Glossary I : Graduate Thesis

Situated across various contexts and spaces– studio, domestic, gallery– Eli Backer’s work explores open collaboration with machines, often producing multiples to reflect on, obfuscate, and to futilely hold the space and shape of loss. In this text, she surveys radio stations, music, writing, and art that has formed and driven her practice and sets a framework for the limited continuation of this document

Sun Watch 3.0

The Sun Watch was a part of Eli Backer\u27s portfolio in applying to Masters of Fine Art programs around the country. It is a typical-looking wristwatch that does not give the time, but the position of the sun in the sky via a row of LEDs along the edge of the device. It is programmable with a custom programming board that uses pogo-pins to make reliable contact. In using the device, it is the designer\u27s hope that the user will become less addicted to time

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure fl ux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defi ned as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium ) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the fi eld understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation it is imperative to delete or knock down more than one autophagy-related gene. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways so not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field

2019 It Should be Clear | Glass Graduate Biennial

https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/solkofflergallery_posters/1027/thumbnail.jp

2018 Glass Department Triennial Exhibition

https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/woods-gerrygallery_posters/1048/thumbnail.jp

Combinatorial pharmacologic approaches target EZH2-mediated gene repression in breast cancer cells

10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-09-0479Molecular Cancer Therapeutics8123191-320

Evaluation of new materials for plasmonic imaging lithography at 476 nm using near field scanning optical microscopy

A new resist formulation was successfully patterned using near field optical microscopy in order to simulate the conditions prevailing in silver based plasmonic imaging tools. Radiation at 476 nm was transmitted through a near field scanning optical microscopy fiber probe tip to cross-link a film of poly(4-methacrylmethyl styrene) via polymerization of pendant methacryloyl groups using camphorquinone and dimethyl aniline as an initiating system. Patterns were generated by scanning at several speeds in order to moderate the dose while maintaining a constant probe height of about 5 nm above the sample through shear force feedback. After development, lines corresponding to the exposed regions were observed. At a scanning speed of 4 µm/s, the observed pattern has a full width at half maximum of 275 nm and a height of ~25 nm