The Power of Play: Examining the Impact of a School Yard Playground on Attitudes Toward School and Peer Relationships Among Elementary School Students in Chennai, India.

School environments may impact elementary school students' attachment levels to school as well as their mental and emotional well-being. Yet investments in recess/play infrastructure lag commitments to academic resources, particularly in developing countries. The main objective was to examine the impact of installing playground equipment, in the school yard, on students' attitudes toward school, peers, and the capacity to play of elementary-school children in an underserved, inner-city school in Chennai, India.

Dozing Off With Drosophila: The Effect of Disrupted Circadian Rhythms and Sleep Disturbance on Mortality, Mood, and Addiction.

Many environmental factors can disrupt sleep and circadian rhythms, yet the consequences of such disruptions are poorly understood. The main goals of this project were to study the effects of disrupted circadian rhythms and sleep disturbance on : (1) lifespan, (2) depression-like behaviors, and (3) propensity to consume caffeine-containing media. Three experimental groups were used: controls, Circadian Dysfunction (CD), and Sleep Disturbance (SD).

Decoding the Impact of Tumor Microenvironment in Osteosarcoma Progression and Metastasis.

Osteosarcoma (OS) is a heterogeneous, highly metastatic bone malignancy in children and adolescents. Despite advancements in multimodal treatment strategies, the prognosis for patients with metastatic or recurrent disease has not improved significantly in the last four decades. OS is a highly heterogeneous tumor; its genetic background and the mechanism of oncogenesis are not well defined.

Characterization of the ventricular-subventricular stem cell niche during human brain development.

Human brain development proceeds via a sequentially transforming stem cell population in the ventricular-subventricular zone (V-SVZ). An essential, but understudied, contributor to V-SVZ stem cell niche health is the multi-ciliated ependymal epithelium, which replaces stem cells at the ventricular surface during development. However, reorganization of the V-SVZ stem cell niche and its relationship to ependymogenesis has not been characterized in the human brain.