Digital Commons Network^™

Drivers Of Anticoagulant Rodenticide Exposure In Fishers (Pekania Pennanti) Across The Northeastern United States, Georgianna Silveira, Jacqueline L. Frair, Lisa Murphy, Julie C. Ellis, David Needle, Stephanie A. Cunningham, Amanda Watson, Aaron Facka, Patrick Tate, Shevenell Webb, Kim Royar, Chris Bernier, Thomas Keller, Krysten Schuler

Faculty Publications

Studies in parts of Europe, New Zealand, and North America indicate uptake of anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs) by predatory mammals to be widespread and common, with proximity to urban and agricultural areas being an important driver of exposure. Yet, little is known regarding the patterns and drivers of AR exposure in predatory mammals within more forest-dominated landscapes. Across the forest-dominated northeastern United States (US), a region spanning Pennsylvania to Maine, we tested livers from 597 fisher (Pekania pennanti) obtained from the legal harvest for 11 anticoagulant rodenticide compounds. We used kriging to determine potential hot zones (within or among states) and …

A Multi-Year Longitudinal Study Exploring The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Students’ Familiarity And Perceptions Of Active Learning, Briana Craig, Jeremy L. Hsu

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The COVID-19 pandemic caused nearly ubiquitous emergency remote teaching in both secondary and post-secondary education. While there has been a plethora of work examining how instructors adjusted classes to incorporate active learning during emergency remote teaching, there has only been minimal work examining how such emergency remote teaching may have influenced students’ perceptions of active learning. Here, we conduct a longitudinal multi-cohort study at one institution across nine semesters before, during, and after emergency remote teaching due to the pandemic to explore how college students’ familiarity and perceptions of active learning have shifted over time because of the pandemic. Our …

Scaffold Protein Sh3bp2 Signalosome Is Pivotal For Immune Activation In Nephrotic Syndrome., Tarak Srivastava, Robert E. Garola, Jianping Zhou, Varun C. Boinpelly, Mohammad Rezaiekhaligh, Trupti Joshi, Yuexu Jiang, Diba Ebadi, Siddarth Sharma, Christine Sethna, Vincent S. Staggs, Ram Sharma, Debbie S. Gipson, Wei Hao, Yujie Wang, Laura H. Mariani, Jeffrey B. Hodgin, Robert Rottapel, Teruhito Yoshitaka, Yasuyoshi Ueki, Mukut Sharma

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Despite clinical use of immunosuppressive agents, the immunopathogenesis of minimal change disease (MCD) and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) remains unclear. Src homology 3-binding protein 2 (SH3BP2), a scaffold protein, forms an immune signaling complex (signalosome) with 17 other proteins, including phospholipase Cγ2 (PLCγ2) and Rho-guanine nucleotide exchange factor VAV2 (VAV2). Bioinformatic analysis of human glomerular transcriptome (Nephrotic Syndrome Study Network cohort) revealed upregulated SH3BP2 in MCD and FSGS. The SH3BP2 signalosome score and downstream MyD88, TRIF, and NFATc1 were significantly upregulated in MCD and FSGS. Immune pathway activation scores for Toll-like receptors, cytokine-cytokine receptor, and NOD-like receptors were increased in …

Prex1 Improves Homeostatic Proliferation To Maintain A Naive Cd4+ T Cell Compartment In Older Age, Huimin Zhang, Hirohisa Okuyama, Abhinav Jain, Rohit R Jadhav, Bowen Wu, Ines Sturmlechner, Jose Morales, Shozo Ohtsuki, Cornelia M Weyand, Jӧrg J Goronzy

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The human adult immune system maintains normal T cell counts and compensates for T cell loss throughout life, mainly through peripheral homeostatic proliferation after the ability of the thymus to generate new T cells has rapidly declined at adolescence. This process is mainly driven by STAT5-activating cytokines, most importantly IL-7, and is very effective in maintaining a large naive CD4+ T cell compartment into older age. Here, we describe that naive CD4+ T cells undergo adaptations to optimize IL-7 responses by upregulating the guanine-nucleotide exchange factor PREX1 in older age. PREX1 promotes nuclear translocation of phosphorylated STAT5, thereby supporting homeostatic …

Impact Of An Integrated Health, Nutrition, And Early Child Stimulation And Responsive Care Intervention Package Delivered To Preterm Or Term Small For Gestational Age Babies During Infancy On Growth And Neurodevelopment: Study Protocol Of An Individually Randomized Controlled Trial In India (Small Babies Trial), Ranadip Chowdhury, Rukman Manapurath, Ingvild Fossgard Sandøy, Ravi Prakash Upadhyay, Neeta Dhabhai, Saijuddin Shaikh, Harish Chellani, Tarun Shankar Choudhary, Abhinav Jain, Jose Martines, Nita Bhandari, Tor A Strand, Sunita Taneja

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Preterm and term small for gestational age (SGA) babies are at high risk of experiencing malnutrition and impaired neurodevelopment. Standalone interventions have modest and sometimes inconsistent effects on growth and neurodevelopment in these babies. For greater impact, intervention may be needed in multiple domains-health, nutrition, and psychosocial care and support. Therefore, the combined effects of an integrated intervention package for preterm and term SGA on growth and neurodevelopment are worth investigating.

METHODS: An individually randomized controlled trial is being conducted in urban and peri-urban low to middle-socioeconomic neighborhoods in South Delhi, India. Infants are randomized (1:1) into two strata …

The Mrna-Lnp Vaccines - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly?, Botond Z. Igyártó, Zhen Qin

Department of Microbiology and Immunology Faculty Papers

The mRNA-LNP vaccine has received much attention during the COVID-19 pandemic since it served as the basis of the most widely used SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in Western countries. Based on early clinical trial data, these vaccines were deemed safe and effective for all demographics. However, the latest data raise serious concerns about the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines. Here, we review some of the safety and efficacy concerns identified to date. We also discuss the potential mechanism of observed adverse events related to the use of these vaccines and whether they can be mitigated by alterations of this vaccine mechanism …

Foraging Rates From Metabarcoding: Predators Have Reduced Functional Responses In Wild, Diverse Prey Communities, Stella F. Uiterwaal, John Delong

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Functional responses describe foraging rates across prey densities and underlie many fundamental ecological processes. Most functional response knowledge comes from simplified lab experiments, but we do not know whether these experiments accurately represent foraging in nature. In addition, the difficulty of conducting multispecies functional response experiments means that it is unclear whether interaction strengths are weakened in the presence of multiple prey types. We developed a novel method to estimate wild predators' foraging rates from metabarcoding data and use this method to present functional responses for wild wolf spiders foraging on 27 prey families. These field functional responses were considerably …

Drivers Of Anticoagulant Rodenticide Exposure In Fishers (Pekania Pennanti) Across The Northeastern United States, Georgianna Silveira, Jacqueline L. Frair, Lisa Murphy, Julie C. Ellis, David Needle, Stephanie A. Cunningham, Amanda Watson, Aaron Facka, Patrick Tate, Shevenell Webb, Kim Royar, Chris Bernier, Thomas Keller, Krysten Schuler

Faculty Publications

Studies in parts of Europe, New Zealand, and North America indicate uptake of anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs) by predatory mammals to be widespread and common, with proximity to urban and agricultural areas being an important driver of exposure. Yet, little is known regarding the patterns and drivers of AR exposure in predatory mammals within more forest-dominated landscapes. Across the forest-dominated northeastern United States (US), a region spanning Pennsylvania to Maine, we tested livers from 597 fisher (Pekania pennanti) obtained from the legal harvest for 11 anticoagulant rodenticide compounds. We used kriging to determine potential hot zones (within or among states) and …

Targeting Dna2 Overcomes Metabolic Reprogramming In Multiple Myeloma, Natthakan Thongon, Feiyang Ma, Natalia Baran, Pamela Lockyer, Jintan Liu, Christopher Jackson, Ashley Rose, Ken Furudate, Bethany Wildeman, Matteo Marchesini, Valentina Marchica, Paola Storti, Giannalisa Todaro, Irene Ganan-Gomez, Vera Adema, Juan Jose Rodriguez-Sevilla, Yun Qing, Min Jin Ha, Rodrigo Fonseca, Caleb Stein, Caleb Class, Lin Tan, Sergio Attanasio, Guillermo Garcia-Manero, Nicola Giuliani, David Berrios Nolasco, Andrea Santoni, Claudio Cerchione, Carlos Bueso-Ramos, Marina Konopleva, Philip Lorenzi, Koichi Takahashi, Elisabet Manasanch, Gabriella Sammarelli, Rashmi Kanagal-Shamanna, Andrea Viale, Marta Chesi, Simona Colla

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

DNA damage resistance is a major barrier to effective DNA-damaging therapy in multiple myeloma (MM). To discover mechanisms through which MM cells overcome DNA damage, we investigate how MM cells become resistant to antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapy targeting Interleukin enhancer binding factor 2 (ILF2), a DNA damage regulator that is overexpressed in 70% of MM patients whose disease has progressed after standard therapies have failed. Here, we show that MM cells undergo adaptive metabolic rewiring to restore energy balance and promote survival in response to DNA damage activation. Using a CRISPR/Cas9 screening strategy, we identify the mitochondrial DNA repair protein …

Discovery And Clinical Proof-Of-Concept Of Rly-2608, A First-In-Class Mutant-Selective Allosteric Pi3kα Inhibitor That Decouples Antitumor Activity From Hyperinsulinemia, Andreas Varkaris, Ermira Pazolli, Hakan Gunaydin, Qi Wang, Levi Pierce, Alessandro A Boezio, Artemisa Bulku, Lucian Dipietro, Cary Fridrich, Adam Frost, Fabrizio Giordanetto, Erika P Hamilton, Katherine Harris, Michael Holliday, Tamieka L Hunter, Amanda Iskandar, Yongli Ji, Alexandre Larivée, Jonathan R Larochelle, André Lescarbeau, Fabien Llambi, Brenda Lormil, Mary M Mader, Brenton G Mar, Iain Martin, Thomas H Mclean, Klaus Michelsen, Yakov Pechersky, Erika Puente-Poushnejad, Kevin Raynor, Dipali Rogala, Ramin Samadani, Alison M Schram, Kelley Shortsleeves, Sweta Swaminathan, Shahein Tajmir, Gege Tan, Yong Tang, Roberto Valverde, Bryan Wehrenberg, Jeremy Wilbur, Bret R Williams, Hongtao Zeng, Hanmo Zhang, W Patrick Walters, Beni B Wolf, David E Shaw, Donald A Bergstrom, James Watters, James S Fraser, Pascal D Fortin, D Randal Kipp

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PIK3CA (PI3Kα) is a lipid kinase commonly mutated in cancer, including ∼40% of hormone receptor–positive breast cancer. The most frequently observed mutants occur in the kinase and helical domains. Orthosteric PI3Kα inhibitors suffer from poor selectivity leading to undesirable side effects, most prominently hyperglycemia due to inhibition of wild-type (WT) PI3Kα. Here, we used molecular dynamics simulations and cryo-electron microscopy to identify an allosteric network that provides an explanation for how mutations favor PI3Kα activation. A DNA-encoded library screen leveraging electron microscopy-optimized constructs, differential enrichment, and an orthosteric-blocking compound led to the identification of RLY-2608, a first-in-class allosteric mutant-selective inhibitor …

Kenyon Collegian - February 8, 2024

The Kenyon Collegian

No abstract provided.

February 8, 2024, James Madison University

The Breeze, 2020-

The Breeze is the student newspaper of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Addressing A Pre-Clinical Pipeline Gap: Development Of The Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia Patient-Derived Xenograft Program At Texas Children's Hospital At Baylor College Of Medicine, Alexandra M Stevens, Maci Terrell, Raushan Rashid, Kevin E Fisher, Andrea N Marcogliese, Amos Gaikwad, Pulivarthi Rao, Chelsea Vrana, Michael Krueger, Michael Loken, Andrew J Menssen, Jacqueline A Cook, Noah Keogh, Michelle Alozie, Hailey Oviedo, Alan K Gonzalez, Tamilini Ilangovan, Julia Kim, Sohani Sandhu, Michele S Redell

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The survival rate of pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (pAML) is currently around 60%. While survival has slowly increased over the past few decades, the development of novel agents likely to further improve survival for this heterogeneous patient population has been limited by gaps in the pAML pre-clinical pipeline. One of the major hurdles in evaluating new agents for pAML is the lack of pAML patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models. Unlike solid tumors and other types of leukemias, AML is notoriously hard to establish in mouse models, likely due in part to the need for specific human microenvironment elements. Our laboratory at …

Immunoglobulin Replacement Products Protect Against Sars-Cov-2 Infection In Vivo Despite Poor Neutralizing Activity, Ofer Zimmerman, Alexa Michelle Altman Doss, Baoling Ying, Chieh-Yu Liang, Samantha R. Mackin, Hannah G. Davis-Adams, Lucas J. Adams, Laura A. Vanblargan, Rita E. Chen, Suzanne M. Scheaffer, Pritesh Desai, Saravanan Raju, Tarisa L. Mantia, Caitlin C. O'Shaughnessy, Jennifer Marie Monroy, H. James Wedner, Christopher J. Rigell, Andrew L. Kau, Tiffany Biason Dy, Zhen Ren, Jackson S. Turner, Jane A. O'Halloran, Rachel M. Presti, Peggy L. Kendall, Daved H. Fremont, Ali H. Ellebedy, Michael S Diamond

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Immunoglobulin (IG) replacement products are used routinely in patients with immune deficiency and other immune dysregulation disorders who have poor responses to vaccination and require passive immunity conferred by commercial antibody products. The binding, neutralizing, and protective activity of intravenously administered IG against SARS-CoV-2 emerging variants remains unknown. Here, we tested 198 different IG products manufactured from December 2019 to August 2022. We show that prepandemic IG had no appreciable cross-reactivity or neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2. Anti-spike antibody titers and neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2 WA1/2020 D614G increased gradually after the pandemic started and reached levels comparable to vaccinated healthy donors …

Eosinophils Restrain Humoral Alloimmunity After Lung Transplantation, Zhongcheng Mei, Yuriko Terada, Yuhei Yokoyama, Andrew E. Gelman, Daniel Kreisel, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

While the function of many leukocytes in transplant biology has been well defined, the role of eosinophils is controversial and remains poorly explored. Conflicting data exist regarding eosinophils' role in alloimmunity. Due to their prevalence in the lung, and their defined role in other pulmonary pathologies such as asthma, we set out to explore the role of eosinophils in the long-term maintenance of the lung allograft. We noted that depletion of eosinophils results in the generation of donor-specific antibodies. Eosinophil depletion increased memory B cell, plasma cell, and antibody-secreting cell differentiation and resulted in de novo generation of follicular germinal …

The Civil War: Death And Photography, Logan E.T. Shelton

Legacy

No abstract provided.

You Load Sixteen Tons, What Do You Get?: Economic Exploitation By Vertical Monopoly In The Low Moor Iron Company, Claire Kassitas

Legacy

No abstract provided.

A Reflection Of American Affairs And Values: The Evolution Of The Summer Camp In American History, Ollie Crader

Legacy

No abstract provided.

A Tale Of Two Low-Income, First-Generation Engineering Students: Well-Being, Belonging, And The Role Of Chosen Family, Justin C. Major

First-Generation Symposium

Belonging has been identified as an important, if not the most important, factor impacting the success of college students, especially (multi)marginalized students in engineering programs. Well-being and belonging are deeply entwined, helping to explain how the strength of students affinities lead them to feel a sense of true happiness that guide their holistic success. In this presentation, I present two differing narrative stories from Samantha and Rocky, two non-white, low-income, first-generation women in engineering. At the time of their narratives, both women were in the fourth year of their engineering degrees; however, Samantha was graduating and Rocky was not. In …

Transfer Learning In The Era Of Foundational Models: Application To Diagnosis In Rheumatology, Prashant Shekhar

Math Department Colloquium Series

Problems with current synovitis grading procedures

• There has been a lack of reliability in grading these images in the medical community due to a lack of universally accepted diagnostic criteria [Momtazmanesh et al., 2022]
• The human/machine variability creates an additional challenge in an efficient automated scoring system [Ranganath et al., 2022]
• There is a lack of consistency between doctors in grading these images [Momtazmanesh et al., 2022]

Un Nuevo Registro Del Tejedor Africano Ploceus Cucullatus Para El Área Metropolitana De Caracas, Venezuela / A New Record Of The Village Weaver Ploceus Cucullatus For The Metropolitan Area, Caracas, Venezuela, Hugo Rodríguez-García

Revista Venezolana de Ornitología

No abstract provided.

Primer Registro De La Reinita Azulinegra Setophaga Caerulescens En La Cordillera De Mérida, Venezuela / First Record Of The Black-Throated Blue Warbler Setophaga Caerulescens In The Mountains Of Mérida, Venezuela, N. Milena Cárdenas-Avella, Luis A. Saavedra, Carla I. Aranguren

Revista Venezolana de Ornitología

No abstract provided.

El Gavilán Pico Ganchudo Chondrohierax Uncinatus Como Depredador Del Caracol Gigante Africano Achatina Fulica (Gastropoda: Achatinidae) En Venezuela / Predation By Hook-Billed Kites Chondrohierax Uncinatus On The Giant African Snail Achatina Fulica (Gastropoda: Achatinidae) In Venezuela, Marcos Salcedo

Revista Venezolana de Ornitología

No abstract provided.

Registro Del Playero Lomiescamado Calidris Bairdii En El Páramo Altiandino, Estado Mérida, Venezuela / A Record Of Baird’S Sandpiper Calidris Bairdii In The Andean Páramo, Mérida State, Venezuela, N. Milena Cárdenas-Avella, Carla I. Aranguren

Revista Venezolana de Ornitología

No abstract provided.

Registro Del Tilingo Cuellinegro Pteroglossus Aracari En La Cordillera De La Costa Central, Estado Miranda, Venezuela / A Record Of Black-Necked Aracari Pteroglossus Aracari In The Central Cordillera De La Costa, Miranda State, Venezuela, Galo Buitrón-Jurado, Virginia Sanz, Jorge Pérez-Emán

Revista Venezolana de Ornitología

No abstract provided.

Dos Aves Nuevas Para La Isla La Tortuga: La Becasina Pico Largo Limnodromus Scolopaceus Y El Gavilán Caracolero Rostrhamus Sociabilis; Con Observaciones Adicionales Sobre La Garza Rojiza Egretta Rufescens, Morfo Blanco / Two New Bird Species For La Tortuga Island: The Long-Billed Dowitcher Limnodromus Scolopaceus, And The Snail Kite Rostrhamus Sociabilis; With Additional Notes On The Reddish Egret Egretta Rufescens, White Morph, Gedio Marín, Luis Gerardo González-Bruzual, Luis Gonzalo Morales

Revista Venezolana de Ornitología

No abstract provided.

Estudio De Las Relaciones Sociales En Tortolitas Columbina Talpacoti En Una Fuente Artificial De Alimento / A Study About The Social Relationships Of The Ruddy Ground-Doves Columbina Talpacoti In An Artificial Food Source, Victoria C. Ruiz Dávila, Cristina Sainz-Borgo, Luis Levin

Revista Venezolana de Ornitología

No abstract provided.

Situación Actual De La Distribución Del Tejedor Africano Ploceus Cucullatus En Venezuela / Current Situation In The Village Weaver Ploceus Cucullatus Distribution In Venezuela, Juan Carlos Fernández-Ordóñez, Jeshua A. Nieves, Sabino R. Silva, Francisco J. Contreras, Tulio J. Reyes

Revista Venezolana de Ornitología

No abstract provided.

Nuevos Registros De Aberraciones En El Plumaje Para Varias Especies De Aves En Venezuela / New Records Of Plumage Aberration For Several Bird Species In Venezuela, Cristina Sainz-Borgo, David Ascanio, Lorenzo Calcaño, Eduardo López, Jhonathan Miranda, Adriana Rodríguez-Ferraro, Rafael Ravard, Jhonny Santodomingo, Mariam Trejo, Hein Van Grouw

Revista Venezolana de Ornitología

No abstract provided.

Primera Evidencia Del Águila Pescadora Depredando Elasmobránquios / First Evidence Of An Osprey Pandion Haliaetus Preying On Elasmobranchs, Juan C. Fernández-Ordóñez, Oscar M. Lasso-Alcalá, Ernesto J. Ron

Revista Venezolana de Ornitología

No abstract provided.