Teaching and learning under COVID-19 public health edicts: the role of household lockdowns and prior technology usage.

Public health edicts necessitated by COVID-19 prompted a rapid pivot to remote online teaching and learning. Two major consequences followed: households became students' main learning space, and technology became the sole medium of instructional delivery. We use the ideas of "digital disconnect" and "digital divide" to examine, for students and faculty, their prior experience with, and proficiency in using, learning technology.

A comprehensive integrated drug similarity resource for in-silico drug repositioning and beyond.

Drug similarity studies are driven by the hypothesis that similar drugs should display similar therapeutic actions and thus can potentially treat a similar constellation of diseases. Drug-drug similarity has been derived by variety of direct and indirect sources of evidence and frequently shown high predictive power in discovering validated repositioning candidates as well as other in-silico drug development applications. Yet, existing resources either have limited coverage or rely on an individual source of evidence, overlooking the wealth and diversity of drug-related data sources.

High risk human papilloma viruses (HPVs) are present in benign prostate tissues before development of HPV associated prostate cancer.

Background: Although high risk HPVs are associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer it is not known if they have a causal role. The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential role of human papilloma viruses (HPVs) in prostate cancer. The aims are (i) to investigate the presence and confirm the identity of high risk HPVs in benign prostate tissues prior to the development of HPV positive prostate cancer in the same patients, and (ii) to determine if HPVs are biologically active.

Site-1 protease, a novel metabolic target for glioblastoma.

Sterol regulatory element binding proteins (SREBPs) are transcriptional regulators of lipids which promote glioblastoma growth. Here, we investigate the effect of inhibiting expression of SREBP target genes in human glioblastoma cells. This was achieved by using PF-429242 to inhibit site-1 protease (S1P), an enzyme required for SREBP activation.

Human Papilloma Viruses and Breast Cancer.

Purpose: Human papillomaviruses (HPV) may have a role in some breast cancers. The purpose of this study is to fill important gaps in the evidence. These gaps are: (i) confirmation of the presence of high risk for cancer HPVs in breast cancers, (ii) evidence of HPV infections in benign breast tissues prior to the development of HPV-positive breast cancer in the same patients, (iii) evidence that HPVs are biologically active and not harmless passengers in breast cancer.

The influence of p53 status on the cytotoxicity of fluorinated pyrimidine L-nucleosides.

Fluorinated nucleoside analogues are a major class of cancer chemotherapy agents, and include the drugs 5-fluorouracil (5FU) and 5-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridine (FdUrd). The aim of this study was to examine the cellular toxicity of two novel fluorinated pyrimidine L-nucleosides that are enantiomers of D-nucleosides and may be able to increase selectivity for cancer cells as a result of their unnatural L-configuration. Two fluorinated pyrimidine L-nucleosides were examined in this study, L110 ([β-L, β-D]-5-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridine) and L117 (β-L-deoxyuridine:β-D-5'-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridine).

Mouse mammary tumor virus-like sequences in human breast cancer.

Mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) sequences have been reported to be present in some human breast cancers, but it is unclear whether they have any causal role. In mice, MMTV promotes tumor formation indirectly by insertional mutagenesis of Wnt oncogenes that lead to their activation. In this study, we investigated the status of Wnt-1 in human breast cancers harboring MMTV-like sequences encoding viral envelope (env) genes.

Cytotoxic effects of antipsychotic drugs implicate cholesterol homeostasis as a novel chemotherapeutic target.

The reported reduction in cancer risk in those suffering from schizophrenia may be because antipsychotic medications have antineoplastic effects. In this study, 6 antipsychotic agents with a range of structural and pharmacological properties (reserpine, chlorpromazine, haloperidol, pimozide, risperidone and olanzapine), were screened for their effect on the viability of cell lines derived from lymphoblastoma, neuroblastoma, non-small cell lung cancer and breast adenocarcinoma. We aimed to determine if antipsychotic drugs in general possess cancer-specific cytotoxic potential, and whether it can be attributed to a common mode of action.

Long-term mutagenic effects of ionising radiation on mice which vary in their p53 status.

The tumor suppressor gene p53 plays a major role in the maintenance of genomic integrity. The impact that variations in cellular turnover rates and sensitivity to DNA damage will have on the effectiveness of p53 in this role was examined by following the induction and persistence of mutations in the brain and small intestine of mice after exposure to ionising radiation (IR). The examination of mutagenesis was carried out using the pUR288 LacZ plasmid-based mouse model-consisting of mice containing a target gene for mutation analysis integrated into every cell.

Apoptosis and schizophrenia: a pilot study based on dermal fibroblast cell lines.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is an increased susceptibility to apoptosis in cultured fibroblasts from patients with schizophrenia.

Method: Dermal fibroblasts were collected and cultured from three groups: patients with schizophrenia, patients with non-schizophrenic psychosis, and healthy comparison subjects. Susceptibility to apoptosis was measured at the level of degradation product (proportion of cells in the sub-G0 cell cycle fraction in which apoptotic bodies accumulate), pro-apoptotic effector (activated caspase-3), and molecular regulators (P53, Bax and Bcl-2).

A microarray study of post-mortem mRNA degradation in mouse brain tissue.

Background: Although there is evidence that post-mortem interval (PMI) is not a major contributor to reduced overall RNA integrity, it may differentially affect a subgroup of gene transcripts that are susceptible to PMI-related degradation. This would particularly have ramifications for microarray studies that include a broad spectrum of genes.

Method: Brain tissue was removed from adult mice at 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 36 and 48 h post-mortem.

Dexamethasone resistance in B-cell precursor childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia occurs downstream of ligand-induced nuclear translocation of the glucocorticoid receptor.

Glucocorticoids are among the most effective agents used in the treatment of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and patient response to treatment is an important determinant of long-term outcome. Despite its clinical significance, the molecular basis of glucocorticoid resistance in lymphoid malignancies is still poorly understood. We have recently developed a highly clinically relevant experimental model of childhood ALL, in which primary childhood ALL biopsies were established as xenografts in nonobese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficient (NOD/SCID) mice.

Persistence of chromosome aberrations in mice acutely exposed to 56Fe+26 ions.

Space exploration has the potential to yield exciting and significant discoveries, but it also brings with it many risks for flight crews. Among the less well studied of these are health effects from space radiation, which includes the highly charged, energetic particles of elements with high atomic numbers that constitute the galactic cosmic rays. In this study, we demonstrated that 1 Gy iron ions acutely administered to mice in vivo resulted in highly complex chromosome damage.