Transforming Children's Attitudes Toward Insects Through In-School Encounters.

Each year, the Department of Entomology at Virginia Tech hosts an entomology-themed outreach event known as Hokie BugFest. This on-campus, festival-sized experience aims to educate the public about insects and other arthropods through hands-on activities, games, displays, and live arthropods. In 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hokie BugFest and similar large public events were cancelled.

Germline Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism Causes Alterations in Mitochondrial Metabolism and Leads to Increased ROS-Mediated DNA Damage in a Murine Model of Human Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

: GFI1-36N represents a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the zinc finger protein Growth Factor Independence 1 (GFI1), in which the amino acid serine (S) is replaced by asparagine (N). The presence of the gene variant is associated with a reduced DNA repair capacity favoring myeloid leukemogenesis and leads to an inferior prognosis of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. However, the underlying reasons for the reduced DNA repair capacity in leukemic cells are largely unknown.

Directed Evolution of AAV9 for Efficient Gene Expression in Cardiomyocytes and .

Adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors are increasingly used for preclinical and clinical cardiac gene therapy approaches. However, gene transfer to cardiomyocytes poses a challenge due to differences between AAV serotypes in terms of expression efficiency and . For example, AAV9 vectors work well in rodent heart muscle cells but not in cultivated neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes (NRVCMs), necessitating the use of AAV6 vectors for studies.

Pleural Drainage, Clinical Characteristics, and Management Strategies in the Perioperative Fontan Patient: A Multicenter Report.

Prolonged pleural drainage and chylothorax are common in postoperative Fontan patients and are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Multiple medical and interventional treatment strategies exist and vary between centers. This is a retrospective multicenter observational cohort study of pediatric patients who underwent Fontan operation at 8 pediatric cardiac surgical institutions from 1/1/2019 to 12/31/2021.

Maternal adverse childhood experiences and lifetime experiences of racial discrimination: Associations with current household hardships and intergenerational health.

Growing evidence shows parents' exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and lifetime experiences of racial discrimination (EOD) negatively impacts not only their own health, but also their children's health. ACEs and EOD can be conceptualized as a reflection of shared underlying adversities and structural injustices that manifest in inequitable educational and employment opportunities and differential treatment by public policies and programs that impede parents' capacity to support their families. Therefore, a potentially important, but underexplored, mechanism of effects of parent ACEs and EOD on the next generation is through effects on household material hardships.