Three-Dimensional Engineered Bone–Ligament–Bone Constructs for Anterior Cruciate Ligament Replacement

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a major stabilizer of the knee, is commonly injured. Because of its intrinsic poor healing ability, a torn ACL is usually reconstructed by a graft. We developed a multi-phasic, or bone?ligament?bone, tissue-engineered construct for ACL grafts using bone marrow stromal cells and sheep as a model system. After 6 months in vivo, the constructs increased in cross section and exhibited a well-organized microstructure, native bone integration, a functional enthesis, vascularization, innervation, increased collagen content, and structural alignment. The constructs increased in stiffness to 52% of the tangent modulus and 95% of the geometric stiffness of native ACL. The viscoelastic response of the explants was virtually indistinguishable from that of adult ACL. These results suggest that our constructs after implantation can obtain physiologically relevant structural and functional characteristics comparable to those of adult ACL. They present a viable option for ACL replacement.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98477/1/ten%2Etea%2E2011%2E0231.pd

Unreproductive citizenship: Social sterilisation of queer and trans people in Poland

This paper offers the term unreproductive citizenship to characterise the social positionality of LGBTQ people in Poland. Unreproductive citizenship is brought about by means of social sterilisation: while queer and trans people are ‘tolerated,’ they are not treated as reproductive subjects with a potential to participate in social reproduction. Drawing on Polish and international literature on queer families, reproductive politics, and forced sterilisation, as well as research including interviews, political speeches and auto-ethnography, I argue that the discursive and political framing of LGBTQ people as unreproductive subjects is eugenic. Leading political figures representing Poland's robust political right-wing, as well as the majority of Poles, have expressed fears that LGBTQ reproduction could somehow ‘contaminate’ future generations and therefore poses a threat to the nation's moral order. The social sterilisation of queer Polish people as ‘unreproductive citizens’ illustrates how the logics of reproductive righteousness operate in contemporary Poland.The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust, UK (Grant no. 100606) within the ‘Changing (In)Fertilities’ grant held by the Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc) at the University of Cambridge, U

A comparative study on the parasite fauna of perch, Perca fluviatilis L., collected from a freshwater coastal lake brackish-water Baltic Sea and the interconnecting canal

Background. Parasitological surveys of freshwater fishes rarely include comparisons between two ecologically different bodies of water. Such studies might help to understand processes of establishment of parasite faunas in estuary areas. The results obtained could also provide useful tools for discriminating various fish populations based on the composition of their parasite faunas. The present authors attempted to study such data from Resko Lake-a freshwater coastal lagoon (6 km? surface area), and the adjacent areas of the Baltic Sea. Resko Lake, located 12 km west of the city of Kołobrzeg, is shallow (1.5 m) and is connected to the sea through a small canal (1.3 km long, 30 m wide). Material and methods. The material was collected from April 1969 and July 1970. A total of 159 perch were collected, in this number 104 fish from the lake, 43 from the sea, and 12 from the canal. Results. A total of 32 parasite species were recovered from the fish necropsied. The parasites represented 7 higher taxa: Protozoa (3 species), Cestoda (4), Digenea (13), Nematoda (5), Acanthocephala (3), Mollusca (1), and Crustacea (3). The parasite fauna of perch from the sea was definitely more abundant (31 species) compared to that of the lake (21), and the canal (12 species). Infection parameters of 13 parasite species demonstrated significant differences between the locations studied. The infection level of 6 parasite species was significantly higher in perch from the sea: Bothriocephalus scorpii, Ligula sp., Brachyphallus crenatus, Camallanus truncatus, Hysterothylacium aduncum, and Echinorhynchus gadi. On the other hand, infection levels of 7 other species were higher at the lake: Triaenophorus nodulosus, Bucephalus polymorphus, Azygia lucii, Tylodelphys clavata, Camallanus lacustris, Acanthocephalus lucii, and Achtheres percarum. The infection parameters of the fish from canal were similar to those from the lake. Interesting observations were made on the seasonality of certain parasites of both lake- and Baltic perch. The presently observed differences between parasite faunas of the fish from ecologically different adjacent estuarine locations are certainly caused by diversified environmental conditions that affected the processes of formation of the parasite communities there. Among important factors that could affect compositions of the parasite faunas could have been: availability of the intermediate hosts, exchange of waters (Baltic water influxes to the lake), fish migrations (spawning), and finally the separate identity of the two fish stocks studied