Undergraduate courses in immunology are content-heavy and combined with a new, complex vocabulary, can be an overwhelming subject for students. In-class active learning approaches have been found to improve understanding of difficult concepts in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines; however, many undergraduate courses maintain a high dependence on lecture-style teaching because of time constraints, content demands and student resistance. We designed an online, out-of-class activity, the "Life and Death of a T cell", to complement a lecture on a complex immunological concept, T-cell development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA hemocytometer is a key piece of laboratory equipment typically used in diagnostic and immunology research laboratories to enumerate white blood cells. The accurate quantification of cell density is essential to ensure accurate numbers of cells are added to assays to generate valid data. Hence, learning to correctly use a hemocytometer is a critical skill for all undergraduate immunology students.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDetermining the antibiotic sensitivity of disease-causing microorganisms is a fundamental process in a clinical microbiology laboratory. With the continued use of antibiotics, the emergence of antibiotic resistance has become a significant health issue. However, the principles and laboratory testing to determine antibiotic sensitivity are generally not taught to first-year undergraduate students.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA critical goal for science education is to design and implement learning activities that develop a deep conceptual understanding, are engaging for students, and are scalable for large classes or those with few resources. Approaches based on peer learning and online technologies show promise for scalability but often lack a grounding in cognitive learning principles relating to conceptual understanding. Here, we present a novel design for combining these elements in a principled way.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To validate an electronic nutrition literacy assessment tool (e-NutLit).
Design: Cross-sectional.
Setting: An Australian teaching hospital obesity clinic (clinical cohort) and university (dietetic cohort).
Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab
November 2019
Food-based diet indices provide a practical, rapid, and inexpensive way of evaluating dietary intake. Rather than nutrients, diet indices assess the intake of whole foods and dietary patterns, and compare these with nutrition guidelines. An athlete-specific diet index would offer an efficient and practical way to assess the quality of athletes' diets, guide nutrition interventions, and focus sport nutrition support.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA key learning outcome for undergraduate biochemistry classes is a thorough understanding of the principles of protein structure. Traditional approaches to teaching this material, which include two-dimensional (2D) images on paper, physical molecular modeling kits, and projections of 3D structures into 2D, are unable to fully capture the dynamic 3D nature of proteins. We have built a virtual reality application, Peppy, aimed at facilitating teaching of the principles of protein secondary structure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe have an interest in the cellular response to mechanical stimuli, and here describe an in-vitro method to examine the response of cells cultured in a three-dimensional matrix to mechanical compressive and tensile stress. Synthetic aliphatic polyester scaffolds coated with 45S5 bioactive glass were seeded with human dental follicular cells (HDFC), and attached to well inserts and magnetic endplates in six well palates. Scaffolds were subjected to either cyclic 10% tensile deformation, or 8% compression, at 1 Hz and 2 Hz respectively for 6, 24 or 48 h, by uniaxial motion of magnetically-coupled endplates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFType I interferons (IFN-I) are crucial for effective antimicrobial defense in the central nervous system (CNS) but also can cause severe neurological disease (termed cerebral interferonopathy) as exemplified by Aicardi-Goutières Syndrome. In the CNS, microglia and astrocytes have essential roles in host responses to infection and injury, with both cell types responding to IFN-I. While the IFN-I signaling pathways are the same in astrocytes and microglia, the extent to which the IFN-I responses of these cells differ, if at all, is unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Some country guidelines recommend that people with type 2 diabetes (T2D) limit their consumption of eggs and cholesterol. Our previously published 3-mo weight-maintenance study showed that a high-egg (≥12 eggs/wk) diet compared with a low-egg diet (<2 eggs/wk) did not have adverse effects on cardiometabolic risk factors in adults with T2D.
Objective: The current study follows the previously published 3-mo weight-maintenance study and assessed the effects of the high-egg compared with the low-egg diets as part of a 3-mo weight-loss period, followed by a 6-mo follow-up period for a total duration of 12 mo.
Biochem Mol Biol Educ
July 2018
Disciplines such as Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, which involve concepts not included in the high-school curriculum, are very challenging for many first year university students. These subjects are particularly difficult for students accustomed to surface learning strategies involving memorization and recall of facts, as a deeper understanding of the relationship between concepts is needed for successful transfer to related areas and subsequent study. In this article, we explore an activity in a very large first year Molecular Biology course, in which students create multiple-choice questions related to targeted learning outcomes, and then answer and evaluate one another's questions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNutrition literacy is linked to health via its influence on dietary intake. There is a need for a tool to assess nutrition literacy in research and dietetic practice. We sought guidance from nutrition professionals on topic areas and features of an electronic nutrition literacy assessment tool for Australian adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Despite successful repair in early life, patients with coarctation of the aorta (CoA) are predisposed to several cardiovascular complications in later life related to systemic hypertension or left ventricular (LV) dysfunction, or both, the pathogenesis of which is unclear.
Methods: Three-week-old Sprague-Dawley rats underwent transverse aortic constriction (TAC) or a sham operation, with release of the constriction 3 weeks later. Twenty-five weeks after the repair operation, animals underwent hemodynamic assessment, LV gene profiling, and histologic analysis.
Memory T cells exhibit transcriptional memory and "remember" their previous pathogenic encounter to increase transcription on re-infection. However, how this transcriptional priming response is regulated is unknown. Here we performed global FAIRE-seq profiling of chromatin accessibility in a human T cell transcriptional memory model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFType I interferons (IFN-I) are critical in antimicrobial and antitumor defense. Although IFN-I signal via the interferon-stimulated gene factor 3 (ISGF3) complex consisting of STAT1, STAT2, and IRF9, IFN-I can mediate significant biological effects via ISGF3-independent pathways. For example, the absence of STAT1, STAT2, or IRF9 exacerbates neurological disease in transgenic mice with CNS production of IFN-I.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Shifts in the gastrointestinal microbiome have been shown to contribute to the progression of metabolic diseases including prediabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Research suggests that in-vivo modulation of the gut microbiome by specific probiotic microorganisms may improve insulin sensitivity and blood sugar management, preventing or delaying the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus. However, further research is needed to understand the effect of probiotics as a therapy for the treatment of metabolic diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Smallpox was eradicated by a global program of inoculation with Vaccinia virus (VV). Robust VV-specific CD4 T-cell responses during primary infection are likely essential to controlling VV replication. Although there is increasing interest in cytolytic CD4 T-cells across many viral infections, the importance of these cells during acute VV infection is unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Identifying individuals who are less likely to respond to a weight loss intervention allows better allocation or focus of resources to achieve better weight loss results. The current study investigated whether baseline levels of mindfulness would predict weight loss during a 12-month diet and exercise intervention.
Methods: The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) was administered and body weight measured, at baseline, three, six and 12 months in 140 participants with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes mellitus and a body mass index of ≥25kg/m.
Objective: Dietary interventions can improve pregnancy outcomes in women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). We compared the effect of a low-glycemic index (GI) versus a conventional high-fiber (HF) diet on pregnancy outcomes, birth weight z score, and maternal metabolic profile in women at high risk of GDM.
Research Design And Methods: One hundred thirty-nine women [mean (SD) age 34.
Allodynia, hyperalgesia and spontaneous pain are cardinal sensory signs of neuropathic pain. Clinically, many neuropathic pain patients experience affective-motivational state changes, including reduced familial and social interactions, decreased motivation, anhedonia and depression which are severely debilitating. In earlier studies we have shown that sciatic nerve chronic constriction injury (CCI) disrupts social interactions, sleep-wake-cycle and endocrine function in one third of rats, a subgroup reliably identified six days after injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Previously published research that examined the effects of high egg consumption in people with type 2 diabetes (T2D) produced conflicting results leading to recommendations to limit egg intake. However, people with T2D may benefit from egg consumption because eggs are a nutritious and convenient way of improving protein and micronutrient contents of the diet, which have importance for satiety and weight management.
Objective: In this randomized controlled study, we aimed to determine whether a high-egg diet (2 eggs/d for 6 d/wk) compared with a low-egg diet (<2 eggs/wk) affected circulating lipid profiles, in particular high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, in overweight or obese people with prediabetes or T2D.
β‑2‑glycoprotein I (β2GPI), also known as apolipoprotein H, is a phospholipid‑binding plasma protein consisting of five homologous repeated units. β2GPI downregulates vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) signaling pathways and inhibits angiogenesis in vitro. However, the in vivo roles and effectors of reduced β2GPI and β2GPI in retinal angiogenesis are still not fully understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite many apparent advantages, including security, back-up, remote access, workflow, and data management, the use of electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) in the modern research laboratory is still developing. This presents a challenge to instructors who want to give undergraduate students an introduction to the kinds of data curation and notebook keeping skills that will inevitably be required as ELNs penetrate normal laboratory practice. An additional problem for the teacher is that ELNs do not generally have student-administrative functions and are prohibitively expensive.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To examine the association between intake of dairy products and indicators of diet quality among a sample of Australian children.
Methods: Three 24-hour recalls were collected from 222 children aged 8-10 years living in western Sydney. Analysis of covariance was used to examine differences in mean intakes of foods and nutrients among 3 dairy consumption groups (<1 serve, 1-2 serves, ≥2 serves per day).
The fine control of T-cell differentiation and its impact on HIV disease states is poorly understood. In this study, we demonstrate that B-lymphocyte-induced maturation protein-1 (Blimp-1/Prdm1) is highly expressed in CD4(+) T cells from chronically HIV-infected (CHI) patients compared to cells from long-term nonprogressors or healthy controls. Stimulation through the T-cell receptor in the presence of IL-2 induces Blimp-1 protein expression.
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