Conner Wright is carrying a demanding course load in his final year as an English major at UC Berkeley: antebellum American literature, introduction to music therapy and a research seminar on William Shakespeare.

The 20-year-old senior is immersed in the works of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville and Harriet Jacobs.

But Wright, who is anticipating his graduation in May, has the self-awareness to know he needed a little something extra to prepare for his launch into a post-college world, that a superior ability to interpret classic literary works may not be enough.

So he signed up for a class on adulting, where he is learning to create and stick to a personal budget, build a resume and apply for jobs and navigate romantic relationships in a time when online interactions are eclipsing face-to-face encounters.

I need to learn how to get this adult thing down and manage life, Wright said.

The class, which has 30 students enrolled in each section, is led by two Berkeley undergrads who plan discussion topics and schedule guest speakers to fill 90 minutes each week. The adults in training are among thousands of people across the country who have signed up for courses that focus on things such as cooking or budgeting or time management.

Jenny Zhou, left, and Belle Lau teach an adulting class at UC Berkeley.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

Adulting classes for college students and postgrads have swelled in popularity in recent years, in part because many high schools have largely abandoned life skills courses such as home economics, which were created to help students navigate the path to adulthood.

That trend, combined with armies of hovering parents who emphasize academic achievement to the exclusion of almost everything else, has resulted in university classrooms filled with students who scored a 5 on their AP Physics test, but struggle to plan for a weeks worth of groceries and meals.

In Portland, Maine, the Adulting School offers in-person classes on soft skills, such as interviewing, conflict resolution and making friends, along with topics such as personal finance and basic home maintenance.

Principal Rachel Flehinger said her students, who are typically in their 20s and 30s, have experienced their share of disdain over their so-called entitlement and laziness.

Weve had clients who are millennials having major anxiety that they didnt have these skills and didnt feel successful as an adult, she said. Theres a lot of self-loathing that happens.

Similar classes or in-person workshops have popped up at libraries and universities across the country, in private groups on social media and even on blogs tailored to college students. Some high schools have scheduled seminars on life skills as a way to prepare their students for life after graduation.

Sometimes students come up with their own solutions.

Neither Belle Lau of Washington nor Jenny Zhou of Arizona felt fully prepared for life away from home when they arrived at Berkeley two years ago. When Lau moved out of the dorms and into her own apartment during her sophomore year, her lack of self-reliance at the time became apparent. She was working, attending classes and, for the first time, had to plan her own meals, put money aside and cover her expenses. She quickly realized that she was spending too much money eating out all the time.

More than 200 students at UC Berkeley applied for two adulting courses offered this semester. More than half of them had to be turned away because of limited class size.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

Lau and Zhou noticed that many of their peers were having similar struggles.

Were thrown out into this world and have little idea about what the heck were supposed to do, said Lau, 21. I think in general we all feel a little bit lost and dont know where to start.

To remedy that, Lau and Zhou, 20, decided to create their own class.

When it was first offered last spring, every one of the 30 spots was filled. Seventy students had to be turned away.

Lau and Zhou added a second session this semester. More than 200 students filled out applications explaining why they wanted to take the 12-week course. The women accepted fewer than half who applied.

Column One

A showcase for compelling storytelling from the Los Angeles Times.

Adulting is one of dozens of student-run courses in the universitys DeCal (Democratic Education at Cal) program, in which students create and facilitate their own classes on topics that include those practical and fun and often arent addressed in traditional curriculum. The project is rooted in the ideals of Berkeleys free speech movement, launched in the 1960s when students pressed for and won greater academic rights.

Theres a class on criminal psychology, which aims to analyze the minds of criminals, particularly of those who commit heinous crimes, in an effort to understand factors that influenced their behaviors and led them to commit violent offenses. Students enrolled in Intro to Baking learn to make bread, cakes, pastries and other confections without setting you or your roommates on fire, according to the course catalog.

Another course takes participants on a journey to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry through discussions of Harry Potter novels.

The courses in DeCal count for one or two credits and are offered as pass/no pass; as a result, students say they are unlikely to add to their stress levels.

College is a time of so many transitions the losing of certain reference points and its relatively sudden, said Nancy Liu, an assistant clinical professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the faculty sponsor for the adulting class this semester. Youre on your own for the first time, youre navigating a large system with limited support, youre taken out of past comforts and starting anew, you have new tasks that youve never had to deal with before.

Add to that the stress of a high-pressure academic environment, it makes sense that many would feel overwhelmed, she said.

College also sets the tone for much of what comes afterward: fostering those daily habits and routines; balancing work, school and life; remembering to file your taxes and keeping a budget; learning how to navigate interpersonal challenges with less scaffolding or support from experienced others. It seems crucial to address it head-on in a way that was valuable to students, Liu said.

Students learn basic life skills that experts say have been abandoned by traditional academia.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

When Lau and Zhou decided to create a class, they initially envisioned a course in cooking, a passion they share. That idea morphed into life hacks and, later, adulting.

When the two began brainstorming a syllabus, daily tasks such as laundry, sewing and car maintenance didnt make the cut. Instead, they focused on topics that are more abstract: time management, budgeting, fitness and nutrition, and relationships.

Each 90-minute session features a presentation from Zhou and Lau, juniors majoring in molecular and cell biology and integrative biology, respectively, and an outside expert who visits the class in person or via video chat. Last year, a recruiter from Lyft prepped students about job searches and a former accountant discussed filing taxes.

Those accepted into the classes, mostly seniors, have lamented that many of the things they were learning werent taught by their parents.

Laus mother, Allie Wu, says that parents dont trust their kids enough to do things on their own, adding that when theyre at home their parents pretty much take care of everything for them.

Wu says she has always been very independent, a trait that was a necessity when she arrived in the United States from Taiwan as a 22-year-old to pursue her MBA. Wu hoped her daughter would leave home with the same sense of self-sufficiency. But when Lau confessed to her mother that she struggled a bit her first year at Berkeley, Wu said she began to worry.

Those concerns dissipated when Lau told her about the adulting class she wanted to start with a friend.

Wu, who visited the class last year to talk about taxes, said the course is wonderful and unique.

I know shes in a good place now. Im very proud of her, Wu said. She knows what she wants and what she needs to accomplish her goals.

UC Berkeley students Belle Lau, left, and Jenny Zhou teach an adulting class for their peers.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

During the first week of adulting at Berkeley this semester, students were asked to come up with goals that were SMART specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based.

To kick it off, Zhou asked whether anyone had ever set a goal they didnt accomplish.

A few hands shot up. Several people shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. A handful looked around the room.

In less than a minute, everyones hand was in the air.

After a brief lecture, Lau and Zhou split the class into groups of six, each assigned to discuss their goals for the semester. Precision was rewarded; vagueness had to be remedied.

Students shuffled their desks into haphazard circles in the classroom and made quick introductions. They bantered about the dread of 8 a.m. classes and late-night studying marathons that would compound that trepidation as the semester dragged on.

Then things got uncomfortable.

Some of the students spoke in hushed tones as they shared the goals they had written on sheets of paper in front of them and, along with those, their insecurities that they might not be doing this whole grown-up thing quite right.

Wright spoke up first. His goal was to build more healthful habits with diet and exercise before graduation. The group nodded in agreement.

Several students said better time management would make a huge difference in their lives. One woman, a junior, said planning and establishing a routine might keep her from staying up all night cramming for exams.

Another piped up, saying shed like to get more done during the day by limiting how much time she spends on her phone a common distraction.

Kate Curtis, a 21-year-old senior who showed up 10 minutes late to the class with a look of embarrassment and a quick apology, said shes long struggled with punctuality. Shes been late so many times to her job at a fast-food restaurant that her manager recently pulled her into a meeting to discuss it. She was humiliated and ashamed.

I want to learn to be dependable. I want other people to be able to count on me, she said.

Curtis, who transferred to Berkeley from a community college in Orange County, said she lived at home for the first two years of college and feels she was coddled longer than her peers.

Im eight hours away from home now, so Im actually on my own. I have to find my own doctor if Im sick. Ive just signed up for my first loan, and Im not really understanding what Im getting into, she said.

Lau acknowledged that she and Zhou dont have all the answers, but shes quick to note that parents shouldnt be faulted for their childrens lack of real-world knowledge.

Maybe it is our parents who arent teaching us these things we thought we should already know, but we dont want to blame our parents for us being naive or ignorant, she said. Its our responsibility as college students to know that if were struggling in some aspect, there are resources out there for us.

Read the rest here:
'Adulting' is hard. UC Berkeley has a class for that - Los Angeles Times

It could be that malaria-carrying parasites are rendered less potent by minestrone. hmproudlove/Getty Images hide caption

It could be that malaria-carrying parasites are rendered less potent by minestrone.

Bring in some soup.

The unusual homework assignment at London's Eden Primary School was for a science week project cooked up by parent Jake Baum. He's a professor of cell biology and infectious diseases at Imperial College London, and his lab's job is to find new ways to combat malaria, which kills half a million children each year.

Baum figured he could teach young students about the process of medical research through something both tasty and understandable: the go-to soup recipes their families use when someone gets sick.

"What makes a good medicine versus hocus-pocus?" explains Baum, who regularly preps his own favorite home remedy, something he calls "Jewish grandmother's chicken soup."

"It was not the plan to discover anything," he adds.

Sixty students transported their soup submissions to school in 15 milliliter plastic tubes. That's about 1 tablespoon. The soup was frozen, thawed (standard practice for samples) and then (much to the children's delight) centrifuged spun in a machine to separate different substances.

At the next step, filtration, four samples were determined to be too dense or oily to test. Although they were likely delicious, they didn't make it to the lab stage, where the remaining 56 samples were tested in two ways against the P. falciparum parasite the species responsible for 99% of malaria deaths.

First, researchers checked what effect the soups had on asexual growth during the disease-causing stage. Or, to put it in primary school terms, they were looking through the microscope for the color green.

"More green means [the parasites are] happy. With an inhibitor like a drug, it's less green," Baum says. They followed up by checking on male parasite sexual development, which is responsible for disease transmission. For that, they recorded the movement of the parasites because, as Baum notes, "sperm wiggle."

To Baum's surprise, with five of the soups, the color green was much dimmer five of them were able to suppress growth by over 50% (and two of these even did about as well as a leading antimalarial, dihydroartemisinin).

In other soups, there was a lot less wiggling. Four were found to have blocked transmission activity by more than 50%.

"We just said, 'Wow, what do we do with this?' " Baum says.

The answer turned out to be another teachable moment for the students, ages 4 to 11, who participated in the study. Although the results were collected within a few months, it took two years for the work to get published. Another Eden Primary parent, pediatric nephrologist Stephen Marks, helped pitch the study to journals and championed the idea that the children of the school should be listed as authors which they were when the study was finally released in November in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

"Every kid can say they've had their first scientific paper," says Baum, who jokes that some may want to turn it into a paper airplane.

But it was a project they're likely to remember, notes Susanna Daniels, another parent/scientist, who also happens to be a soup enthusiast. As soon as her two children in the school came home to tell her about the experiment, there was some hypothesizing going on. "Our oldest was most disappointed because I'm a pescatarian. She was anxious our soup would fail because it wasn't chicken soup," explains Daniels, who opted to make her mother's veggie minestrone, loaded with cabbage, carrots, celery and tomato.

Turns out, that combo did especially well in the study, accounting for two of the samples that helped block transmission activity. "It wasn't a fluke finding because it was duplicated in both samples," Daniels says. The kids were thrilled to get the news, she adds. "They wanted to ring my mum straight away. She was quite bemused by the whole thing."

It's not so far-fetched to search for medical breakthroughs in your grandma's or great uncle's kitchen concoctions, Baum says, pointing to the scientific literature extolling the curative properties of chicken soup. (Research studies like this one suggest that it curbs some symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections.)

In terms of malaria treatment, the original lifesaving medicine was quinine, found in the bark of the South American cinchona tree. Today, the most commonly recommended anti-malaria drugs are derived from the artemesia plant (aka wormwood), which has been prescribed in traditional Chinese medicine for over 1,000 years. As Baum says, "Nature can produce fantastic molecules."

Pinpointing what exactly it was about these specific soups that had an effect would take years of additional research. For starters, it's hard to even tell what was in them. A bright red one probably contained beets, and a lot of them smelled like chicken. But students were never asked for a list of ingredients. Even though some kids had written information on the plastic tube samples they submitted, "when we wiped the tubes with ethanol, we lost the recipes," Baum says.

No one is claiming that these soups offer a promising pathway to a cure. "I'm using a lot of 'could, would, possibly,' " notes Baum, who doesn't have current plans for more soup experiments. But if he did and the resources were available he'd love to see it performed globally. Although the Eden Primary students come from diverse ethnic backgrounds, Baum says, they're all doing their grocery shopping in London. They can't pluck a leaf from a particular kind of bush the way kids in other parts of the world might.

Building on local knowledge is vital in malaria research, agrees Stephanie Yanow, a global health professor at the University of Alberta, who was not involved in the soup study. "We're at a difficult point every intervention we've tried, the parasite is always ahead of the game. Malaria numbers are going up in some places. There's drug resistance. The vaccine we have isn't very effective," she says. "We need to think outside the box and use more unconventional methods."

What struck her about the project was how well it engaged kids and their families and encourages "citizen scientists," or people without formal scientific training, to get involved in research.

And it's definitely made Yanow wonder what mysteries await in her minestrone. "There's a reason we think of it as a comfort food," she says.

Vicky Hallett is a freelance writer who regularly contributes to NPR.

Read the original:
Malaria-Transmitting Parasites Seem To Be Hampered By Minestrone And Other Soups : Goats and Soda - NPR

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. & LOUISVILLE, Ky.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GE Healthcare Life Sciences and Advanced Solutions Life Sciences (ASLS) will enter into a strategic R&D and distribution partnership that sets out to personalize tissue regeneration. The integration of IN Cell Analyzer and BioAssemblyBot systems technologies will embed cellular-level assessments into the 3D-bioprinting workflow used to create human tissue models.

Bioprinted tissues are small in size and die quickly, due to an inability to engineer small blood vessels the bodys supply network. ASLS patented Angiomics technology enables bioprinted microvessels to self-assemble into functional capillary beds, which deliver nutrients, oxygen, and hormones to the 3D tissue model and remove waste. This partnership would allow life scientists and tissue engineers to quickly design, build and image living, vascularized 3D tissues in a single, agile process.

Emmanuel Abate, General Manager of Genomics & Cellular Research, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, says: Printing multi-material 3D objects inside of microwell plates allows scientists to efficiently move away from traditional 2D monocultures on plastic, to 3D discovery and cytotoxicity models that more accurately reflect native biology and disease. By combining this flexibility and precision of the BioAssemblyBot with the image quality and speed of the IN Cell Analyzer 6500 HS confocal screening platform, the prospect of automating high content screening in 3D models can become a reality.

Currently, biopharmaceutical companies test their drugs in 2D models and animal models. Precise 3D models provide a more physiologically relevant environment for drug testing because they mimic human reactions.

The power of both of these platforms brings a new level of efficiency, speed and quality with assay designs and 3D biofabrication, says Michael Golway, President & CEO of ASLS.

Traditional 3D bioprinters are not designed for quality or interoperability with the high-throughput screening methods that pharmaceutical developers use to identify drug candidates. This alliance will result in a new product to address this challenge: an integration of GE Healthcare Life Sciences IN Cell Analyzer confocal imaging platform with IN Carta cell analysis software, and ASLS BioAssemblyBot 3D bioprinter with TSIM design software.

For pharmaceutical companies, where the average time to develop a new drug candidate may take over seven years, moving from traditional stage-gate testing processes to a lean, agile workcell for 3D tissue fabrication and assessments will shorten development timelines. The integration between IN Cell Analyzer and BioAssemblyBot enables the automated inclusion of cellular imaging information into the tissue modeling process so that new therapies can be scaled more quickly and effectively.

To learn more, please go to http://www.lifesciences.solutions/GE

For a live demonstration visit booth #908 at the joint meeting of the American Society of American Cell Biology (ASCB) and the European Molecular Biology Organization in Washington, DC taking place from December 7-11, 2019.

About GE Healthcare Life Sciences:

GE Healthcare Life Sciences helps therapy innovators, researchers and healthcare providers accelerate how precision diagnostics and therapies are invented, made and used. Our products enable biological analysis, research, development and the manufacture of advanced therapies and vaccines. Life Sciences is part of the $19.8 billion healthcare business of GE (NYSE: GE). With over 100 years of experience in the healthcare industry and more than 50,000 employees globally, GE Healthcare helps efficiently improve outcomes for patients, healthcare providers, researchers, and life sciences companies around the world. Visit our website https://www.gelifesciences.com/about-us for more information.

About Advanced Solutions Life Sciences:

Advanced Solutions Life Sciences (ASLS) is dedicated to the discovery, design, and development of integrated software and hardware solutions for the fields of science that involve living organisms, molecular biology, and biotechnology. ASLS offers a full-service business model including its patented, cGMP and UL certified BioAssemblyBot platform, as well as BioBot Basic, TSIM and BioApps Software, VIPM, and Professional Services. Visit http://www.bioassemblybot.com for more information.

See the original post here:
GE Healthcare Life Sciences pairs up with Advanced Solutions Life Sciences to create new opportunities for regenerative tissue manufacturing -...

DetailsCategory: AntibodiesPublished on Monday, 09 December 2019 18:35Hits: 253

CAMBRIDGE, MA, USA I December 09, 2019 IMagenta Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MGTA), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel medicines to bring the curative power of immune reset to more patients, today announced that new results from its CD117-ADC patient preparation program were presented at the 61st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). These results, which were highlighted in an oral presentation at ASH by John Tisdale, M.D., Director, Molecular and Clinical Hematology Section, National Institutes of Health, showed the first-ever successful transplant of gene-modified cells in non-human primates using a targeted, single-agent antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), without the use of chemotherapy or radiation.

Todays conditioning regimens involve high doses of chemotherapy, often paired with radiation, to remove the disease-causing cells. As a result, patients undergoing gene therapy or stem cell transplant are all faced with a difficult choice: whether to endure severe toxicity and risk infertility and cancer for the chance for a cure. Magentas portfolio of targeted ADCs represents an extremely promising new option to prepare patients for gene therapy or transplant with no need for toxic chemotherapy or radiation, said Dr. Tisdale. The results presented today show that a single dose of single agent CD117-ADC achieves the same level of depletion as four doses of busulfan chemotherapy to enable successful engraftment and persistence of stem cells modified with the -globin gene, the gene that causes sickle cell disease and -thalassemia when mutated. Importantly, the animals undergoing preparation with CD117-ADC showed none of the damaging toxicities associated with busulfan conditioning.

Magenta is the only company with the people, platforms and a product engine committed to comprehensively transforming immune and blood system reset, which includes revolutionizing the toxic methods that are used to prepare patients for gene therapy and transplant today. said Jason Gardner, D.Phil., Chief Executive Officer and President, Magenta Therapeutics. The gene therapy field has learned that higher levels of stem cell depletion, which meant higher doses of busulfan, were needed to ensure long-term engraftment of the gene-modified cells and persistence of gene therapy. Across all the modalities we have tested, we have seen that ADCs are most effective at achieving these high levels of stem cell depletion without chemotherapy to enable engraftment and long-term durability of the transplant. Todays impressive results provide important validation of the ADC approach as well as the CD117 target for patient preparation and underscore Magentas leadership in the field of conditioning.

Results from the CD117-ADC Patient Preparation Program

Title: A Single Dose of CD117 Antibody Drug Conjugate Enables Autologous Gene-Modified Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant (Gene Therapy) in Nonhuman Primates (Abstract #610) Presenter: John Tisdale, M.D., Director, Molecular and Clinical Hematology Section, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.

Magentas most advanced patient preparation program, CD117-ADC, targets CD117, a protein expressed on hematopoietic stem cells. CD117-ADC is designed to remove the genetically mutated cells in the bone marrow that cause certain genetic diseases, such as sickle cell disease, enabling curative stem cell transplant or gene therapy.

Results presented by Dr. Tisdale showed:

About Magenta Therapeutics

Magenta Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing medicines to bring the curative power of immune system reset through stem cell transplant to more patients with autoimmune diseases, genetic diseases and blood cancers. Magenta is combining leadership in stem cell biology and biotherapeutics development with clinical and regulatory expertise, a unique business model and broad networks in the stem cell transplant world to revolutionize immune reset for more patients.

Magenta is based in Cambridge, Mass. For more information, please visit http://www.magentatx.com.

SOURCE: Magenta Therapeutics

More:
Magenta Therapeutics Demonstrates First-ever Successful Gene Therapy Transplant Without Chemotherapy in Primates Using a Single Dose of Antibody-drug...

Chase Beisel heads the "Synthetic Biology of RNA" research group at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) in Wrzburg, a branch of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and run in collaboration with the Julius-Maximilians-Universitt in Wrzburg. With the Consolidator Grants, the European Research Council (ERC) promotes research by up-and-coming scientists in Europe.

CRISPR is a word on everyone's lips at the moment. Although it sounds somewhat crispy and delicious, it is in fact inedible - it is actually one of the most promising tools of genetic engineering. CRISPR stands for "Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats". These short DNA segments in the genome of bacteria are named after their regular pattern of repeating and mirrored sequences. They act as effective virus defence systems for bacteria. Copies of the CRISPR DNA exist in the form of RNA fragments in the cell. In the event of a viral attack, where a virus injects its DNA into a bacterium, the defence mechanism is triggered: The proteins, which include Cas9, is called to action and compares the sequence of the foreign DNA with that of the CRISPR RNA fragments. If it finds a matching counterpart, Cas9 cuts the foreign virus DNA, thus rendering the intruder harmless. The CRISPR-Cas9 system is therefore also known as genetic scissors and is now used for genome editing. DNA sequences can be specifically cut and modified in the laboratory using custom-designed CRISPR gene scissors, for example for the development of improved crops or medicines, for the manufacture of industrially used microorganisms, and in human cells for treating genetic diseases.

American chemical engineer Chase Beisel dedicated himself to CRISPR research around nine years ago. "We have an incredibly powerful genetic engineering tool at our disposal," says Beisel. "In order to fully and safely utilise its potential in the future, it is important that we better understand the basic biological relationships of CRISPR complexes in bacteria." The bacterial immune system can evidently learn new things and arm itself against other attackers by quickly integrating parts of foreign DNA into its own genome. CRISPR arrays encode the memory of previous infections and enable multiple intruders to be attacked simultaneously. How exactly these advanced CRISPR complexes are created, which criteria are used for selecting new sequences and which key genes of the attacker are thus rendered ineffective are not yet fully understood. This is exactly where Beisel's current research project "CRISPR Combo" aims to start, addressing the unanswered questions. "In addition to researching the biological fundamentals of CRISPR arrays in bacteria, we would also go one step further in the direction of a genetic application of CRISPR arrays," says Beisel. "To do this, we will use designed CRISPR arrays to target multiple genes at once in pathogens, thereby identifying combinations that most drive infections and providing new drug targets."

In 2018, Beisel moved from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the North Carolina State University in Raleigh (USA) to the HIRI in Wrzburg, where he has been the head of the "RNA Synthetic Biology" research group for two years now. His twelve-person team consists of postdocs, doctoral candidates, technicians and students. "The funding from the ERC means I can confidently add four members to the team - that is really fantastic," says Beisel. "The ERC Grant is an important milestone for me personally. Making the leap to Germany to join the HIRI was absolutely the right decision, and I am delighted about this funding. It enables me to dedicate my research to a topic that fascinates me and at the same time offers significant benefits for society as a whole."

Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Disease/Infection News

Tags: Bacteria, Cas9, Cell, CRISPR, DNA, Gene, Genes, Genetic, Genetic Engineering, Genome, Genome Editing, Hospital, Immune System, Laboratory, Palindromic Repeats, Research, Research Project, RNA, Virus

Continued here:
ERC promotes CRISPR research to better treat infections - News-Medical.net