Countering the Norm, (Re)authoring Our Lives: The Promise Counterstorytelling Holds as a Research Methodology With LGBTQ Youth and Beyond

Counterstorytelling, a methodology that is rooted in critical race theory, is undergirded by principles that are beneficial to understanding the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identified (LGBTQ) young people from an intersectional perspective. Counterstorytelling holds promise as a method that creates opportunities for individual transformation and resistance to dominant narratives among young people facing systemic oppression. This article outlines the design and implementation of a counterstorytelling study with LGBTQ youth and reflects on the value and associated challenges of counterstorytelling as a participatory research method

Managing Marine Corridors

Human activities have many harmful effects on marine ecosystems. The Fajardo area alone is home to seven marinas, over 40,000 boats, and many construction projects that damage marine environments around them. The goal of this project was to provide recommendations to minimize negative impacts on near shore marine corridors, defined as the interrelated, mangrove, seagrass, and coral reef habitats. To achieve this goal, we determined the major factors in marine corridor deterioration through interviews with fishermen, SCUBA divers, and members of the academic and scientific communities and analysis of fish catch data and remote sensing images. Using these data, we developed recommendations to alleviate impacts from land-based development, overfishing, and recreational overuse

Biogeochemical significance of pelagic ecosystem function:An end-cretaceous case study

This work was aided by a Nuffield Summer Studentship granted to MJH, a U.S. Science Support Program (USSSP) Post-Expedition Activity award for IODP Exp. 342 to PMH, a Flint Postdoctoral Fellowship to DEP, a NERC PhD Studentship granted to JWBR, and a URF and Wolfson merit award to DNS.Pelagic ecosystem function is integral to global biogeochemical cycling, and plays a major role in modulating atmospheric CO2 concentrations (pCO2). Uncertainty as to the effects of human activities on marine ecosystem function hinders projection of future atmospheric pCO2. To this end, events in the geological past can provide informative case studies in the response of ecosystem function to environmental and ecological changes. Around the Cretaceous–Palaeogene (K–Pg) boundary, two such events occurred: Deccan large igneous province (LIP) eruptions and massive bolide impact at the Yucatan Peninsula. Both perturbed the environment, but only the impact coincided with marine mass extinction. As such, we use these events to directly contrast the response of marine biogeochemical cycling to environmental perturbation with and without changes in global species richness. We measure this biogeochemical response using records of deep-sea carbonate preservation. We find that Late Cretaceous Deccan volcanism prompted transient deep-sea carbonate dissolution of a larger magnitude and timescale than predicted by geochemical models. Even so, the effect of volcanism on carbonate preservation was slight compared with bolide impact. Empirical records and geochemical models support a pronounced increase in carbonate saturation state for more than 500 000 years following the mass extinction of pelagic carbonate producers at the K–Pg boundary. These examples highlight the importance of pelagic ecosystems in moderating climate and ocean chemistry.PostprintPeer reviewe

Severe combined hyperlipidaemia and retinal lipid infiltration in a patient with Type 2 diabetes mellitus

Severe combined hyperlipidaemia has occasionally been associated with infiltration of tissues in addition to arteries and the skin. We report a woman with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and severe combined hyperlipidaemia who developed retinal lipid infiltration, resulting in blindness. A 61-year-old woman with a 15-year history of Type 2 DM was admitted following a two-week history of progressive visual loss. Examination identified lipid infiltration into the retina. Phenotypically she had severe combined hyperlipidaemia with elevated IDL cholesterol and a broad beta band on lipoprotein electrophoresis, raising the possibility of familial dysbetalipoproteinaemia. However, gene sequencing analysis indicated that the patient was homozygous for the E3/E3 allele of the ApoE gene with no mutations detected in either the coding region or intron-exon boundaries. Her lipid profile improved following dietary therapy and gemfibrozil treatment, but this had little effect on either her fundal appearances or her visual acuity. Type 2 DM plays a vital role both in allowing expression of severe combined hyperlipoproteinaemia, in addition to serving as a risk factor for complications such as tissue infiltration

Genes regulated by estrogen in breast tumor cells in vitro are similarly regulated in vivo in tumor xenografts and human breast tumors

BACKGROUND: Estrogen plays a central role in breast cancer pathogenesis. Although many studies have characterized the estrogen regulation of genes using in vitro cell culture models by global mRNA expression profiling, it is not clear whether these genes are similarly regulated in vivo or how they might be coordinately expressed in primary human tumors. RESULTS: We generated DNA microarray-based gene expression profiles from three estrogen receptor α (ERα)-positive breast cancer cell lines stimulated by 17β-estradiol (E2) in vitro over a time course, as well as from MCF-7 cells grown as xenografts in ovariectomized athymic nude mice with E2 supplementation and after its withdrawal. When the patterns of genes regulated by E2 in vitro were compared to those obtained from xenografts, we found a remarkable overlap (over 40%) of genes regulated by E2 in both contexts. These patterns were compared to those obtained from published clinical data sets. We show that, as a group, E2-regulated genes from our preclinical models were co-expressed with ERα in a panel of ERα+ breast tumor mRNA profiles, when corrections were made for patient age, as well as with progesterone receptor. Furthermore, the E2-regulated genes were significantly enriched for transcriptional targets of the myc oncogene and were found to be coordinately expressed with Myc in human tumors. CONCLUSION: Our results provide significant validation of a widely used in vitro model of estrogen signaling as being pathologically relevant to breast cancers in vivo

Whole Genome Amplification of DNA for Genotyping Pharmacogenetics Candidate Genes

Whole genome amplification (WGA) technologies can be used to amplify genomic DNA when only small amounts of DNA are available. The Multiple Displacement Amplification Phi polymerase based amplification has been shown to accurately amplify DNA for a variety of genotyping assays; however, it has not been tested for genotyping many of the clinically relevant genes important for pharmacogenetic studies, such as the cytochrome P450 genes, that are typically difficult to genotype due to multiple pseudogenes, copy number variations, and high similarity to other related genes. We evaluated whole genome amplified samples for Taqman™ genotyping of SNPs in a variety of pharmacogenetic genes. In 24 DNA samples from the Coriell human diversity panel, the call rates, and concordance between amplified (∼200-fold amplification) and unamplified samples was 100% for two SNPs in CYP2D6 and one in ESR1. In samples from a breast cancer clinical trial (Trial 1), we compared the genotyping results in samples before and after WGA for three SNPs in CYP2D6, one SNP in CYP2C19, one SNP in CYP19A1, two SNPs in ESR1, and two SNPs in ESR2. The concordance rates were all >97%. Finally, we compared the allele frequencies of 143 SNPs determined in Trial 1 (whole genome amplified DNA) to the allele frequencies determined in unamplified DNA samples from a separate trial (Trial 2) that enrolled a similar population. The call rates and allele frequencies between the two trials were 98 and 99.7%, respectively. We conclude that the whole genome amplified DNA is suitable for Taqman™ genotyping for a wide variety of pharmacogenetically relevant SNPs

Deep ocean storage of heat and CO2 in the Fram Strait, Arctic Ocean during the last glacial period

MME is funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Co-funding of Regional, National, and International Programmes (COFUND) Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions under the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), project number 274429, and the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme, grant number 223259.The Fram Strait is the only deep gateway between the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas and thus is a key area to study past changes in ocean circulation and the marine carbon cycle. Here, we study deep ocean temperature, δ18O, carbonate chemistry (i.e., carbonate ion concentration, [CO32-]), and nutrient content in the Fram Strait during the late glacial (35,000-19,000 years BP) and the Holocene based on benthic foraminiferal geochemistry and carbon cycle modelling. Our results indicate a thickening of Atlantic water penetrating into the northern Nordic Seas, forming a subsurface Atlantic intermediate water layer reaching to at least ~2600 m water depth during most of the late glacial period. The recirculating Atlantic layer was characterized by relatively high [CO32-] and low δ13C during the late glacial, and provides evidence for a Nordic Seas source to the glacial North Atlantic intermediate water flowing at 2000-3000 m water depth, most likely via the Denmark Strait. In addition, we discuss evidence for enhanced terrestrial carbon input to the Nordic Seas at ~23.5 ka. Comparing our δ13C and qualitative [CO32-] records with results of carbon cycle box modelling suggests that the total terrestrial CO2 release during this carbon input event was low, slow, or directly to the atmosphere.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe