Heritage/ Culture Preservation Model Bilingual Instruction

Our first generation children face a loss of heritage in today’s public schools. Unfortunately, the assets that one’s bilingual ability brings into the classroom are difficult for educators to fully understand. Often this may happen because professionals in the field of education lack the knowledge about the need for children to maintain their culture heritage as a first generation or second generation child. This study addresses the benefits of the preservation of culture heritage in Latino/ Latina children. The problem is that there are very few opportunities for people to see strong bilingual education programs with culture heritage preservation as part of the curriculum. A review of the literature revealed that there is a need for preservation of culture and heritage in the youth of today’s world. Often first generation students, particularly Spanish speaking students, lose their heritage language. The literature also indicates that schools that offer bilingual education had both native and non-native students engaged in learning and participating actively in school and their community. There is a need for further investigation on this topic to ensure an increase on academic success for this population. The research question for this study addresses how educators instill cultural pride and ownership in students related to their heritage. This study followed a qualitative research design with a purposeful sample of professionals who were selected because of their expertise and experience in working with Latino students in school settings. An interview protocol was designed to gather data on the research question. Results indicated that further research needs to address the impact of cultural preservation particularly with the Spanish speaking population and students’ academic success

Embedding Information Literacy Skills in Undergraduate Research Studies

In any academic context, when one mentions the term research, students immediately panic and assume this research is something they cannot do under any circumstances. This response seems fairly common among students new to undergraduate and graduate level research. The tendency on the part of the students is to make this a daunting project, impossible to complete. The faculty leaders know how to conduct research. The goal is to describe the research steps, have students practice each step, and then have them build their research work in stages. Collaboration between and among faculty in exploring and teaching research tools helped us develop a road map for students. To implement this approach to teaching research, we developed a collaborative partnership, exploring research skills that worked, refining our teaching approaches, and establishing a guided student practice component. After several years of an informal relationship, linking academic librarianship to education programs, our collaboration moved to a more formalized relationship with the permanent assignment of faculty librarian, as liaison to the School of Education graduate students. Community interest in having university students research locally based projects helped strengthen this connection. Now in our sixth year, the collaborative relationship has produced a level of improved scholarship in student research, with increased student understanding of academic research explorations linked to their own research focus. Additionally, students have improved in scholarly writing and citation skills application in their written work. Student improvement in research and writing skills is reflected in the increased number of students whose work is accepted by Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) and by professional conferences for inclusion in presentations. Systematic data collection on the effect of this collaboration needs further documentation. Persuading students of the importance of producing scholarly work has not been easily achieved. Yet, in a time where documentation is essential, we had to move students in this direction to increase their understanding and appreciation of professional research and writing. The effort continues each semester. The purpose of this article is to describe in brief the steps taken over the last six years while moving toward developing student understanding and application of the research process on their individual master’s theses. The particular focus is on assisting students in locating scholarly material in building their review of the literature as part of the graduate thesis

Activity of the kinesin spindle protein inhibitor ispinesib (SB-715992) in models of breast cancer

Ispinesib (SB-715992) is a potent inhibitor of kinesin spindle protein (KSP), a kinesin motor protein essential for the formation of a bipolar mitotic spindle and cell cycle progression through mitosis. Clinical studies of ispinesib have demonstrated a 9% response rate in patients with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer, and a favorable safety profile without significant neurotoxicities, gastrointestinal toxicities or hair loss. To better understand the potential of ispinesib in the treatment of breast cancer we explored the activity of ispinesib alone and in combination several therapies approved for the treatment of breast cancer. We measured the ispinesib sensitivity and pharmacodynamic response of breast cancer cell lines representative of various subtypes in vitro and as xenografts in vivo, and tested the ability of ispinesib to enhance the anti-tumor activity of approved therapies. In vitro, ispinesib displayed broad anti-proliferative activity against a panel of 53 breast cell-lines. In vivo, ispinesib produced regressions in each of five breast cancer models, and tumor free survivors in three of these models. The effects of ispinesib treatment on pharmacodynamic markers of mitosis and apoptosis were examined in vitro and in vivo, revealing a greater increase in both mitotic and apoptotic markers in the MDA-MB-468 model than in the less sensitive BT-474 model. In vivo, ispinesib enhanced the anti-tumor activity of trastuzumab, lapatinib, doxorubicin, and capecitabine, and exhibited activity comparable to paclitaxel and ixabepilone. These findings support further clinical exploration of KSP inhibitors for the treatment of breast cancer

Molecular typing of IberoAmerican Cryptococcus neoformans isolates

A network was established to acquire basic knowledge of Cryptococcus neoformans in IberoAmerican countries. To this effect, 340 clinical, veterinary, and environmental isolates from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Guatemala, and Spain were typed by using M13 polymerase chain reaction-fingerprinting and orotidine monophosphate pyrophosphorylase (URA5) gene restriction fragment length polymorphsm analysis with Hhal and Sau961 in a double digest. Both techniques grouped all isolates into eight previously established molecular types. The majority of the isolates, 68.2% (n=232), were VNI (var. grubii, serotype A), which accords with the fact that this variety causes most human cryptococcal infections worldwide. A smaller proportion, 5.6% (n=19), were VNII (var. grubii, serotype A); 4.1% (n=14), VNIII (AD hybrid), with 9 isolates having a polymorphism in the URA5 gene; 1.8% (n=6), VNIV (var. neoformans, serotype D); 3.5% (n=12), VGI; 6.2% (n=21), VGII; 9.1% (n=31), VGIII, and 1.5% (n=5) VGIV, with all four VG types containing var. gattii serotypes B and C isolates