Information Literacy Needs Open Access or: Open Access is not Only for Researchers

The Open Access was initially (blandly) conceived in view not only of researchers but also of lay readers, then this perspective slowly faded out. The Information Literacy movement wants to teach citizens how to arrive at trustable information but the amount of paywalled knowledge is still big. So, their lines of development are somehow complementary: Information Literacy needs Open Access for the citizens to freely access high quality information while Open Access truly fulfils its scope when it is conceived and realized not only for the researchers (an aristocratic view which was the initial one) but for the whole society

Optimizing Dietary Restriction for Genetic Epistasis Analysis and Gene Discovery in C. elegans

Dietary restriction (DR) increases mammalian lifespan and decreases susceptibility to many age-related diseases. Lifespan extension due to DR is conserved across a wide range of species. Recent research has focused upon genetically tractable model organisms such as C. elegans to uncover the genetic mechanisms that regulate the response to DR, in the hope that this information will provide insight into the mammalian response and yield potential therapeutic targets. However, no consensus exists as to the best protocol to apply DR to C. elegans and potential key regulators of DR are protocol-specific. Here we define a DR method that better fulfills criteria required for an invertebrate DR protocol to mirror mammalian studies. The food intake that maximizes longevity varies for different genotypes and informative epistasis analysis with another intervention is only achievable at this ‘optimal DR’ level. Importantly therefore, the degree of restriction imposed using our method can easily be adjusted to determine the genotype-specific optimum DR level. We used this protocol to test two previously identified master regulators of DR in the worm. In contrast to previous reports, we find that DR can robustly extend the lifespan of worms lacking the AMP-activated protein kinase catalytic subunit AAK2 or the histone deacetylase SIR-2.1, highlighting the importance of first optimizing DR to identify universal regulators of DR mediated longevity

Human resources for health policies: a critical component in health policies

In the last few years, increasing attention has been paid to the development of health policies. But side by side with the presumed benefits of policy, many analysts share the opinion that a major drawback of health policies is their failure to make room for issues of human resources. Current approaches in human resources suggest a number of weaknesses: a reactive, ad hoc attitude towards problems of human resources; dispersal of accountability within human resources management (HRM); a limited notion of personnel administration that fails to encompass all aspects of HRM; and finally the short-term perspective of HRM. There are three broad arguments for modernizing the ways in which human resources for health are managed: • the central role of the workforce in the health sector; • the various challenges thrown up by health system reforms; • the need to anticipate the effect on the health workforce (and consequently on service provision) arising from various macroscopic social trends impinging on health systems. The absence of appropriate human resources policies is responsible, in many countries, for a chronic imbalance with multifaceted effects on the health workforce: quantitative mismatch, qualitative disparity, unequal distribution and a lack of coordination between HRM actions and health policy needs. Four proposals have been put forward to modernize how the policy process is conducted in the development of human resources for health (HRH): • to move beyond the traditional approach of personnel administration to a more global concept of HRM; • to give more weight to the integrated, interdependent and systemic nature of the different components of HRM when preparing and implementing policy; • to foster a more proactive attitude among human resources (HR) policy-makers and managers; • to promote the full commitment of all professionals and sectors in all phases of the process. The development of explicit human resources policies is a crucial link in health policies and is needed both to address the imbalances of the health workforce and to foster implementation of the health services reforms

Effects of dietary carotenoids on mouse lung genomic profiles and their modulatory effects on short-term cigarette smoke exposures

Male C57BL/6 mice were fed diets supplemented with either β-carotene (BC) or lycopene (LY) that were formulated for human consumption. Four weeks of dietary supplementations results in plasma and lung carotenoid (CAR) concentrations that approximated the levels detected in humans. Bioactivity of the CARs was determined by assaying their effects on the activity of the lung transcriptome (~8,500 mRNAs). Both CARs activated the cytochrome P450 1A1 gene but only BC induced the retinol dehydrogenase gene. The contrasting effects of the two CARs on the lung transcriptome were further uncovered in mice exposed to cigarette smoke (CS) for 3 days; only LY activated ~50 genes detected in the lungs of CS-exposed mice. These genes encoded inflammatory-immune proteins. Our data suggest that mice offer a viable in vivo model for studying bioactivities of dietary CARs and their modulatory effects on lung genomic expression in both health and after exposure to CS toxicants

Epstein-Barr Virus Latent Membrane Protein 2 Effects on Epithelial Acinus Development Reveal Distinct Requirements for the PY and YEEA motifs

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a gammaherpesvirus associated with numerous cancers, including the epithelial cancers nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and gastric carcinoma. The latent membrane protein 2 (LMP2) encoded by EBV is consistently detected in NPC tumors and promotes a malignant phenotype when expressed in epithelial cells by inducing transformation and migration and inhibiting differentiation. Grown in three dimensions (3D) on Matrigel, the nontumorigenic mammary epithelial cell line MCF10A forms hollow, spherical acinar structures that maintain normal glandular features. Expression of oncogenes in these cells allows for the study of multiple aspects of tumor development in a 3D culture system. This study sought to examine the effects of LMP2 on the generation of MCF10A acini. LMP2 expression induced abnormal acini that were large, misshapen, and filled, indicating that LMP2 induced proliferation, impaired cellular polarization, and induced resistance to cell death, leading to luminal filling. Induction of cell death resistance required the PY, immunoreceptor tyrosine activation motif (ITAM), and YEEA signaling domains of LMP2 and activation of the Src and Akt signaling pathways. The PY domain was required for the inhibition of anoikis and also the delayed proliferative arrest of the LMP2-expressing cells. In addition to directly altering acinus formation, expression of LMP2 also induced morphological and protein expression changes consistent with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in a manner that required only the YEEA signaling motif of LMP2. These findings indicate that LMP2 has considerable transforming properties that are not evident in standard tissue culture and requires the ability of LMP2A to bind ubiquitin ligases and Src family kinases