Negotiating colonial violence: spaces of precarisation in Palestine

This paper examines the ways in which colonial violence is transformed and spatialised into negotiated precarities at the occupied Palestine. The notion of “negotiated precarity” is developed herein, to refer to two aspects in particular. First, to spatial compartmentalisation, which shows how the settler colonial power operates by creating precarious administrative zones, where the life of the colonised becomes prone to several flexible, negotiated uses of power. Second, negotiated precarity is used to refer to the conduct of the colonised that counters, transforms, redirects, cancels or hampers the colonial spatialisations of power. By focusing on the “negotiated precarities” in a singular West Bank village, I exemplify how the colonial governing is entwined with spatial compartments that enable several informal, indirect and ad hoc techniques of colonial violence, but also how the colonial governing is constantly mobilised, negotiated, countered and redirected in/through the everyday Palestinian spaces.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Characterization of single-chain polymer folding using size exclusion chromatography with multiple modes of detection

We highlight here recent work from our laboratory on the subject of fabricating nanostructures from single polymer chains. These so-called single-chain nanoparticles are synthesized by inducing intra-molecular cross-linking on discrete macromolecules in dilute solution. Among the biggest challenges in this rapidly expanding area of research is reliable and accurate means to characterize this process. In this paper, we review our preferred method of characterization: size exclusion chromatography featuring multiple modes of detection. Multi-angle light scattering in conjunction with a concentration detector can provide absolute molecular weight data; viscometric detection can provide information about solution size and conformation. Correlation of these data provides a simple and robust way to quantify the process by which we fold single polymer coils into architecturally defined unimolecular nanostructures

Lethal toxicity after administration of azacytidine:implication of the cytidine deaminase-deficiency syndrome.

International audienceAzacytidine, an antimetabolite with an original epigenetic mechanism of action, increases survival in patients diagnosed with high-risk myelodysplasic syndromes or acute myeloid leukemia with less than 30% medullar blasts. Azacytidine is a pyrimidine derivative that undergoes metabolic detoxification driven by cytidine deaminase (CDA), a liver enzyme whose gene is prone to genetic polymorphism, leading to erratic activity among patients. Clinical reports have shown that patients with the poor metabolizer (PM) phenotype are likely to experience early severe or lethal toxicities when treated with nucleosidic analogs such as gemcitabine or cytarabine. No clinical data have been available thus far on the relationships between CDA PM status and toxicities in azacytidine-treated patients. Here, we measured CDA activity in a case of severe toxicities with fatal outcome in a patient undergoing standard azacytidine treatment. Results showed that the patient was PM (i.e. residual activity reduced by 63%), thus suggesting that an impaired detoxification step could have given rise to the lethal toxicities observed. This case report calls for further prospective studies investigating the exact role that CDA status plays in the clinical outcome of patients treated with azacytidine

Protection from inflammatory organ damage in a murine model of hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis using treatment with IL-18 binding protein.

Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a life-threatening condition due to the association of an infectious agent with lymphocyte cytotoxicity defects, either of congenital genetic origin in children or presumably acquired in adults. In HLH patients, an excess of lymphocyte or macrophage cytokines, such as IFN-\u3b3 and TNF\u3b1 is present in serum. In animal models of the disease, IFN-\u3b3 and TNF-\u3b1 have been shown to play a central pathogenic role. In humans, unusually high concentrations of IL-18, an inducer of IFN-\u3b3, and TNF-\u3b1 have been reported, and are associated with an imbalance between IL-18 and its natural inhibitor IL-18 binding protein (IL-18BP) resulting in an excess of free IL-18. Here we studied whether IL-18BP could reduce disease severity in an animal model of HLH. Mouse cytomegalovirus infection in perforin-1 knock-out mice induced a lethal condition similar to human HLH characterized by cytopenia with marked inflammatory lesions in the liver and spleen as well as the presence of hemophagocytosis in bone marrow. IL-18BP treatment decreased hemophagocytosis and reversed liver as well as spleen damage. IL-18BP treatment also reduced both IFN-\u3b3 and TNF-\u3b1 production by CD8+ T and NK cells, as well as Fas ligand expression on NK cell surface. These data suggest that IL-18BP is beneficial in an animal model of HLH and in combination with anti-infectious therapy may be a promising strategy to treat HLH patients

Moral othering at the checkpoint: The case of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians

In many ways the Palestinian civilian is the ultimate or significant ‘other' for the Israeli soldier serving in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). (S)he is the one who will be stopped, checked, controlled and at times arrested. (S)he is the one who negotiates, pleads, begs and sometimes curses the soldier. This other represents, amongst other things, disorder for the soldiers. (S)he becomes the ‘face’ of the hardship, the frustration, anger, doubt and boredom the soldiers associate with their work within a military occupation. To regain a sense of order, control and normalcy soldiers construct the military checkpoint as a ‘moral geography’ where the Palestinian is actively ‘othered’. In this paper I will explore how moral boundaries are drawn along these physical borders in a landscape of conflict, while not losing sight of the symbolic meaning of this border. I will do this by exploring the way Palestinians are made into a moral other by Israeli soldiers, in an effort to create a certain sense of order, at the checkpoint. I will first discuss the checkpoint as a site of ‘moral geography’ that enhances and legitimizes these processes of othering that I will explore next. Finally, I will discuss the way Palestinians are made into a moral other, while tracing this back to a moral discourse that is geared to establish a ‘normalized’ self