MSU research: saving money, milk and improving human health

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Images

EAST LANSING, Mich. – New research from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University finds that dairy producers overtreat cows diagnosed with non-severe cases of clinical mastitis, which increases farm costs and loss of milk.

Pamela Ruegg, the David J. Ellis Chair in Antimicrobial Resistance and professor in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, estimates the direct costs of treatment could be reduced by $65.20 per case if the minimum labeled durations are used, which she said provides the same health outcomes as current practices. The cost of mastitis to the U.S. dairy industry is approximately $110 per cow per year — and that dollar amount increases annually.

In dairy cows, mastitis is the inflammation of mammary glands in the udder, usually caused by a bacterial infection that leads to decreased quantity and quality of milk. Milk produced by cows while they’re being treated with antibiotics must be discarded, as well as the milk produced after treatment during the withholding period — usually three to four days after the last treatment has been given.

Published in the Journal of Dairy Science, Ruegg analyzed non-severe cases of clinical mastitis for approximately 50,000 cows on 37 commercial dairy farms in Wisconsin. She found that milk discarded due to antibiotic treatment represents at least 53% and up to 80% of total direct costs for each day of treatment.

The bottom line: Ruegg found that for routine treatments, following the minimum labelled duration for mastitis treatment drugs is critical to farm cost savings and productivity, as well as maintaining animal and human health.  

“Our work indicates that we need to take a hard look at duration of treatment, and unless you can justify improved clinical outcomes, we should treat using the minimum duration listed on product labels, and for shorter durations,” Ruegg said.

“With that, there’s both a financial savings for the producer, and there’s a human health benefit because we’re putting less antimicrobials into our ecosystems. There are benefits for society, and guess what? You’ll have the same outcomes.”

The opportunity to save on the costs of treatment and regain revenue from less discarded milk is hard to ignore for producers who are already facing steep fiscal challenges. Dairy producers in the U.S. are battling against federal milk pricing regulations and pandemic aftermath, losing on average more than $6 per hundredweight (milk sales unit) on farms of more than 50 cows.

And mastitis isn’t going anywhere, Ruegg said.

“The proportion of cows with clinical mastitis isn’t going down. At best, it’s stable, and at worst, it’s increasing, probably because of environmental pathogens that tend to cause larger inflammatory responses.”

Mastitis is an expensive disease. Ruegg said because cows now produce almost twice as much milk since she started practicing in 1984, the same treatment protocol today costs approximately 40% more.

“We have five products labeled to treat clinical mastitis in the U.S. The FDA-approved labeled duration of treatment with those drugs ranges from one day to up to eight days. People generally treat for five days because the milk remains visually abnormal on average for five days. Dairy farmers feel like they should treat until it looks like it’s cured. But a lot of our previous work has shown that the abnormal milk appearance is from inflammation, and it’s not predictive of any outcomes like the presence of bacteria or infection recurrence. Again, there’s no benefit.

Read on MSUToday.

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Michigan State University has been advancing the common good with uncommon will for more than 165 years. One of the world's leading research universities, MSU pushes the boundaries of discovery to make a better, safer, healthier world for all while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 400 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

For MSU news on the Web, go to MSUToday. Follow MSU News on Twitter at twitter.com/MSUnews.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Dairy Science

DOI

10.3168/jds.2023-23388 

ARTICLE TITLE

Variation in Partial Direct Costs of Treating Clinical Mastitis among 37 Wisconsin Dairy Farms

 

Using ‘spent’ coffee and tea to boost shelf life and nutritional value of cakes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

 

IMAGE: THESE SPONGE CAKES, FORTIFIED WITH SPENT TEA LEAVES (LEFT) OR COFFEE GROUNDS (RIGHT), WERE MORE NUTRITIOUS AND LASTED LONGER THAN CONTROLS. view more 

CREDIT: MOHAMED MAHMOUD

On a crisp fall afternoon, there are few pairings better than a hot beverage and a sweet pastry. But what if you could use the left-over tea leaves or coffee grounds from the drink to make that tasty treat a healthier one, too? Researchers reporting in ACS Omega have done just that by incorporating spent tea or coffee powders into sponge cake batters to make a more nutritious and longer-lasting snack.

Tea and coffee are among the most-consumed beverages in the world — second only to water. In addition to providing caffeine, both are rich in bioactive substances, including antioxidants, fiber and important nutrients, including potassium and calcium. But during the process of preparing the drinks, many of these compounds are left behind, either in coffee grounds or tea leaves. Spent tea or coffee has been added to animal feeds and agricultural compost in the past, but few researchers have looked at incorporating these wastes into foods to fortify them for human consumption. So, Abdelrahman Ahmed, Khaled Ramadan, Mohamed Mahmoud and colleagues wanted to include spent tea and coffee powders in sponge cakes, as well as explore their nutritional and sensory properties and shelf lives.

To create the powders, the team brewed either black tea or Arabica coffee, then thoroughly rinsed, dried and pulverized the leftover grounds or leaves. These were then added into the flour used for sponge cake batter in different amounts, creating loaves with either 1%, 2% or 3% powder. This material gave the cakes a higher antioxidant activity and increased concentrations of important nutrients compared to control ones made with only regular flour. However, a sensory panel rated loaves with higher amounts of spent tea powder with lower sensory properties, largely because of their darkened appearance. Cakes with spent coffee powder were scored more similarly to the control loaves in terms of appearance, taste and texture. Additionally, the fortified cakes were slightly more shelf stable, and had less microbial growth after up to 14 days of storage. The researchers say that this work could help provide new pathways to recycle an otherwise wasted product and improve the nutritional value of foods.

The authors acknowledge funding from the Deputyship for Research and Innovation of the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

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JOURNAL

ACS Omega

DOI

10.1021/acsomega.3c03747 

ARTICLE TITLE

The Bioactive Substances in Spent Black Tea and Arabic Coffee Could Improve the Nutritional Value and Extend the Shelf Life of Sponge Cake after Fortification

 

Spotlight on mud snakes: Study unveils evolutionary secrets of enigmatic snake family from Southeastern Asia

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

 

IMAGE: A SPECIES OF MUD SNAKE, ENHYDRIS ENHYDRIS, FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA. view more 

CREDIT: KENNETH CHIN

LAWRENCE — A new University of Kansas genomic investigation of a group of unheralded but unique “mud snakes” from Southeast Asia is rewriting the evolutionary history of this family, named the Homalopsidae. The results just were published in the Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists. 

Species of mud snake can inhabit fresh, brackish or saltwater coastal and inland areas, mostly sleeping by day and munching on fish and crustaceans by night. Now, they've also fascinated two generations of KU researchers.

The new DNA-driven investigation by lead author Justin Bernstein, a KU Center for Genomics postdoctoral researcher, is an example of systematics: the study of how species evolve and their relationships through time. It builds on a “monumental” study of mud snakes conducted without benefit of DNA analysis in 1970 by Ko Ko Gyi. Gyi was a promising evolutionary biologist from Myanmar who conducted research in the Division of Herpetology of the KU Natural History Museum during a three-year fellowship from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

“Our new paper looks at the evolutionary relationships and history of mud snakes, which are found in primarily South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Guinea — and they're very poorly studied,” Bernstein said. “We don't know too much about them, despite decades of effort, including the efforts of Gyi, because they're kind of hard to find. They're aquatic snakes who prefer muddy environments. They're nocturnal. Very few people have studied their evolution.”

Bernstein and his co-authors shed light on mud snake evolutionary history using genomics by combining genetic analyses of older museum specimens' mitochondrial DNA with fresher genetic samples from recent field collections (which allow for much higher-resolution molecular analysis — they used data from 4,800 nuclear loci in each genome).

“If you have an animal that's been dead for days and extract DNA from that tissue, it's going to be degraded — it's not going to be high quality, which interferes with our results,” Bernstein said. “That means we either can't analyze it, or the results might be kind of weird and we can't trust them. But this idea of getting DNA from old specimens in natural history museums has really been on the rise in the last decade. While the DNA is degraded, there've been protocols in the last 10 years to get high-quality DNA out of old specimens that are over 100 years old from natural history collections.”

The researchers used the mitochondrial data from those museum-specimen samples to fill in knowledge gaps for a more accurate biogeographic history of Homalopsidae. Combining that with DNA samples from recent specimens, they reconstructed the most comprehensive family tree of Homalopsidae relationships, showing which species branched from common ancestors and roughly when.

Bernstein's co-authors were Hugo de Souza and Kartik Shanker of the Indian Institute of Science; John Murphy, Harold Voris and Sara Ruane of the Field Museum in Chicago; Edward Myers of Clemson University and the California Academy of Sciences; Sean Harrington of the University of Wyoming and American Museum of Natural History; and Rafe Brown, curator-in-charge at the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum and professor of ecology & evolutionary biology.

“Following up on Gyi's pioneering and foundational work, Justin has been able to avail of a technological breakthrough, which we refer to now as 'museumomics' — the extraction and sequencing of degraded DNA, even from very old formalin-preserved specimens that were preserved dozens to hundreds of years ago,” said Brown, who served as an “outside” member of Bernstein's doctoral committee at Rutgers. “Obviously, the quality of that highly degraded DNA is variable, but new genomic sequencing technologies, bioinformatic tools, and diligent studies on the part of museum biologists have developed best practices for reconstructing highly fragmented genomes of specimens that were preserved upwards of a century ago. Justin successfully harnessed these new state-of-the-art tools, but also brought his own research 'full circle,' historically following up on Gyi’s work.”

The new paper shows one long-held concept regarding mud snakes was incorrect. For years, scientists (including Bernstein) thought ice age fluctuations in sea level might have acted as a “species pump” that drove diversification of the mud snakes. Indeed, much regional biodiversity can be traced to sea level rise and fall. But the new paper shows, “Pleistocene sea level changes and habitat specificity did not primarily lead to the extant species richness of Homalopsidae.”

Instead, Bernstein and his colleagues believe a more likely driver of mud snake species richness happened around 20 million years earlier, during the Oligocene, when sliding tectonic plates and shifting rivers in Southeast Asia might have severed and reestablished gene flow repeatedly between mud snake groups, driving diversification.

“Although we can never prove what did happen, exactly, to trigger diversification in mud snakes, we can rule out, or reject, some previously articulated hypotheses,” Bernstein said. “Because we found strong statistical support for diversification pre-dating Pleistocene sea level fluctuations by 15-20 million years, we need to look to alternative explanations, or novel ways of interpreting the production of biodiversity.”

Bernstein and Brown are quick to point to the pioneering work on mud snakes performed 50 years ago by Gyi, whose work not only figured into the new paper but had several ideas confirmed by later DNA testing.

“Gyi completed a monumental work on this group of snakes, more than 50 years ago, and without the benefit of molecular analysis,” Brown said. “That, in and of itself, is quite an accomplishment — his work was thoroughly comprehensive for the time, he really made the most of the available technologies, such as detailed X-rays of the skulls of all the species in this mysterious group of snakes, and he totally took the study of the evolutionary relationships of mud snakes 'from zero to 60' in his 1970 monograph. I know his adviser, the late Bill Duellman, was heartbroken to find out that Gyi passed away unexpectedly back in Myanmar, shortly after he left KU. But, here at KU, we still honor revisit and celebrate Ko Ko Gyi’s unique contributions, even to this day, and his work is continued on by Field Museum of Natural History researchers John Murphy and Harold K. Voris — and now by Justin Bernstein.”

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JOURNAL

Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists

DOI

10.18061/bssb.v2i1.9393 

 

Spina bifida congress catalyzes global collaboration to improve patient care

Supplement to the Journal of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine represents the international effort addressing this complex medical condition

Peer-Reviewed Publication

IOS PRESS

 

IMAGE: A SUPPLEMENT TO THE JOURNAL OF PEDIATRIC REHABILITATION MEDICINE PRESENTS A COMPENDIUM OF ABSTRACTS FROM THE 2023 WORLD CONGRESS ON SPINA BIFIDA RESEARCH AND CARE. view more 

CREDIT: JOURNAL OF PEDIATRIC REHABILITATION MEDICINE.

Amsterdam, September 21, 2023 – A supplement to the Journal of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine (JPRM) published by IOS Press, presents a compendium of abstracts from the 2023 World Congress on Spina Bifida Research and Care. The issue not only serves as a repository, but also as a catalyst to continue the international dialog on research, practical challenges, and real-life solutions for individuals living with spina bifida (SB), their families, and care partners.

According to co-Guest Editor Jonathan Castillo, MD, MPH, Chief of Developmental Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, University of Nebraska College of Medicine, Omaha, at this year's Congress the unmistakable spirit of an international community dedicated to SB care became manifest.

Dr. Castillo explains: "There are many innovative research activities in nearly all aspects of SB care across numerous countries around the globe. From prenatal repair to adult care, both SB care and research are rapidly increasing in complexity. The involvement of the SB community is becoming more and more evident among investigational activities."

The 2023 World Congress attracted an unprecedented number of thought leaders from more than 100 health and research institutions across 18 countries. As the only conference dedicated solely to SB, it showcased the landscape of research and addressed gaps and opportunities in SB care. It included 135 abstract presentations and another 89 abstract posters. The abstracts, and ultimately the larger work they represent, are anticipated to continue to shape the future of spina bifida care for years to come.

On behalf of the Congress' organizing body, the Spina Bifida Association, co-Guest Editor of the issue, Judy Thibadeau, RN, MN, Director of Research and Services, Spina Bifida Association, adds: "The World Congress, designed for researchers, healthcare providers, and individuals living with SB, is a forum to make new connections, develop relationships across disciplines, establish collaborations for future research projects, and discuss the research driving the care for those with SB."

Topics in this special collection of abstracts include urology, neurosurgery, global health, prenatal surgery, and transition to adult care, among others. SB care has required fresh approaches to address its many emerging challenges amidst the global community.

"Ultimately, through the dissemination of this corpus of abstracts, we hope that professionals will be aided and inspired to continue to improve the education, advocacy, and care among the many communities of individuals affected with SB globally," commented co-Guest Editor Tim Brei, MD, Spina Bifida Association, Arlington, VA, and Department of Pediatrics, Division of Developmental Medicine, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and the University of Washington School of Medicine.

A special emphasis at this year’s Congress was education and employment to improve quality of life. The new evidence presented sharply underscored the high prevalence of underemployment and the paucity of post-secondary education among individuals living with SB. The numerous findings that echo these findings ultimately highlighted the importance of early interventions and research activities focused on issues related to cognition and early developmental milestones in the lives of individuals with SB.

“Sustaining the international dialog that took place at the World Congress will be essential in mitigating the loss of momentum in the hard-fought collaboration now created,” adds co-Guest Editor Heidi Castillo, MD, Department of Pediatrics, Developmental Medicine, Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, University of Nebraska College of Medicine, Omaha. “We all would agree that more significant progress is made when we work synergistically; yet continuing the multicenter outreach between conferences requires dedicated energy and vision. It is our hope that a new generation of professionals will leverage today’s technology to remain in close contact moving forward.”

Dr. Jonathan Castillo observes: “In our current global context, neither research nor advocacy is done in a vacuum. From clinical care to SB-related education, the value and necessity of our international community of professionals is self-evident. Therefore, it is my hope that activities such as this World Congress will continue to pave a path forward for true international collaboration.”

JPRM's Editor-in-Chief Elaine Pico, MD, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, is delighted to have been able to publish these abstracts as a supplemental issue to the journal: "The abstracts add so much to our spina bifida literature and truly represent a global effort to address a complex medical condition." 

Spina bifida (split spine) is a birth defect that occurs when an embryo's neural tube is developing but does not form properly. The neural tube eventually becomes the baby's brain, spinal cord and the tissues enclosing them. Although the exact cause of spina bifida is still unknown, it is believed that a complex mix of both genetic and environmental factors act together to cause the condition. Folic acid supplementation in the child-bearing years is known to decrease the risk.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Abstracts of the 2023 World Congress on Spina Bifida Research and Care

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Sep-2023

 

Safer neighborhoods may mitigate risk of child abuse

Improving the built environment and expanding housing services in low-incoming communities are protective factors against child abuse, Rutgers study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Researchers have long suspected that neighborhoods can be a source of risk or protection for child well-being. A new Rutgers study supports this assumption and finds that when parents feel higher levels of stress or hopelessness about their surroundings, they may have a more difficult time caring for their children.

 

“To get the best outcomes for kids and to elicit the best parenting, families need a safe, stable, stimulating environment, both at home and in the surrounding community,” said Katherine Marcal, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Social Work and coauthor of the study published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.

 

“But if you live in a neighborhood where you can’t go outside, can’t go to a park or can’t walk down the sidewalk because there are drug dealers or trash, then families are cooped up in stressful conditions. This stress can make maltreatment more likely to occur.”

 

Most previous work has focused only on residents’ views of neighborhood quality and safety. By examining both parent and outsider perspectives, the researchers were able to substantiate a link between neighborhood disorder and child maltreatment.

 

Using data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal birth cohort study of children born in large United States cities between 1998 and 2000, Marcal and colleagues sought to assess the link between neighborhood conditions at child age 3 and child maltreatment at age 5.

 

As part of the well-being study, mothers reported on how often they encountered drug activity, gang violence and other dangerous elements in their community. Answers ranged from “never” to “frequently.” In the same study, outsiders recorded physical qualities such as vacant buildings, abandoned cars, trash and other signs of physical deterioration in the neighborhoods where mothers lived.

 

Marcal and her colleagues then assessed the relationship between these neighborhood factors with subsequent child maltreatment behaviors.

 

The researchers found that resident and outsider perceptions of neighborhood disorder were independently related to the likelihood of physical abuse. Additionally, resident perceptions of neighborhood disorder were associated with greater likelihood of psychological abuse.

 

The findings have significant implications for child welfare strategies, Marcal said. Improving the built environment, reducing poverty and providing adequate housing and housing services could help reduce maltreatment risks in low-income communities, the researchers wrote.

 

“We’re definitely gaining a better understanding of how stress and hardship affects behaviors,” said Marcal. “Child abuse isn't just a simple matter of bad people being bad parents.”

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JOURNAL

Child Abuse & Neglect

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106331 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Neighborhoods and child abuse: Multiple informant perspectives

 

Penn Medicine develops mRNA vaccine against Lyme disease-causing bacteria

Pre-clinical research indicates the experimental vaccine shows promise for reducing the cases of Lyme disease

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

PHILADELPHIA— An experimental mRNA vaccine provides protection in preclinical animal models against infection from Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Results from these preclinical animal models suggest that the vaccine prevents the development of Lyme disease and may represent a powerful tool in reducing the number of Lyme disease cases.

The bacteria that causes Lyme disease is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected ticks, and can cause fever, headache, fatigue, and a skin rash. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. Most cases of Lyme disease can be treated successfully with a few weeks of antibiotics, but some individuals develop post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS), which can cause long-lasting symptoms like severe joint pain and neurocognitive issues. While there are existing vaccines against Lyme disease for dogs, there is not currently one approved for routine use in humans.

“Bacteria are more complex organisms than viruses, and therefore it can be more challenging to develop effective vaccines against them,” said senior author, Norbert Pardi, PhD, an assistant professor of Microbiology. “Here we were able to identify a target for a mRNA vaccine that shows promising results for preventing B. burgdorferi infection in animal models.”

The vaccine, described recently in Cell Press, uses the same messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology employed in the Pfizer and Moderna SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, which was pioneered at Penn. Along with mRNA vaccine pioneer Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research and director of Vaccine Research at Penn Medicine, Pardi and his laboratory identified one of the proteins in  B. burgdorferi that elicit a potent immune response, called outer surface protein A (OspA). OspA is a conserved protein in the multiple strains of B. burgdorferi, making it an ideal target for preventing an initial B. burgdorferi infection from progressing to Lyme disease.

Tests in animal models showed that the mRNA vaccine targeting OspA induced a strong antigen-specific antibody and T-cell response after a single vaccination that could protect from infection of B. burgdorferi. What’s more, the vaccine elicited a strong memory B cell response, which can be activated much later to help prevent infection by B. burgdorferi long after the vaccine is administered.

“Cases of Lyme disease have been rising sharply in the United States, underscoring the need for a vaccine to protect individuals from infection,” said Pardi. “The mRNA technology shows great promise for use in developing a vaccine that may prevent Lyme disease and subsequent development of the debilitating symptoms of PTLDS.”

This research was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01AI146101, R01AI153064, AI126033, AI165499, AI138949, R01AI142572, R21AI137433, R01AI153064 and R01AI168312), the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Emerging Pathogens Program, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF1012376).

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Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.

The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $550 million awarded in the 2022 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts” in medicine, Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that have shaped modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities stretch from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. These include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Health, Penn Medicine Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.

Penn Medicine is an $11.1 billion enterprise powered by more than 49,000 talented faculty and staff.

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JOURNAL

Cell

DOI

10.1016/j.ymthe.2023.07.022 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Development of an mRNA-lipid nanoparticle vaccine against Lyme disease

 

TEAM-UP together awards 62 scholarships to Black undergraduates in physics, astronomy

Scholarship program doubles recipients in second year, fostering culture of inclusion, support, and success for Black and African American undergraduate students in physics and astronomy

Grant and Award Announcement

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

 

IMAGE: TEAM-UP TOGETHER ENCOURAGES MORE YOUNG BLACK AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS TO FOLLOW THEIR PASSION FOR SCIENCE. view more 

CREDIT: AIP

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20, 2023 – TEAM-UP Together is pleased to announce its second cohort of scholars: 62 students who will each receive $10,000 for the 2023-24 academic year. Among these high-achieving students, 15 are second-time award recipients. By offering financial support to promising undergraduates, TEAM-UP Together encourages more young Black and African American students to follow their passion for science.

“Because of [this scholarship], I can pursue my career in physics,” said TEAM-UP Together scholar Omokhuwele Umoru, a senior physics major at Texas Southern University. “It will help with my tuition, books, and conferences. As opposed to picking up shifts on campus, I’m able to work on research and finish my senior thesis.” 

Umoru spends much of her free time mentoring and tutoring other students to encourage them to stay in STEM.

“Mentorship is a passion of mine,” Umoru said. “When I came in as a freshman, I didn’t have much support. But then, when I found mentors like my advisor, I realized how much one person can make an impact on your journey and change the entire trajectory of your life for the better.”

The TEAM-UP Together awards are part of a multimillion-dollar scholarship program that provides direct funding and support to African American undergraduate students majoring in physics and astronomy. A collective action initiative, TEAM-UP Together is a partnership between the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Astronomical Society, the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, and the Society of Physics Students.

“I have always loved science,” said Nijai Dixon, a TEAM-UP Together scholar earning dual degrees in engineering and physics from Clark Atlanta University. “It was my favorite subject in grade school. Science is the base for everything around us, particularly physics.”

Dixon recognizes how physics informs our understanding of energy production and hopes to use this knowledge to advance a sustainable future, but her path to achieving higher education has been challenging.

“It is a heavy burden to be the sole contributor to my education,” Dixon said. “I knew this early on and have been proactive in seeking external funds to be able to afford it all. I found the TEAM-UP Together scholarship through a web page posting and applied immediately.

“Though I went through and over many hurdles to get to this place, I have remained in school and did everything to continue my education. I can proudly say that this is my last year as an undergraduate student, and it is solely due to programs like TEAM-UP Together.”

Scholarship awardees become members of the Society of Physics Students and will also gain access to professional development opportunities, mentoring, training, conference travel funding, and more through the TEAM-UP Together community. 

“TEAM-UP Together is a group effort, a collective action of AIP federation member organizations,” said Michael Moloney, CEO of AIP. “Through this collective action and connection, we are building clearer pathways to success so more Black undergraduates can thrive, earn their degrees, and become change-makers in our scientific enterprise.”

TEAM-UP Together has two overarching strategies to support the mission of cultivating a more inclusive, diverse field. The student program provides direct funding, professional development, and other support for Black and African American physics and astronomy undergraduate students. The departmental program provides funding for physics and astronomy departmental efforts and programs that drive systemic change and prioritize and support successful outcomes for Black and African American undergraduates.

“We take a multipronged, multilayered approach to achieving our mission,” said Arlene Modeste Knowles, TEAM-UP Together program manager. “Our programs empower stakeholders across the scientific ecosystem to catalyze systemic change and enhance the lived experiences of Black students in physics and astronomy.”

Applications for the Fall 2024 semester will be available Nov. 15, 2023, and must be submitted by March 8, 2024. Scholarship awardees are encouraged to reapply in subsequent years.

TEAM-UP Together is supported by the AIP Foundation, which raises philanthropic funds for the program. The AIP Foundation has secured major donations from the Simons Foundation/Simons Foundation International and the Heising-Simons Foundation for TEAM-UP Together.

“It’s exciting for this program to double its student reach in such a short amount of time and support so many deserving students,” added Knowles. “This was made possible due to the leadership and vision of our partner organizations and sponsors, all dedicated to creating impactful change.”

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About TEAM-UP Together

TEAM-UP Together is a collective action initiative led by the American Association of Physics Teachers, American Astronomical Society, American Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, and Society of Physics Students to support the scientific community to take the next bold step in doubling the number of African American students earning physics and astronomy bachelor’s degrees annually by 2030. To learn more, check out teamuptogether.org. TEAM-UP Together is aligned with a number of changemaking initiatives being undertaken by these partners and other AIP Member Societies and AIP Affiliates to address underrepresentation and inequity in the physical sciences.

TEAM-UP Together has also been recognized by the White House as one of the commitments in the national strategy to drive transformative equitable change in the U.S. STEMM ecosystem. As a result, the AIP Federation was selected as a founding member of the U.S. STEMM Opportunity Alliance, which aims to bring together organizations and entities from across sectors and scientific communities that are committed to developing and advancing a national strategy for achieving shared goals for equity in STEMM.

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Study: most people rely on parents for material support into adulthood

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

A new study finds that only a third of adults in the United States did not rely on their parents for some form of material support between their late teens and early 40s. The study highlights the extent to which parents and adult children rely on each other for financial assistance or a place to live well into the children’s adult years, challenging popular conventions and expectations about adulthood.

“This work really challenges the notion that complete independence is a necessary marker of adulthood,” says Anna Manzoni, co-author of the study and an associate professor of sociology at North Carolina State University. “Instead, we see a pattern of interdependency that changes over time and appears to be influenced by race and educational background.”

For the study, researchers analyzed data on 14,675 U.S. adults who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, focusing on data collected from study participants between the ages of 18 and 43.

Specifically, the researchers looked at various ways in which these adults exchanged financial and residential support with their parents over time, as well as various social and demographic factors – such as gender, race/ethnicity, and parents’ educational background.

“We found that there is no single pathway that most people take regarding independence from their parents,” Manzoni says. “Instead, people tend to fall into one of six different categories.”

The researchers call these categories “pathways of intergenerational support”:

• Complete Independence (comprising 33.44% of survey respondents) refers to children who become financially and residentially independent in their late teens or early 20s and retain that independence;
• Independent with Transitional Support (20.14%) is similar to the “Complete Independence” group, but received some financial support from parents in their 20s or early 30s;
• Gradual Independence (15.07%) refers to children who lived at home into their 20s and received significant financial support, with that support declining very gradually over time;
• High to Low Support (14.63%) refers to children who lived at home into their 20s and received significant financial support, but that support declined rapidly as the children grow older;
• Extended Interdependence (10.22%) refers to children who lived at home for extended periods of time and who not only received financial support from parents but also provided financial support to parents; and
• Boomerang (6.51%) refers to children who moved out in their late teens or early 20s, moved back in with parents in their mid-20s to early 30s, and then moved out again in their 30s or early 40s.

“We also found that these pathways are not evenly distributed across the population,” Manzoni says. “For example, Complete Independence is least likely among Black families and most likely among white families, while Extended Interdependence is least likely among White families and most likely among Hispanic families.

“Educational background also appears to be a significant factor. For example, people whose parents completed less than a high school education are far more likely to experience the Extended Interdependence pathway, while people whose parents completed a graduate or professional degree are significantly more likely to experience the Complete Independence pathway.

“Ultimately, the work drives home the extent to which access to resources and structural restraints – such as access to education – influence which pathways to independence people have access to. It also makes clear that we need to reevaluate how we think of independence and adulthood, given that only a third of study participants were able to take the Complete Independence pathway that is often presented as being the norm.”

The paper, “Pathways of Intergenerational Support Between Parents and Children Throughout Adulthood,” is published in Sociological Perspectives. First author of the paper is Jane Lee, a research associate in the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at Duke University.

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JOURNAL

Sociological Perspectives

DOI

10.1177/07311214231193342 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Pathways of Intergenerational Support Between Parents and Children Throughout Adulthood