Discovering the Gender Lens: The Influence of an Introductory Gender Studies Course on Personal Change

Thesis (PhD) - Indiana University, School of Education, 2006The discipline of gender studies, driven by the social movement of feminism, has become an established area of study on a number of university campuses. Early examinations of gender studies courses identified two specific influences of this newly formed branch of education, intellectual mastery of the course content and the less traditional goal of personal change (the effects of student connections between class materials and personal experiences). Based on existing research, feminist theory and theories of gender development, the author of the present study hypothesized a continued personal change impact of current gender studies courses. The study explored this concept of personal change through an examination of the pre-course relationships between biological sex, experiences with sexism, parental nontraditional gender roles and students' feminist perspectives. Furthermore, the study examined post-course effects related to the concept of personal change through an inquiry on the influence of an introductory gender studies course on students' feminist perspective, gender identity, and gender self-confidence. As pre-course and post-course measures, gender studies students (n = 118) from three separate sections of the same undergraduate course completed a series of questionnaires pertaining to these areas. As a control, 48 education students also completed the questionnaires. Pre-course measures revealed that experience with sexism was a significant predictor of the following feminist perspective self-reports: low acceptance of inequities, high awareness of inequities, high exploration of feminist perspective, and high consolidation of feminist perspective for female students. Post-course measures revealed that gender studies students were less accepting of gender inequities than education students. Gender studies students were also more likely to change their gender identities than education students. The present study offers support for gender studies courses as agents of personal change through influences on feminist perspective and gender identity

DMAPT inhibits NF-κB activity and increases sensitivity of prostate cancer cells to X-rays in vitro and in tumor xenografts in vivo

Constitutive activation of the pro-survival transcription factor NF-κB has been associated with resistance to both chemotherapy and radiation therapy in many human cancers, including prostate cancer. Our lab and others have demonstrated that the natural product parthenolide can inhibit NF-κB activity and sensitize PC-3 prostate cancers cells to X-rays in vitro; however, parthenolide has poor bioavailability in vivo and therefore has little clinical utility in this regard. We show here that treatment of PC-3 and DU145 human prostate cancer cells with dimethylaminoparthenolide (DMAPT), a parthenolide derivative with increased bioavailability, inhibits constitutive and radiation-induced NF-κB binding activity and slows prostate cancer cell growth. We also show that DMAPT increases single and fractionated X-ray-induced killing of prostate cancer cells through inhibition of DNA double strand break repair and also that DMAPT-induced radiosensitization is, at least partially, dependent upon the alteration of intracellular thiol reduction-oxidation chemistry. Finally, we demonstrate that the treatment of PC-3 prostate tumor xenografts with oral DMAPT in addition to radiation therapy significantly decreases tumor growth and results in significantly smaller tumor volumes compared to xenografts treated with either DMAPT or radiation therapy alone, suggesting that DMAPT might have a potential clinical role as a radiosensitizing agent in the treatment of prostate cancer

Radiation therapy generates platelet-activating factor agonists

Pro-oxidative stressors can suppress host immunity due to their ability to generate oxidized lipid agonists of the platelet-activating factor-receptor (PAF-R). As radiation therapy also induces reactive oxygen species, the present studies were designed to define whether ionizing radiation could generate PAF-R agonists and if these lipids could subvert host immunity. We demonstrate that radiation exposure of multiple tumor cell lines in-vitro, tumors in-vivo, and human subjects undergoing radiation therapy for skin tumors all generate PAF-R agonists. Structural characterization of radiation-induced PAF-R agonistic activity revealed PAF and multiple oxidized glycerophosphocholines that are produced non-enzymatically. In a murine melanoma tumor model, irradiation of one tumor augmented the growth of the other (non-treated) tumor in a PAF-R-dependent process blocked by a cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor. These results indicate a novel pathway by which PAF-R agonists produced as a byproduct of radiation therapy could result in tumor treatment failure, and offer important insights into potential therapeutic strategies that could improve the overall antitumor effectiveness of radiation therapy regimens

Centerscope

Centerscope, formerly Scope, was published by the Boston University Medical Center "to communicate the concern of the Medical Center for the development and maintenance of improved health care in contemporary society.

Age-related transcriptional changes in gene expression in different organs of mice support the metabolic stability theory of aging

Individual differences in the rate of aging are determined by the efficiency with which an organism transforms resources into metabolic energy thus maintaining the homeostatic condition of its cells and tissues. This observation has been integrated with analytical studies of the metabolic process to derive the following principle: The metabolic stability of regulatory networks, that is the ability of cells to maintain stable concentrations of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and other critical metabolites is the prime determinant of life span. The metabolic stability of a regulatory network is determined by the diversity of the metabolic pathways or the degree of connectivity of genes in the network. These properties can be empirically evaluated in terms of transcriptional changes in gene expression. We use microarrays to investigate the age-dependence of transcriptional changes of genes in the insulin signaling, oxidative phosphorylation and glutathione metabolism pathways in mice. Our studies delineate age and tissue specific patterns of transcriptional changes which are consistent with the metabolic stability–longevity principle. This study, in addition, rejects the free radical hypothesis which postulates that the production rate of ROS, and not its stability, determines life span

Mass, Measurement, Materials, and Mathematical Modeling: The Nuts and Bolts of Extrapolation

A simple activity is described which is appropriate for any class dealing with measurement. It introduces students to the important scientific process of mathematical modeling and online collaboration. Students, working in groups, determine the mass of a bolt indirectly by extrapolation from massing the bolt with one to five nuts on it and determining the equation of the line; the y-intercept being the mass of the bolt. Students gain experience with using a balance, graphing data, and analyzing results using algebraic skills. They calculate percent error after measuring the bolt’s mass directly and can compare this with the error limits from the least squares fit. Groups enter data into a web-based form and the data is examined by the class using Google Docs in a collaborative manner. After entering data in Google Docs, the students use an interactive Excel spreadsheet to compare their results to the best-fit line obtained by linear regression (pre-built into the spreadsheet for novices). In the spreadsheet, they further explore the model to gain an understanding and examine the influence of scatter (error) in the data and material density