An Integrated Interdisciplinary Faculty-Student Learning Community Focused on Water Issues: A Case Study

In response to a request from a campus student organization, faculty from three fields came together to develop and teach an integrated interdisciplinary course on water issues and social activism. This course, Water as Life, Death, and Power, brought together topics from the fields of anthropology, biology and chemistry to explore water rights, access to clean water, and water treatment methods. Students enrolled in the course developed projects related to a variety of local and global water issues to present real-world solutions at a university-wide student research showcase. This article describes how we organized the learning community, composed of students, faculty, and staff, and outlines the training process of developing a sense of community, content integration, and interdisciplinary teaching techniques. Cathy Willermet is a Professor of Anthropology at Central Michigan University. Eron Drake is the Assistant Director of the Faculty Center for Innovative Teaching at Central Michigan University. Anja Mueller is a Professor of Chemistry at Central Michigan University. Stephen J. Juris is a Professor of Biology at Central Michigan University. Pratik Chhetri is a graduate student and a member of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) at Central Michigan University. Samik Upadhaya is a graduate student and a member of UAEM at Central Michigan University

Water as life, death, and power: Building an integrated interdisciplinary course combining perspectives from anthropology, biology, and chemistry

In response to a request from a campus student organization, faculty from three fields came together to develop and teach an integrated interdisciplinary course on water issues and social activism. This course, “Water as Life, Death, and Power”, brought together topics from the fields of anthropology, biology and chemistry to explore water rights, access to clean water, and water treatment methods. Students enrolled in the course developed interdisciplinary projects related to a variety of local and global water issues to present real-world solutions at a university-wide student research showcase. This article describes the process by which the faculty learning community designed the course as a truly integrated whole, and reflects on the challenges and rewards of teaching a course in this way

Assessing Interdisciplinary Learning and Student Activism in a Water Issues Course

In response to a request from a campus student organization, faculty from three fields came together to develop and teach an integrated interdisciplinary course on water issues and social activism. This course, “Water as Life, Death, and Power”, brought together issues from the fields of anthropology, biology and chemistry to explore water rights, access to clean water, and water treatment methods. Students enrolled in the course developed interdisciplinary projects related to a variety of local and global water issues to present real-world solutions at a university-wide student research showcase. This article reports the assessment outcomes of the course, measuring changes in both interdisciplinary learning and levels of student activism

Intratumoral delivery of immunotherapy to treat breast cancer: current development in clinical and preclinical studies

Breast cancer poses one of the largest threats to women’s health. Treatment continues to improve for all the subtypes of breast cancer, but some subtypes, such as triple negative breast cancer, still present a significant treatment challenge. Additionally, metastasis and local recurrence are two prevalent problems in breast cancer treatment. A newer type of therapy, immunotherapy, may offer alternatives to traditional treatments for difficult-to-treat subtypes. Immunotherapy engages the host’s immune system to eradicate disease, with the potential to induce long-lasting, durable responses. However, systemic immunotherapy is only approved in a limited number of indications, and it benefits only a minority of patients. Furthermore, immune related toxicities following systemic administration of potent immunomodulators limit dosing and, consequently, efficacy. To address these safety considerations and improve treatment efficacy, interest in local delivery at the site of the tumor has increased. Numerous intratumorally delivered immunotherapeutics have been and are being explored clinically and preclinically, including monoclonal antibodies, cellular therapies, viruses, nucleic acids, cytokines, innate immune agonists, and bacteria. This review summarizes the current and past intratumoral immunotherapy clinical landscape in breast cancer as well as current progress that has been made in preclinical studies, with a focus on delivery parameters and considerations

Hematopoietic Stem Cells Are the Major Source of Multilineage Hematopoiesis in Adult Animals

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) sustain long-term reconstitution of hematopoiesis in transplantation recipients, yet their role in the endogenous steady-state hematopoiesis remains unclear. In particular, recent studies suggested that HSCs provide a relatively minor contribution to immune cell development in adults. We directed transgene expression in a fraction of HSCs that maintained reconstituting activity during serial transplantations. Inducible genetic labeling showed that transgene-expressing HSCs gave rise to other phenotypic HSCs, confirming their top position in the differentiation hierarchy. The labeled HSCs rapidly contributed to committed progenitors of all lineages and to mature myeloid cells and lymphocytes, but not to B-1a cells or tissue macrophages. Importantly, labeled HSCs gave rise to more than two-thirds of all myeloid cells and platelets in adult mice, and this contribution could be accelerated by an induced interferon response. Thus, classically defined HSCs maintain immune cell development in the steady state and during systemic cytokine responses

Characterization of Endogenous Hematopoietic Stem Cells in Their Native Unperturbed State

Hematopoietic Stem Cells (HSCs) are rare, self-renewing, and multipotent cells that sustain lifelong production of blood and immune cells. Much of our understanding of hematopoiesis, including the process of divergence and commitment into specific lineages during differentiation, is derived from the analysis of static composition of HSC and progenitor compartments as well as the measurement of their potential using transplantation-based studies. As such, the dynamics of endogenous HSCs, including the kinetics of their differentiation and their interactions with the bone marrow (BM) niche in real-time is poorly understood. The current study aims to characterize HSCs in their native, unperturbed environment by using inducible lineage tracing in combination with high-dimensional flow cytometry and single cell transcriptomics. Our findings provide an unbiased kinetic roadmap of early steps of hematopoietic differentiation and reveal fundamental differences in the sequence of lineage emergence from HSCs. We found a rapid and preferential emergence of megakaryocytic lineage followed by erythroid and myeloid lineages, whereas a substantial delay in lymphopoiesis at steady state. We also used intravital microscopy to visualize endogenous HSCs in the BM of live animals and discovered them to undergo short-range directional movements with extensive morphological changes. Furthermore, our findings revealed profound changes in HSC behavior following treatment with drugs that are used to induce their mobilization into peripheral blood. Overall, the present study offers novel insights into the fundamental features of endogenous HSC differentiation and their in-vivo dynamics during steady state

Interdisciplinary undergraduate education: water as life, death, and power and the certificate in global health disparities

Background: Central Michigan University's student chapter of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines organised a conference on global health disparities in April, 2011. From this conference came a student-driven initiative to develop interdisciplinary courses on health-related topics, and courses centred on global health and social justice. We describe the preparation and assessment of an interdisciplinary course about water. Methods: The course was cotaught by the anthropology, biology, and chemistry faculty to 28 undergraduate students with anthropology, biology, chemistry, and other majors. The course combined waterborne diseases and water treatment with cultural-related and power-related barriers to clean water. The course included a student-mentored seminar stressing activism on water-related issues. The course's theme examined the effect of cholera, a waterborne disease, in a global context. Findings: Analysis of pre-class and post-class questions about student attitudes via a written questionnaire showed an increase in social awareness and desire to continue to act towards solutions of global problems. For example, of 29 questions concerning civic engagement issues, all 29 responses showed an increase in agreement, with 11 showing statistically significant increases (28 degrees freedom). Assessment of student interdisciplinary thinking showed trends towards an increased ability to solve complex issues with interdisciplinary logic for seven of eight groups of students (the eighth group kept its high level). Interpretation: The student initiative led to the development of an interdisciplinary course that included activism. This course has been expanded to an interdisciplinary undergraduate certificate in global health disparities and might lead to an interdisciplinary major or minor in the future. Funding: Central Michigan University (CMU) Faculty Center for Innovative teaching (FaCIT)

The impact of COVID-19 on pancreatic cancer research and the path forward

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