Innovate to Mitigate: Science Learning in an Open-Innovation Challenge for High School Students

In this exploratory study, we report results from hosting two rounds of an open innovation competition challenging young people age 13-18 to develop a method for carbon mitigation. In both challenges, teams worked within the classroom and extensively on their own time out-of-school. The challenges were structured to engage participants to work collaboratively and independently in an open-ended, goal-oriented way, yet constrained their work by the parameters of the challenge, and supported it by a suite of tools, and resources. Evidence of learning science concepts and practices, student persistence, and the enthusiasm of participants, teachers and coaches, convince us that the Challenge structure and format is highly worthy of further development and investigation. Our findings indicate that Challenges such as this have the potential to enlarge the “ecosystem” of learning environments in the formal education system

Spoiling for a Fight: B Lymphocytes As Initiator and Effector Populations within Tertiary Lymphoid Organs in Autoimmunity and Transplantation.

Tertiary lymphoid organs (TLOs) develop at ectopic sites within chronically inflamed tissues, such as in autoimmunity and rejecting organ allografts. TLOs differ structurally from canonical secondary lymphoid organs (SLOs), in that they lack a mantle zone and are not encapsulated, suggesting that they may provide unique immune function. A notable feature of TLOs is the frequent presence of structures typical of germinal centers (GCs). However, little is known about the role of such GCs, and in particular, it is not clear if the B cell response within is autonomous, or whether it synergizes with concurrent responses in SLOs. This review will discuss ectopic lymphoneogenesis and the role of the B cell in TLO formation and subsequent effector output in the context of autoimmunity and transplantation, with particular focus on the contribution of ectopic GCs to affinity maturation in humoral immune responses and to the potential breakdown of self-tolerance and development of humoral autoimmunity

The role of lymphotoxin signaling in the development of autoimmune pancreatitis and associated secondary extra-pancreatic pathologies

The pathogenic mechanisms of autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP), an increasingly recognized, immune-mediated form of chronic pancreatitis, have so far remained elusive. Treatment options for AIP are currently limited and disease relapse is frequent. Still, AIP can be characterized by specific clinical and histologic features. It has turned out that as described in other autoimmune diseases the generation of tertiary lymphoid organs is also a hallmark of patients with AIP. We have recently demonstrated that pancreata derived from human AIP patients display overexpression of lymphotoxin (LT) α and β and LTβR-target genes expressed by immune cells but also by irradiation resistant cells of the pancreas (e.g. acinar cells). Expression of LT α and β on acinar cells in murine pancreata Tg(Ela1-Lta,b) mice led to chronic pancreatitis and sufficed to reproduce key features of human AIP including the development of autoimmunity and AIP associated secondary extra pancreatic pathologies. Here, we review how aberrant and ectopic expression of LT α and β can induce inflammation and autoimmune diseases in general and how this knowledge might specifically lead to an alternative treatment for patients suffering from autoimmune pancreatitis