The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (about surgery and basic research). A perspective for a new approach for pursuing an academic career (also in Italy)

Applications and indications of assisted reproduction technology are expanding, but every new approach is under scrutiny and thorough consideration. Recently, groups of assisted reproduction experts have presented data that support the clinical use of mosaic preimplantation embryos at the blastocyst stage, previously excluded from transfer. In the light of published contemporary studies, with or without clinical outcomes, there is growing evidence that mosaic embryos have the capacity for further in utero development and live birth. Our in-depth discussion will enable readers to better comprehend current developments. This expansion into the spectrum of ART practices requires further evidence and further theoretical documentation, basic research, and ethical support. Therefore, if strict criteria for selecting competent mosaic preimplantation embryos for further transfer, implantation, fetal growth, and healthy birth are applied, fewer embryos will be excluded, and more live births will be achieved. Our review aims to discuss the recent literature on the transfer of mosaic preimplantation embryos. It also highlights controversies as far as the clinical utilization of preimplantation embryos concerns. Finally, it provides the appropriate background to elucidate and highlight cellular and genetic aspects of this novel direction.

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Coordinating a new approach to basic research into Parkinson’s disease

eLife ◽

10.7554/elife.51167 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Randy Schekman ◽

Ekemini AU Riley

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Basic Research ◽

Open Science ◽

Research Community ◽

International Network ◽

New Approach ◽

Science Practices ◽

New Therapies

The Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative is building an international network of researchers to improve our understanding of the biology underlying Parkinson's disease. Developing a better understanding of how the disease originates and progresses will, we hope, lead to new therapies. The ASAP initiative will incentivize collaboration between the existing PD research community and other researchers and will be committed to open-science practices.

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The Power of Extrapolating Basic Laboratory Principles: The Behavioural-Cognitive Approach of Implosive Therapy

Behaviour Change ◽

10.1017/s0813483900005490 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 154-161 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Donald J. Levis

Keyword(s):

Basic Research ◽

New Technique ◽

Cognitive Approach ◽

New Approach ◽

Traumatic Memories ◽

Recent Modification ◽

A New Technique ◽

Implosive Therapy

The purpose of this article is to emphasise the importance of basic research in the advancement of theory and clinical technique. To illustrate the power of such a strategy the theory and imagery technique of Implosive (Flooding) Therapy will be briefly described along with a recent modification that has resulted in the development of a new technique which is capable of reactivating all past traumatic memories responsible for the development and maintenance of psychopathology. This new approach has resulted in a number of important discoveries that challenge many currently held beliefs.

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The Middle East in World History: Spatial and Temporal Reorderings

Review of Middle East Studies ◽

10.1017/rms.2020.23 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 54 (1) ◽

pp. 133-148

Author(s):

Carter Vaughn Findley

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Middle East ◽

Academic Career ◽

Middle Eastern ◽

World History ◽

Basic Research ◽

First Year ◽

Ottoman History ◽

History Of ◽

Ex Nihilo

In addition to my primary research specialty in Ottoman history, I prepared to teach the history of the Islamic Middle East from my first year in graduate school onward, and I did so throughout my academic career, including preparing graduate students to teach Ottoman and modern Middle Eastern history. My start in world history came later. Around the time I got tenure, my department decided, for comically bad reasons, to create a single world history course on the twentieth century. Having never witnessed creation ex nihilo in a department meeting before, I volunteered for the course. The department's reasons for creating the course were farcical, but I recognized it as a valuable intellectual property. In the existing state of the pedagogical literature, no one had paused to analyze the issues that made the twentieth century into more than the last chapter of a comprehensive world history book. A couple of years later, just as we finished teaching the course for the first time, an editor came along and asked if I had ever thought about writing a textbook. Yes, I had thought about it. Only I had assumed many years would pass before anyone would ask. Such were the origins of my coauthored Twentieth-Century World, having gone through seven editions from 1986 until 2010. It would be an understatement to say that radical revisions were required for each new edition, given not only the lengthening chronology but also the often radical revisions and improvements in the literature. If this presentation sounds more like a memoir than a research paper, the reason is that my dual lives in Middle Eastern and world history interacted in the pedagogical realm, raising issues that redirected my basic research and theoretical inquiries along the way.

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Fibre Reinforced Concrete Class Control via Fib Model Code 2010 Approach

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.1119.672 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 1119 ◽

pp. 672-676

Author(s):

Vladimir E. Rusanov

Keyword(s):

Reinforced Concrete ◽

Synthetic Fibre ◽

Wide Spectrum ◽

Basic Research ◽

Plain Concrete ◽

Fibre Reinforced Concrete ◽

New Approach ◽

Model Code ◽

Different Types ◽

Model Code 2010

Fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) has wide spectrum of advantages in tunnelling. Post-cracking behaviour of FRC wasn’t taken into account by Russian engineers while structural design led to underestimation of material abilities. New approach is based on fib Model Code 2010, which provides residual tensile strength Class of FRC. Research Center “FRC” (http://rcfrc.com/) carried out tests with specimens of different types of FRC, which supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research. Research involved different specimens – plain concrete and FRC with macro-synthetic fibre of different dosage and types. The results showed the efficiency of each type of fibre. The Class of FRC was defined for each specimen series according to results.

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Is there any hope for ‘truth’ and ‘progress’ in theological thinking today?

Verbum et Ecclesia ◽

10.4102/ve.v38i1.1792 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen

Keyword(s):

Academic Career ◽

Research Question ◽

Basic Research ◽

Theory Of Science ◽

Continuity And Change ◽

Basic Understanding ◽

Interdisciplinary Character ◽

Deep Conviction ◽

Intellectual Context ◽

Theological Thinking

To provide the historical-theological background to his own intellectual pursuit of interdisciplinary theology, Wentzel van Huyssteen tells his story that was prompted in his student days at Stellenbosch by the then young, newly appointed lecturer Johan Heyns. It sprung from the basic understanding and confrontation with the question: How is theology to be understood as a science? The very question became Van Huyssteen’s most basic research question for his academic career, guided by the deep conviction that Heyns adamantly proclaimed, namely that the content and methodology of theology could never be deduced from ‘the truth of revelation’ itself, but would in fact always be shaped by ‘a general theory of science’. For Van Huyssteen, this conviction pointed directly to the tentative and hypothetical nature of all theology. It helped him to put into words what would eventually become the defining character of his own theology, namely seeing the intellectual context of theology as a deeply cultural and contextual venture in which the sciences, politics and philosophy would play a defining role. This role is explicated in the article by focusing firstly on the structure of theological solutions, secondly on interdisciplinarity as challenge, subsequently on continuity and change, and lastly on problem-solving within a post-foundationalist theology.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: A post-foundational approach argues for the interdisciplinary character of theology as science. The approach transcends traditional boundaries of theological, philosophical and social reflection, establishing an intellectual context of theology as a deeply cultural and contextual venture.

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John (Jake) Macmillan. 13 September 1924—12 May 2014

Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society ◽

10.1098/rsbm.2020.0029 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Thomas J. Simpson ◽

Christine L. Willis

Keyword(s):

Multidisciplinary Approach ◽

Higher Plants ◽

Academic Career ◽

Basic Research ◽

Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry ◽

Fungal Metabolites ◽

Doctoral Research ◽

Research Associate ◽

Organic Chemist ◽

Set Up

Jake MacMillan, although by training and personal acclamation ‘first and foremost an organic chemist’, was one of the UK's most brilliant interdisciplinary scientists. A pioneer in the field of bioorganic chemistry, he was practising what we would now call synthetic biology 40 years before the term was coined. A young PhD student or post-doctoral research associate joining his group would mix with chemists, plant physiologists, fungal geneticists and enzymologists as well as being exposed to internationally leading natural product chemistry, advanced organic synthesis, mechanistic studies and state-of-the-art analytical methods, including emerging techniques such as gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. His multidisciplinary approach to tackling major problems at the chemistry–biology interface was undoubtedly influenced by his early research career working in the famed Butterfield (later Akers) Laboratory set up by ICI as a basic research establishment in the grounds of a Victorian house, The Frythe. There, he isolated and elucidated the structure of the important antifungal agent griseofulvin, before initiating his life-long interest in the gibberellins. These diterpenoid natural products were originally isolated as phytotoxic fungal metabolites, before their role as essential plant-growth regulators present in all higher plants was established. He moved to Bristol in 1963 to commence an academic career as a lecturer at the relatively advanced age of 39. He became the world authority on the chemistry, biosynthesis and biology of the gibberellins, rising through the academic ranks to be awarded a personal chair in 1978.

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The Multiple Chemicals and Actions Model of carcinogenesis. A possible new approach to developing prevention strategies for environmental carcinogenesis

Human & Experimental Toxicology ◽

10.1191/0960327105ht559oa ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 24 (11) ◽

pp. 547-558 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Jonathan M Battershill

Keyword(s):

Basic Research ◽

Current Approach ◽

Hazard Identification ◽

Rapid Expansion ◽

Environmental Carcinogens ◽

Prevention Strategies ◽

New Approach ◽

Suggested Strategy ◽

Carcinogenic Process

The number of definite and probable human chemical carcinogens identified by IARC approaches between 1987 and June 2004 is reported to be 50 agents. However, overall, given the rapid expansion in the number of chemicals in use, the throughput of the current approach to identifying potential environmental carcinogens is low. The long-term rodent bioassay, a key part of the current approach, identifies many chemicals which eventually turn out to be irrelevant for human health with regard to cancer. A new approach is suggested which focuses on identifying the potency of environmental mixtures for induction of toxicological changes relevant to carcinogenesis (e.g., cell proliferation, chronic inflammation, inhibition of apoptosis, mutagenicity). Details regarding a suggested strategy for prioritization of mixtures are provided with more detailed information regarding mutagenicity as an end point. The long-term rodent bioassay is not included in the proposal (although it is acknowledged that it will continue to be important in premarketing regulatory schemes) for hazard identification. The Multiple Chemicals and Actions Model (MCAM) is developed. In this model the chemical mixtures in the environment act via a number of mechanisms as ‘effectors’ or ‘inhibitors’ of a multistage carcinogenic process. Identifying effectors and inhibitors of the rate-limiting step would be important for preventive strategies. Genetic polymorphisms act as modulators of effector and inhibitor mixtures. It is suggested that the MCAM model could be used in public education programmes to help inform on public health issues regarding cancer and to help avoid future scares which tend to focus on single chemicals. It is acknowledged that there would need to be basic research undertaken to generate appropriate data to support the application of the proposal before it could be used in cancer prevention strategies.

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A nationwide assessment of perceptions of research-intense academic careers among predoctoral MD and MD-PhD trainees

Journal of Clinical and Translational Science ◽

10.1017/cts.2020.18 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (4) ◽

pp. 307-316

Author(s):

Jennifer M. Kwan ◽

Omar Toubat ◽

Andrew M. Harrison ◽

Megan Riddle ◽

Brian Wu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Translational Research ◽

Academic Career ◽

Basic Research ◽

Career Pathways ◽

Career Intentions ◽

Chi Square ◽

Career Selection ◽

Research Education ◽

Career Intention ◽

Research Careers

AbstractIntroduction:While previous studies have described career outcomes of physician-scientist trainees after graduation, trainee perceptions of research-intensive career pathways remain unclear. This study sought to identify the perceived interests, factors, and challenges associated with academic and research careers among predoctoral MD trainees, MD trainees with research-intense (>50%) career intentions (MD-RI), and MD-PhD trainees.Methods:A 70-question survey was administered to 16,418 trainees at 32 academic medical centers from September 2012 to December 2014. MD vs. MD-RI (>50% research intentions) vs. MD-PhD trainee responses were compared by chi-square tests. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify variables associated with academic and research career intentions.Results:There were 4433 respondents (27% response rate), including 2625 MD (64%), 653 MD-RI (15%), and 856 MD-PhD (21%) trainees. MD-PhDs were most interested in pursuing academia (85.8%), followed by MD-RIs (57.3%) and MDs (31.2%). Translational research was the primary career intention for MD-PhD trainees (42.9%). Clinical duties were the primary career intention for MD-RIs (51.9%) and MDs (84.2%). While 39.8% of MD-PhD respondents identified opportunities for research as the most important career selection factor, only 12.9% of MD-RI and 0.5% of MD respondents shared this perspective. Interest in basic research, translational research, clinical research, education, and the ability to identify a mentor were each independently associated with academic career intentions by multivariate regression.Conclusions:Predoctoral MD, MD-RI, and MD-PhD trainees are unique cohorts with different perceptions and interests toward academic and research careers. Understanding these differences may help to guide efforts to mentor the next generation of physician-scientists.

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New Opportunities from the Cancer Metabolome

Clinical Chemistry ◽

10.1373/clinchem.2012.184598 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 59 (1) ◽

pp. 138-146 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

Omran Abu Aboud ◽

Robert H Weiss

Keyword(s):

Basic Research ◽

Cancer Diagnostics ◽

The Body ◽

Metabolomic Profile ◽

New Approach ◽

Intensive Use ◽

Potential Problems ◽

Study Participants ◽

Druggable Targets ◽

Standard Techniques

BACKGROUND Metabolomics, the study of all metabolites produced in the body, which often includes flora and drug metabolites, is the omics approach that can be considered most closely related to a patient's phenotype. Metabolomics has a great and largely untapped potential in the field of oncology, and the analysis of the cancer metabolome to identify biofluid markers and novel druggable targets can now be undertaken in many research laboratories. CONTENT The cancer metabolome has been used to identify and begin to evaluate potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets in a variety of malignancies, including breast, prostate, and kidney cancer. We discuss the several standard techniques for metabolite separation and identification, with their potential problems and drawbacks. Validation of biomarkers and targets may entail intensive use of labor and technology and generally requires a large number of study participants as well as laboratory validation studies. The field of pharmacometabolomics, in which specific therapies are chosen on the basis of a patient's metabolomic profile, has shown some promise in the translation of metabolomics into the arena of personalized medicine. SUMMARY The relatively new approach using metabolomics has just begun to enter the mainstream of cancer diagnostics and therapeutics. As this field advances, metabolomics will take its well-deserved place next to genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics in both clinical and basic research in oncology.

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