The clinical and prognostic use of circulating tumour cells in breast cancer

Adjuvant therapies such as endocrine or cytotoxic chemotherapy have been demonstrated to improve overall survival in early breast cancer patients. A blood test to monitor patients at risk of relapse is needed to identify those patients who would benefit from these treatments and those for whom it is not necessary. This is in favour of detecting disseminated tumour cells (DTCs) from painful bone marrow aspirates, currently the gold‐standard method for detecting minimal residual disease (MRD). The use of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) enriched from the blood was investigated for this purpose along with their characterisation in the metastatic setting to enable individualised therapy. Sixty‐four primary breast cancer patients were followed up for up to 12 years post surgery for any MRD present. This analysis looked at measurements of DTCs in the bone marrow, CTCs in the blood and circulating‐free DNA (cfDNA) in the plasma over the follow up period. Patients who had involved lymph nodes at surgery, were significantly more likely to have CTCs present than low risk patients with no nodes positive, (70% compared to 39% respectively, p = 0.042). Our analysis also looked at the relationship of cfDNA to DTCs and CTCs. An inverse relationship of cell death in the blood (manifesting as blood cfDNA) to bone marrow DTCs by qRT‐PCR was apparent. This may be due to tumour dormancy mechanisms ‐ cycles of tumour cell proliferation and cell death occurring in the bone marrow, evidence not shown before in patient samples. Combined use of these markers could therefore be used as a monitoring system for impending metastatic disease and a rationale for further treatment. We also participated in a multi–centre study to assess the effects of lapatinib; a targeted therapy against two members of the human epidermal growth factor receptor family (EGFR and HER2). This was in advanced breast cancer patients and used CTCs as a surrogate marker. Our study selected patients on the basis of EGFR positivity in CTCs that were present in the blood. Four out of 12 patients (33%) demonstrated an initial decrease in the number of EGFR positive CTCs in response to Lapatinib, however this was limited and all patients were taken off study with progressive disease. We also explored a novel method in development to detect viable CTCs. This used an in situ hybridisation method to amplify signals from mRNA transcripts of tumour markers in CTCs. The use of CTCs is a very useful and promising tool for studying both the biology of breast cancer, and also as a non‐invasive analytical tool in the clinical setting to gain predictive and prognostic information

Public and Private Perceptions : Press Representations of Australian Women Athletes at the Sydney Olympic Games

In the year 2000, Australia assumed its role as Olympic host, with the summer Games held at Sydney in September. The Games of the Millennium, like any Olympics, was historically significant but, for sportswomen, the Sydney Olympics marked an important milestone as this was the year to celebrate the centenary of female athletes\u27 involvement in the Olympic Games. Within the context of mediated Olympic presentation, it was the Australian press\u27 duty to convey this moment, and other events involving female athletes, to the public in a manner in which it believed to be most suitable, and/or newsworthy. In the past, many authors have argued that the print journalists represent sportswomen inadequately in comparison with male athletes, and that female athletes have been trivialised in the eyes of the public as a result. Unlike many studies of the status of women\u27s sport in the media, this thesis will employ a four-part process of analysis which is used to assess the Sydney Olympic press coverage of female athletes only. This coverage will be studied from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. Australian female athletes’ and sports journalists\u27 points of view, as depicted thrm.1gh interviews, will also be discussed. This thesis will specifically examine press reports written for four Australian newspapers which served national, eastern and western readerships during the two week period of Sydney Olympic competition- The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, The West Australian and The Sunday Times. The primary focus will be on the factors and influences involved in the production of news material about Australia\u27s female Olympic competitors at Sydney. Drawing on past literature on women in sport and Australian studies of female athletes in the press, this thesis will aim to reveal how representations of sportswomen have evolved since these works were written, and to identify any particular improvements or remaining inadequacies in contemporary women\u27s sport journalism. In addition, new ways of seeing the position of women in sport and sportswomen in the press, based on the press\u27 portrayal of Australian female athletes at Sydney, will be offered

11:30am on a Sunday Morning: Making meanings with Mary

Marginalisation of the visual arts resulting from the marketisation of education impacts young people’s access to and interaction with culture on a global stage. In England this educational disruption is characterised by inconsistent access to arts-based curricula and democratic pedagogies, where those from lower socio-economic backgrounds are at risk of neglect. Influenced by this political malaise I conducted micro- ethnographic research examining how artist workshops shape cultural interactions of children aged 11 and 12. The research aimed to provide new opportunities for participants living and studying in an area of deprivation in a South of England city with uneven access to broad cultural experiences. Situated in a contemporary art gallery over a two week period the study interrogates how environmental factors affect children’s development from a sociocultural perspective. By analysing conversations and art production, children’s meaning-making formations are revealed. Findings indicate that values underpinning the research partnership and performed by the artist are paramount in shaping development. In turn participants perceive themselves as becoming artists where the reproduction of social practices generates new knowledge and identities. Environmental factors disrupt participants’ experiences of pedagogy exposing power and control at the heart of the English education system. However, with new found agency emerges a redistribution of power performed through dialogue between participants and the cultural environment

Not Your Cup of Tea? : An exploration of attitudes towards English as a lingua franca in Europe's cultural sector.

Over the past two decades, English has undeniably become the lingua franca of Europe, making it the language of choice for intercultural exchange between speakers of different native languages. However there is something of a dearth of research on attitudes towards this language phenomenon. This thesis investigates perspectives and opinions towards English, with a focus on the cultural sector of Europe. Using material from personal and Skype interviews with European cultural workers, I attempt to build a picture of how English as a lingua franca is viewed and expressed in narrative and discourse. I also explore the idea of suitability in relation to English as a lingua franca. A 2005 journal article in English Today by author Ross Smith concludes that “English is a poor lingua franca”. I argue against this claim using ideas from the interview material and Bourdieu’s concept of linguistic capital to assert that English is an effective lingua franca for Europe

Free of Memory: The Importance of the Underworld to the Completion of the Archetypal Hero\u27s Quest

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College

All-Atom Simulations Uncover Structural and Dynamical Properties of STING Proteins in the Membrane System

Recent studies have shown that the stimulator of interferon gene (STING) protein plays a central role in the immune system by facilitating the production of Type I interferons in cells. The STING signaling pathway is also a prominent activator of cancer-killing T cells that initiates a powerful adaptive immune response. Since biomolecular signaling pathways are complicated and not easily identified through traditional experiments, molecular dynamics (MD) has often been used to study these biological pathways’ structural and dynamical responses. Here, we carried out MD simulations for full-length chicken and human STING (chSTING and hSTING) proteins. Specifically, we investigated ligand-bound closed and ligand-unbound open forms of each STING in the membrane system by comparing conformational and dynamical differences among them. Our research provides clues for understanding the mechanism of the STING signaling pathway by uncovering some detailed insights for the examined systems: the residues from each chain in the binding pocket are strongly correlated to one another in the open STING structure compared with those in the closed STING structure. Ligand-bound closed STING displays approximately 170° rotation of the ligand-binding domain (LBD) relative to the open-STING structure. The detailed dynamical analysis of residue Cys148 in the linker region of hSTING does not support the earlier hypothesis that Cys148 can form disulfide bonds between adjacent STING dimers. We also reveal that using the full-length proteins is critical as the MD simulations of the LBD portion only cannot properly describe the global conformational properties of multiple domain proteins, such as STING

Parent Accommodations to the Environment to Increase Participation in Children with Autism: A Secondary Data Analysis

Research Question: How do parents of children with autism accommodate the environment to address sensory responses in order to increase participation in family routines

Drawing social worlds: A methodological examination of children’s artworks

This paper presents one aspect of a sociocultural micro-ethnographic study examining how 11- and 12-year-old children formulate meanings when working with an artist in a contemporary art gallery. My primary focus is an examination of methodological contributions emerging from an imaginative coding and analysis of children’s art. Ninety-nine artworks were created in collaboration with the artist and were organised and interpreted using a constructionist interviewing coding scheme. This unorthodox approach to visual analysis unearthed information that oral accounts cannot provide alone, revealing meanings which would otherwise remain dormant. By intuitively applying the coding framework I expose how participants’ meanings are negotiated by appropriating and re-organising cultural concepts into personalised narratives. As such, artworks reveal participants’ desires, interpretations and intentions, operating as agentic cultural producers as well as unconsciously reproducing visual epistemologies ubiquitous in Western cultures

Floragenesis: Community Garden Initiative

Floragenesis addressed food issues on campus, such as freshness and localness, with the proposal of a campus community garden that utilizes food waste otherwise neglected. Over time, the composting aspect of the program would phase out the practice of exporting food waste from the main dining halls. Composting feasibility studies specific to the WPI have been conducted in the past. For this reason, Floragenesis has primarily focused on construction, productivity, and community garden management. Poster Presentation, Judge\u27s Winner (2014)https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/gps-posters/1233/thumbnail.jp