Supporting Equity and Inclusion of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Individuals in Professional Organizations.

Disability is an important and often overlooked component of diversity. Individuals with disabilities bring a rare perspective to science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) because of their unique experiences approaching complex issues related to health and disability, navigating the healthcare system, creatively solving problems unfamiliar to many individuals without disabilities, managing time and resources that are limited by physical or mental constraints, and advocating for themselves and others in the disabled community. Yet, individuals with disabilities are underrepresented in STEMM.

Evaluation of vascular endothelial growth factor addition in vitro on mouse inner ear progenitor cell cultures.

We analyzed progenitor cell cultures of inner ear tissue from newborn mice, and found proliferating cells, morphologically differentiating cells and subpopulations of cells expressing either neuronal or glial markers. In addition, we observed the expression of fetal liver kinase-1, a receptor for the vascular endothelial growth factor in a subpopulation of the cultured cells. Consistent with the expression of fetal liver kinase-1, addition of vascular endothelial growth factor at a dose of 10 ng/ml increased the expansion rate of inner ear-derived progenitor cells.

Overexpression of the NF2 gene inhibits schwannoma cell proliferation through promoting PDGFR degradation.

The loss of NF2 gene function leads to vestibular nerve schwannoma formation in humans. The NF2 gene product, Merlin/Schwannomin, has recently been found to interact with the two PDZ domains containing protein EBP50/NHE-RF, which is itself known to interact with the PDGF receptor (PDGFR) in several cell types. In this study, an up-regulation of both PDGFR and EBP50/NHE-RF, and an interaction of both proteins were found in primary human schwannoma tissue.