Publications by authors named "Tigges M"

Article Synopsis
  • Over two decades, initiatives have aimed to enhance STEM undergraduate outcomes, with the inclusive Research Education Community (iREC) emerging as a scalable reform model that supports STEM faculty in implementing course-based research to improve student learning.
  • This study utilized pathway modeling to describe the HHMI Science Education Alliance (SEA) iREC, identifying how faculty engagement leads to sustainable adoption and improvement of new teaching strategies through feedback from over 100 participating faculty members.
  • The findings indicate that iREC fosters a collaborative environment where STEM faculty can share expertise and data, thereby enhancing their teaching practices and contributing to the overall evolution of undergraduate science education.
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Hyperplasia of the pharyngeal tonsils is to be considered pathologic when nasopharyngeal symptoms of mechanical obstruction and/or chronic inflammation occur. Chronic Eustachian tube dysfunction can result in various middle ear diseases such as conductive hearing loss, cholesteatoma, and recurrent acute otitis media. During examination, attention should be paid to the presence of adenoid facies (long face syndrome), with a permanently open mouth and visible tip of the tongue.

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Hyperplasia of the pharyngeal tonsils is to be considered pathologic when nasopharyngeal symptoms of mechanical obstruction and/or chronic inflammation occur. Chronic Eustachian tube dysfunction can result in various middle ear diseases such as conductive hearing loss, cholesteatoma, and recurrent acute otitis media. During examination, attention should be paid to the presence of adenoid facies (long face syndrome), with a permanently open mouth and visible tip of the tongue.

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Air pollutant concentrations are often higher near major roadways than in the surrounding environments owing to emissions from on-road mobile sources. In this study, we quantified the gradient in black carbon (BC) and air toxics concentrations from the I-70 freeway in the Elyria-Swansea environmental justice neighborhood in Denver, Colorado, during three measurement campaigns in 2017-2018. The average hourly upwind-downwind gradient of BC concentrations from the roadway was 500-800 ng/m, equal to an increment of approximately 30-80% above local background levels within 180 m of the freeway.

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Nosocomial infections with are a global problem in intensive care units with high mortality rates. Increasing resistance to first- and second-line antibiotics has forced the use of colistin as last-resort treatment, and increasing development of colistin resistance in has been reported. We evaluated the transcriptional regulator PmrA as potential drug target to restore colistin efficacy in Deletion of restored colistin susceptibility in 10 of the 12 extensively drug-resistant clinical isolates studied, indicating the importance of PmrA in the drug resistance phenotype.

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Tight control over protein degradation is a fundamental requirement for cells to respond rapidly to various stimuli and adapt to a fluctuating environment. Here we develop a versatile, easy-to-handle library of destabilizing tags (degrons) for the precise regulation of protein expression profiles in mammalian cells by modulating target protein half-lives in a predictable manner. Using the well-established tetracycline gene-regulation system as a model, we show that the dynamics of protein expression can be tuned by fusing appropriate degron tags to gene regulators.

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Dissolved organic matter (DOM) in freshwater environments is an important source of organic carbon, supporting bacterial respiration. Frozen environments cover vast expanses of our planet, with glaciers and ice-sheets storing upwards of six petagrams of organic carbon. It is generally believed that DOM liberated from ice stimulates downstream environments.

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Infections with the Gram-negative coccobacillus Acinetobacter baumannii are a major threat in hospital settings. The progressing emergence of multidrug-resistant clinical strains significantly reduces the treatment options for clinicians to fight A. baumannii infections.

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BioVersys, founded in 2008, is working on bringing a technology for screening and for the development of 'transcriptional regulator inhibiting compounds' (TRICs) to patients in order to overcome antibiotic resistance. The co-founders share their view on what makes successful scientists pursue a career as start-up entrepreneurs rather than a classic academic career. They describe the history and milestones of their company, and how their everyday work differs from that of peers in an academic or industrial research setting.

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Interspecies interactions are the basis of microbial community formation and infectious diseases. Systems biology enables the construction of complex models describing such interactions, leading to a better understanding of disease states and communities. However, before interactions between complex organisms can be understood, metabolic and energetic implications of simpler real-world host-microbe systems must be worked out.

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Background: Hoarseness due to insufficient glottal closure can be treated by injection laryngoplasty (augmentation). Vocal fold injections can be performed as an in-office procedure or under general anesthesia. As injection materials have recently improved and different injection approaches are available, injection laryngoplasties are performed much more frequently.

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Alarming facts about the occurrence and spreading of multiple antibiotic resistant bacteria have caught the attention of global surveillance authorities and public media. The demand for novel effective antimicrobial drugs is high and on the rise while, at the same time, the supply of fresh 'magic bullets' is drying up. This review summarizes examples of recent strategies for development of adjunctive antibiotic therapies that overcome microbial resistance and thus rejuvenate the existing arsenal of drugs.

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Ethionamide (ETH) is a second-line drug for the treatment of tuberculosis. As a prodrug, ETH has to be activated by EthA. ethA is controlled by its repressor EthR.

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Article Synopsis
  • Aptamers can effectively build artificial genetic switches by targeting proteins or small molecules.
  • The study introduces a new aptamer-based system that regulates the Tet Off system independent of tetracycline, allowing control of gene expression in mammalian cells.
  • By utilizing theophylline as a ligand, researchers enhanced binding to the aptamer, leading to decreased activity of the transactivator and enabling more complex gene network designs.
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Circadian clocks have long been known to be essential for the maintenance of physiological and behavioral processes in a variety of organisms ranging from plants to humans. Dysfunctions that subvert gene expression of oscillatory circadian-clock components may result in severe pathologies, including tumors and metabolic disorders. While the underlying molecular mechanisms and dynamics of complex gene behavior are not fully understood, synthetic approaches have provided substantial insight into the operation of complex control circuits, including that of oscillatory networks.

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Capitalizing on an era of functional genomic research, systems biology offers a systematic quantitative analysis of existing biological systems thereby providing the molecular inventory of biological parts that are currently being used for rational synthesis and engineering of complex biological systems with novel and potentially useful functions-an emerging discipline known as synthetic biology. During the past decade synthetic biology has rapidly developed from simple control devices fine-tuning the activity of single genes and proteins to multi-gene/protein-based transcription and signaling networks providing new insight into global control and molecular reaction dynamics, thereby enabling the design of novel drug-synthesis pathways as well as genetic devices with unmatched biological functions. While pioneering synthetic devices have first been designed as test, toy, and teaser systems for use in prokaryotes and lower eukaryotes, first examples of a systematic assembly of synthetic gene networks in mammalian cells has sketched the full potential of synthetic biology: foster novel therapeutic opportunities in gene and cell-based therapies.

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Heterologous protein production in mammalian cells is often challenged by the bottleneck of the secretory machinery, which prevents producer cells from fully exploiting their physiologic capacity in the production of biopharmaceuticals. Recent advances in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of vesicle trafficking have enabled the identification of key regulators that control the flow of recombinant proteins along the secretory pathway. Here, we report that transgenic expression of Munc18b, a Sec1/Munc18 (SM) protein regulating the fusion of secretory vesicles to the plasma membrane, enhances the secretory capacity of HeLa, HEK-293 and HT-1080 and so increases overall production of different secreted human glycoproteins as well as the titer of lentiviral particles produced in HEK-293-derived helper cells.

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Autonomous and self-sustained oscillator circuits mediating the periodic induction of specific target genes are minimal genetic time-keeping devices found in the central and peripheral circadian clocks. They have attracted significant attention because of their intriguing dynamics and their importance in controlling critical repair, metabolic and signalling pathways. The precise molecular mechanism and expression dynamics of this mammalian circadian clock are still not fully understood.

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A variety of successful transcription and translation engineering strategies implemented during the past decade have driven the specific productivity of mammalian cells to an apparent limit. Restricted post-translation competence has since been considered the major bottleneck preventing mammalian cells from fully exploiting their physiologic production capacity in a biopharmaceutical manufacturing scenario. Through ectopic expression of the human transcription factor Xbp1 (X-box-binding-protein 1), evolved to manage plasma cell differentiation and coordinate the unfolded protein response, we have specifically expanded the endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi of transgenic Chinese hamster ovary (CHO-K1)-derived cell lines with a resulting increase in overall production capacity.

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We have previously shown that a single portal vein infusion of a recombinant adeno-associated viral vector (rAAV) expressing canine Factor IX (F.IX) resulted in long-term expression of therapeutic levels of F.IX in dogs with severe hemophilia B.

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Dyrk1A, a mammalian homolog of the Drosophila minibrain gene, encodes a dual-specificity kinase, involved in neuronal development and in adult brain physiology. In humans, a third copy of DYRK1A is present in Down syndrome (trisomy 21) and has been implicated in the etiology of mental retardation. To further understand this pathology, we searched for Dyrk1A-interacting proteins and identified Arip4 (androgen receptor-interacting protein 4), a SNF2-like steroid hormone receptor cofactor.

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Purpose: To examine the relationship of ocular components to refraction throughout the adult life span of the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta).

Methods: Cycloplegic retinoscopy, A-scan ultrasonography, slit lamp examination, indirect ophthalmoscopy, and keratometry were performed in a cross-sectional study of 111 monkeys, aged 5 to 31 years. Lens thickness and anterior and vitreous chamber depths were measured from the echograms.

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For the diagnosis of voice disorders, and especially for the classification of hoarseness, direct observation of vocal fold vibration is essential. Furthermore, a quantitative description of the movement of the vocal fold becomes increasingly necessary to document and compare findings as well as the progression of speech therapy. On the base of digital high-speed sequences of vocal fold vibration, multiple "functional images"-also called digital kymograms-are obtained using image- and signal-processing algorithms.

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