Research in Action: Becoming a Better Teacher

Greg Marchant, a past editor of MWER, and now an Associate Editor of the Newsletter for Educational Psychologists posed the following question to anyone who cared to answer: Why are research results in educational psychology seldom reflected in educational policies, and what can be done to improve the application of research findings to practice? . Several respondents noted that while there are numerous examples of research findings that can easily be turned into useful classroom applications, many of them languish in our academic journals because they are written by researchers, for researchers, and in the language of researchers. This column has attempted to address this problem

Merging Ecology and Earth System Modeling: Biotic and Abiotic Controls Drive Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Cycling in Microbial-Explicit Soil Biogeochemistry Models

Ecological processes drive terrestrial biogeochemistry, yet the incorporation of ecology into the Earth system models that we use to understand and project global change remains. My dissertation focuses on expediting the incorporation of ecology into Earth system models, first by laying out a roadmap from initial assessment of ecological insights to eventual ESM incorporation, and then by demonstrating this roadmap using the example of microbially- controlled carbon and nitrogen cycling in soil. The paradigm around SOM formation and loss has shifted in recent decades away from a focus on the chemically recalcitrant leftovers of litter decomposition and towards a paradigm with microbial residues and mineral interactions at its heart. The MIcrobial-MIneral Carbon Stabilization model (MIMICS) was developed as a way of exploring this new paradigm and examining the relationships between environmental drivers, litter chemistry, microbial physiology, and physical and chemical stabilization mechanisms for SOM. In the first chapter of my dissertation, I document a systematic approach to improve ecological process representation in Earth system models, highlighting multiple points along the way where ecological observations and modeling iteratively strengthen one another. In the second chapter, I develop and validate a new version of MIMICS with coupled N cycling using a large litter decomposition dataset. In the final chapter, I examine MIMICS-CN’s representation of the drivers of SOM C:N ratios using a landscape-scale data synthesis and model-data comparison. Together, these chapters describe and demonstrate the process of improving biogeochemical models along the path to ESMs by introducing new process representations of ecological concepts

Alien Registration- Snowman, Florence E. (Wade, Aroostook County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/32610/thumbnail.jp

Microbial carbon use efficiency: accounting for population, community, and ecosystem-scale controls over the fate of metabolized organic matter

Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is a critical regulator of soil organic matter dynamics and terrestrial carbon fluxes, with strong implications for soil biogeochemistry models. While ecologists increasingly appreciate the importance of CUE, its core concepts remain ambiguous: terminology is inconsistent and confusing, methods capture variable temporal and spatial scales, and the significance of many fundamental drivers remains inconclusive. Here we outline the processes underlying microbial efficiency and propose a conceptual framework that structures the definition of CUE according to increasingly broad temporal and spatial drivers where (1) CUEP reflects population-scale carbon use efficiency of microbes governed by species-specific metabolic and thermodynamic constraints, (2) CUEC defines community-scale microbial efficiency as gross biomass production per unit substrate taken up over short time scales, largely excluding recycling of microbial necromass and exudates, and (3) CUEE reflects the ecosystem-scale efficiency of net microbial biomass production (growth) per unit substrate taken up as iterative breakdown and recycling of microbial products occurs. CUEE integrates all internal and extracellular constraints on CUE and hence embodies an ecosystem perspective that fully captures all drivers of microbial biomass synthesis and decay. These three definitions are distinct yet complementary, capturing the capacity for carbon storage in microbial biomass across different ecological scales. By unifying the existing concepts and terminology underlying microbial efficiency, our framework enhances data interpretation and theoretical advances

ONCOGENIC PROPERTIES AND TARGETING OF NTRK1 IN BREAST CANCER

Triple negative breast cancers (TNBC) comprise a highly aggressive cancer subtype with high mortality rates, high frequency of metastatic disease and a lack of targeted therapies. A fraction of these cancers also demonstrate amplification of the NTRK1 gene. The protein product of the NTRK1 gene, TrkA, is a receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) that recognizes neuronal growth factor (NGF) leading to downstream signaling through MAPK and other pathways that promote survival and proliferation. Pan-Trk inhibitors have been developed against rare cancers with NTRK translocations that result in constitutive Trk kinase activity. Expansion of these inhibitors’ application to amplifications, particularly in TNBC, offers the potential for targeted therapies. Here, we engineered non-tumorigenic immortalized human mammary epithelial cell lines and human breast cancer cell lines to overexpress TrkA. Overexpressing clones demonstrated cancerous and pro-metastatic phenotypes, which were reversed upon exposure to the Trk inhibitor larotrectinib. In vitro, the MCF10A and hTERT-IMEC engineered cell lines showed growth factor independence, increased downstream proliferative and pro-survival signaling, alterations in three-dimensional culture, and migratory phenotypes in increased wound healing and microchannel migration. In vivo, TrkA-overexpressing MCF7 cells showed increased tumor growth and acquired the capacity to establish disseminated disease. Our results demonstrate the potential clinical utility of larotrectinib for targeting NTRK1 amplified breast cancers and inhibiting metastasis

Reader in American Library History (Book Review)

published or submitted for publicatio