analyzed. Results SCC showed a very strong effect in relation to the sampling time and procedure. While the first two points in time (T1; T2) were highly comparable (median fold-change: 0.84; p = 0.7354; correlation ρ = 0.883), patients showed a significant increase (median fold-change: 4.96; p = 0.0017; correlation ρ = -0.036) in concentration when comparing T1 with the sample time subsequent to anesthesia induction (T3). A much weaker increase was found for CYFRA 21-1 at T3 (median fold-change: 1.40; p = 0.0479). The concentration of CEA showed a very small, but systematic decrease (median fold-change: 0.72; p = 0.0039). Conclusions In this study we show the unexpectedly marked influence of blood withdrawal timing (before vs. after anesthesia) and procedure (venous versus arterial vessel puncture) has on the concentration of the protein biomarker SCC and to a less extent upon CYFRA21-1. The potential causes for these effects remain to be elucidated in subsequent studies, however these findings highlight the importance of a standardized, controlled blood collection protocol for biomarker detection

Impact of sex, MHC, and age of recipients on the therapeutic effect of transferred leukocytes from cancer-resistant SR/CR mice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Spontaneous Regression/Complete Resistant (SR/CR) mice are resistant to cancer through a mechanism that is mediated entirely by leukocytes of innate immunity. Transfer of leukocytes from SR/CR mice can confer cancer resistance in wild-type (WT) recipients in both preventative and therapeutic settings. In the current studies, we investigated factors that may impact the efficacy and functionality of SR/CR donor leukocytes in recipients.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In sex-mismatched transfers, functionality of female donor leukocytes was not affected in male recipients. In contrast, male donor leukocytes were greatly affected in the female recipients. In MHC-mismatches, recipients of different MHC backgrounds, or mice of different strains, showed a greater negative impact on donor leukocytes than sex-mismatches. The negative effects of sex-mismatch and MHC-mismatch on donor leukocytes were additive. Old donor leukocytes performed worse than young donor leukocytes in all settings including in young recipients. Young recipients were not able to revive the declining function of old donor leukocytes. However, the function of young donor leukocytes declined gradually in old recipients, suggesting that an aged environment may contain factors that are deleterious to cellular functions. The irradiation of donor leukocytes prior to transfers had a profound suppressive effect on donor leukocyte functions, possibly as a result of impaired transcription. The cryopreserving of donor leukocytes in liquid nitrogen had no apparent effect on donor leukocyte functions, except for a small loss of cell number after revival from freezing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Despite the functional suppression of donor leukocytes in sex- and MHC-mismatched recipients, as well as old recipients, there was a therapeutic time period during the initial few weeks during which donor leukocytes were functional before their eventual rejection or functional decline. The eventual rejection of donor leukocytes will likely prevent donor leukocyte engraftment which would help minimize the risk of transfusion-associated graft-versus-host disease. Therefore, using leukocytes from healthy donors with high anti-cancer activity may be a feasible therapeutic concept for treating malignant diseases.</p

Cinnamomum cassia Bark in Two Herbal Formulas Increases Life Span in Caenorhabditis elegans via Insulin Signaling and Stress Response Pathways

Background: Proving the efficacy and corresponding mode of action of herbal supplements is a difficult challenge for evidence-based herbal therapy. A major hurdle is the complexity of herbal preparations, many of which combine multiple herbs, particularly when the combination is assumed to be vitally important to the effectiveness of the herbal therapy. This issue may be addressed through the use of contemporary methodology and validated animal models. Methods and Principal Findings: In this study, two commonly used traditional herbal formulas, Shi Quan Da Bu Tang (SQDB) and Huo Luo Xiao Ling Dan (HLXL) were evaluated using a survival assay and oxidative stress biomarkers in a well-established C. elegans model of aging. HLXL is an eleven herb formula modified from a top-selling traditional herbal formula for the treatment of arthritic joint pain. SQDB consists of ten herbs often used for fatigue and energy, particularly in the aged. We demonstrate here that SQDB significantly extend life span in a C. elegans model of aging. Among all individual herbs tested, two herbs Cinnamomum cassia bark (Chinese pharmaceutical name: Cinnamomi Cortex, CIN) and Panax ginseng root (Chinese pharmaceutical name: Ginseng Radix, GS) significantly extended life span in C. elegans. CIN in both SQDB and HLXL formula extended life span via modulation of multiple longevity assurance genes, including genes involved in insulin signaling and stress response pathways. All the life-span-extending herbs (SQDB, CIN and GS) also attenuated levels of H2O2 and enhanced small heat shock protein expression. Furthermore, the life spanextending herbs significantly delayed human amyloid beta (Aβ)-induced toxicity in transgenic C. elegans expressing human Aβ. Conclusion/Significance:These results validate an invertebrate model for rapid, systematic evaluation of commonly used Chinese herbal formulations and may provide insight for designing future evidence-based herbal therapy(s). Copyright: © 2010 Yu et al.published_or_final_versio

Publisher Correction: Truncated FGFR2 is a clinically actionable oncogene in multiple cancers.

This paper was originally published under a standard Springer Nature license

Distinct IL-1α-responsive enhancers promote acute and coordinated changes in chromatin topology in a hierarchical manner

How cytokine-driven changes in chromatin topology are converted into gene regulatory circuits during inflammation still remains unclear. Here, we show that interleukin (IL)-1α induces acute and widespread changes in chromatin accessibility via the TAK1 kinase and NF-κB at regions that are highly enriched for inflammatory disease-relevant SNPs. Two enhancers in the extended chemokine locus on human chromosome 4 regulate the IL-1α-inducible IL8 and CXCL1-3 genes. Both enhancers engage in dynamic spatial interactions with gene promoters in an IL-1α/TAK1-inducible manner. Microdeletions of p65-binding sites in either of the two enhancers impair NF-κB recruitment, suppress activation and biallelic transcription of the IL8/CXCL2 genes, and reshuffle higher-order chromatin interactions as judged by i4C interactome profiles. Notably, these findings support a dominant role of the IL8 “master” enhancer in the regulation of sustained IL-1α signaling, as well as for IL-8 and IL-6 secretion. CRISPR-guided transactivation of the IL8 locus or cross-TAD regulation by TNFα-responsive enhancers in a different model locus supports the existence of complex enhancer hierarchies in response to cytokine stimulation that prime and orchestrate proinflammatory chromatin responses downstream of NF-κB