Actividades interdisciplinares universidad-institutos de enseñanza secundaria

Durante los cursos académicos 2009/2011 profesores universitarios y de enseñanza secundaria, hemos desarrollado una serie de proyectos destinados a mejorar el nivel académico de los alumnos que ingresan en la universidad, concretamente en los estudios de ingeniería. En el presente artículo se describe una experiencia interdisciplinar basa en el aprendizaje basado en problemas, que se enmarca dentro de un proyecto más amplio que comenzó a desarrollarse en el curso 2009-2010 y continuará en el curso 2012-13

Understanding why women don’t choose engineering degrees

Despite the continuous efforts of governments and universities to avoid the underrepresentation of women entering engineering degrees, the trend has not reverted, and this is a general fact all over the world. This fact goes against the tendency of a growing ratio of women in tertiary education, so causes must be investigated. This research examines two main questions: Is it possible to break the invisible barriers that prevent girls from entering in engineering degrees by means of an engineering project or activity? And are there important misconceptions about the role of women in engineering professions and about engineering itself among high school girls? An extensive survey has been carried out between three groups of students: students of the last years of high school (834), students of the first year of engineering degrees (319), and students of the first year of sciences degrees (209). A set of visits to the high schools was developed and a contest of engineering projects was carried out too. The results show that there are important misconceptions in the knowledge that high school students have about engineering degrees and engineering. The visits and the project contest had a good impact that encouraged girls to take engineering activities in their curricula. The main finding is that even though girls see engineering professions as very well valued, they are convinced that engineering is not a profession for women, which suggests that there are educational barriers acquired during earlier stages of their lives

Bioinformática como recurso educativo: Proyecto de ingeniería

Si bien el uso de internet ha permitido el acceso universal a una cantidad ingente de datos, es responsabilidad de los docentes el dotar al alumnado de las herramientas necesarias para que estos datos, sean transformados en información y conocimiento. En este sentido, las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) pueden emplearse como herramientas para alcanzar tales fines a través de la realización de microproyectos de bajo coste. Para ello, el docente ha de detectar los problemas en la adquisición de conocimientos y las necesidades educativas de su alumnado y, a la vez, tener los conocimientos necesarios para saber contextualizar diferentes posibles soluciones de acuerdo, también, al contexto educativo en el que se esté. Entre éstas se suele encontrar la dificultad para la interiorización de contenidos conceptuales relacionados con la estructura, relevancia, localización y características de las proteínas. Con este proyecto, programas bioinformáticos básicos, usados de rutina en muchos laboratorios del mundo, se transformarán en recursos educativos para la adquisición de nociones sobre el uso y manejo a la vez que se afianzarán y contextualizarán conceptos relacionados

Epsilon

Resumen basado en el de la publicaciónDurante los cursos académicos 2009/2011 profesores universitarios y de enseñanza secundaria, han desarrollado una serie de proyectos destinados a mejorar el nivel académico de los alumnos que ingresan en la Universidad, concretamente en los estudios de ingeniería. Se describe una experiencia interdisciplinar basa en el Aprendizaje Basado en Problemas, que se enmarca dentro de un proyecto más amplio que comienza a desarrollarse en el curso 2009-2010 y continúa en el curso 2012-13.ES

3'UTR Polymorphism in ACSL1 Gene Correlates with Expression Levels and Poor Clinical Outcome in Colon Cancer Patients.

Strong evidence suggests that lipid metabolism (LM) has an essential role in tumor growth to support special energetic and structural requirements of tumor cells. Recently, overexpression of LM-related genes, apolipoproteins related to metabolic syndrome, and ACSL/SCD network involved in fatty acid activation have been proposed as prognostic markers of colon cancer (CC). Furthermore, activation of this latter lipid network has been recently demonstrated to confer invasive and stem cell properties to tumor cells promoting tumor aggressiveness and patient relapse. With the aim of elucidating whether any genetic variation within these genes could influence basal expression levels and consequent susceptibility to relapse, we genotype, in 284 CC patients, 57 polymorphisms located in the 7 genes of these lipid networks previously associated with worse clinical outcome of CC patients (ABCA1, ACSL1, AGPAT1, APOA2, APOC1, APOC2 and SCD), some of them related to CC aggressiveness. After adjusting with clinical confounding factors and multiple comparisons, an association between genotype and disease-free survival (DFS) was shown for rs8086 in 3'-UTR of ACSL1 gene (HR 3.08; 95% CI 1.69-5.63; adjusted p = 0.046). Furthermore, the risk T/T genotype had significantly higher ACSL1 gene expression levels than patients carrying C/T or C/C genotype (means = 5.34; 3.73; 2.37 respectively; p-value (ANOVA) = 0.019), suggesting a functional role of this variant. Thus, we have identified a "risk genotype" of ACSL1 gene that confers constitutive high levels of the enzyme, which is involved in the activation of fatty acids through conversion to acyl-CoA and has been recently related to increased invasiveness of tumor cells. These results suggest that rs8086 of ACSL1 could be a promising prognostic marker in CC patients, reinforcing the relevance of LM in the progression of CC

Clinical characteristics of stage II and III CC patients (n = 284).

<p>Clinical characteristics of stage II and III CC patients (n = 284).</p

Box plots of the association between gene expression level for <i>ACSL1</i> and genotype for rs8086 SNP located on the 3’-UTR region.

<p>The box plots show how the <i>ACSL1</i> expression values are distributed for each genotype from the Additive, Dominant and Recessive model of inheritance for <i>ACSL1</i> rs8086 SNP in stage II and III CC patients. The p-values were calculated using the non-parametric Krustal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests, respectively. The line within the box indicate the median of level expression. The gene expression data were normalized using the geometric mean of the internal control genes <i>GAPDH</i> and <i>B2M</i>.</p

Kaplan-Meier curve of <i>ACSL1</i> SNP rs8086 and <i>SCD</i> SNP rs522951 on DFS for stage II and III CC patients in a recessive and dominant model of inheritance, respectively.

<p>P-value was calculated by Log-rank test.</p

Association between <i>ACSL1</i> and <i>SCD</i> gene expression level and the different genotypes from the diverse models of inheritance for <i>ACSL1</i> rs8086 and <i>SCD</i> rs522951 SNPs in stage II and III CC patients.

<p>Association between <i>ACSL1</i> and <i>SCD</i> gene expression level and the different genotypes from the diverse models of inheritance for <i>ACSL1</i> rs8086 and <i>SCD</i> rs522951 SNPs in stage II and III CC patients.</p