Should athletes be tested for recreational drugs? Three sporting federations kick around the proverbial football

The question of illicit drugs in sport has been one that has recently dominated the media's coverage of sport. Players in rugby union, rugby league and Australian football have tested positive for recreational drugs or have admitted using such drugs. Also an issue are the policies adopted by the various codes in regard to the testing of such drugs out of competition. At present the AFL has a three-strike policy, which means that players will only suffer consequences after a third positive test. The NRL will be adopting a two-strike policy, while rugby union has yet to adopt any out-of-competition testing or policy. It is suggested that with the AFL's policy being based on the education, rehabilitation and health of the players, a three-strike policy is and appropriate one for that particular organisation

Sports Law

Sport plays a large part in modern Australian society and culture. As professionalism has developed, those involved with sport, be they players, managers, administrators or supporters, are increasingly looking to the law to protect their rights and resolve their problems. This textbook examines all the various principles of law, including tort and criminal liability, taxation, contract, intellectual property and industrial relations and the role they play in the world of Australian sport

Sports Law

Sport plays a large part in modern Australian society and culture. As professionalism has developed, those involved with sport, be they players, managers, administrators or supporters, are increasingly looking to the law to protect their rights and resolve their problems. This textbook examines all the various principles of law, including tort and criminal liability, taxation, contract, intellectual property and industrial relations, and the role they play in the world of Australian sport

The Arabidopsis NMD Factor UPF3 is Feedback-Regulated at Multiple Levels and Plays a Role in Plant Response to Salt Stress

Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is a eukaryotic RNA surveillance mechanism that degrades aberrant transcripts and controls the levels of many normal mRNAs. It was shown that balanced expression of the NMD factor UPF3 is essential for the maintenance of proper NMD homeostasis in Arabidopsis. UPF3 expression is controlled by a negative feedback loop that exposes UPF3 transcript to NMD. It was shown that the long 3' untranslated region (3' UTR) of UPF3 exposes its transcript to NMD. Long 3' UTRs that subject their transcripts to NMD were identified in several eukaryotic NMD factors. Interestingly, we show here that a construct that contains all the regulatory regions of the UPF3 gene except this long 3' UTR is also feedback-regulated by NMD. This indicates that UPF3 expression is feedback-regulated at multiple levels. UPF3 is constitutively expressed in different plant tissues, and its expression is equal in leaves of plants of different ages. This finding is in agreement with the possibility that UPF3 is ubiquitously operative in the Arabidopsis NMD pathway. Expression mediated by the regulatory regions of UPF3 is significantly induced by salt stress. We found that both a deficiency and a strong excess of UPF3 expression are detrimental to plant resistance to salt stress. This indicates that UPF3 plays a role in plant response to salt stress, and that balanced expression of the UPF3 gene is essential for coping with this stress

Homotypic targeting and drug delivery in glioblastoma cells through cell membrane-coated boron nitride nanotubes

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is one of the most aggressive types of brain cancer, characterized by rapid progression, resistance to treatments, and low survival rates; the development of a targeted treatment for this disease is still today an unattained objective. Among the different strategies developed in the latest few years for the targeted delivery of nanotherapeutics, homotypic membrane-membrane recognition is one of the most promising and efficient. In this work, we present an innovative drug-loaded nanocarrier with improved targeting properties based on the homotypic recognition of GBM cells. The developed nanoplatform consists of boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) loaded with doxorubicin (Dox) and coated with cell membranes (CM) extracted from GBM cells (Dox-CM-BNNTs). We demonstrated as Dox-CM-BNNTs are able to specifically target and kill GBM cells in vitro, leaving unaffected healthy brain cells, upon successful crossing an in vitro blood-brain barrier model. The excellent targeting performances of the nanoplatform can be ascribed to the protein component of the membrane coating, and proteomic analysis of differently expressed membrane proteins present on the CM of GBM cells and of healthy astrocytes allowed the identification of potential candidates involved in the process of homotypic cancer cell recognition.This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement N°709613, SLaMM)