Agricultural and Food Policy Preferences: the 1994 Perspectives of South Dakota Agricultural Producers

U.S. farm policies are reviewed, every five years concurrent with the drafting of new farm legislation. The present farm bill expires in 1995, and a new bill will be debated and enacted in 1995. Since farm and food policies have a major impact on farmers, information on their preferences with regard to these policies are invaluable to legislators as well as to different advocacy groups (working for farmers). The research was completed as a part of a 15 state study to document the agricultural and food policy preferences by agricultural producers. This report deals with the policy preferences of South Dakota Producers. A sample of 1,500 farmers and ranchers was randomly drawn from the list of all agricultural producers in South Dakota. A questionnaire, mainly consisting of policy issues common to all participating states, and nine issues of local importance, was mailed to these 1,500 producers. In total, 463 useable completed surveys were returned

Genome-Scale CRISPR Screens Identify Human Pluripotency-Specific Genes

Summary: Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) generate a variety of disease-relevant cells that can be used to improve the translation of preclinical research. Despite the potential of hPSCs, their use for genetic screening has been limited by technical challenges. We developed a scalable and renewable Cas9 and sgRNA-hPSC library in which loss-of-function mutations can be induced at will. Our inducible mutant hPSC library can be used for multiple genome-wide CRISPR screens in a variety of hPSC-induced cell types. As proof of concept, we performed three screens for regulators of properties fundamental to hPSCs: their ability to self-renew and/or survive (fitness), their inability to survive as single-cell clones, and their capacity to differentiate. We identified the majority of known genes and pathways involved in these processes, as well as a plethora of genes with unidentified roles. This resource will increase the understanding of human development and genetics. This approach will be a powerful tool to identify disease-modifying genes and pathways. : Ihry et al. develop a CRISPR/Cas9 genetic screening platform for hPSCs that enables unbiased genome-scale genetic screening. The platform exhibits high performance and accurately detects the dropout of essential genes. Furthermore, proof-of-concept screens exploit hPSC-specific phenotypes to identify regulators of fitness, survival after single-cell dissociation, and pluripotency. Keywords: CRISPR genome-wide screening, human pluripotent stem cells, iPSC, hESC, PAWR, PMAIP1, DD