Montana's Early Childhood Educators: Recruiting and Retaining an Essential Workforce.

Shifting realities across the world have emphasized the need to change early childhood systems thinking. Specifically, a quality early childhood workforce was in high demand before the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to be in demand until sustainable recruitment and retention efforts are achieved. Encouraging more professionals to enter and stay in the field of early childhood education involves building an understanding of the current workforce through analyzing the influence of age, role, education, wages, and access to incentives on career motivation. In this case study, a rich description of Montana's early childhood workforce is presented along with recommendations to strengthen the state's early childhood workforce systems. Results of survey and focus group data collection and analysis confirmed the pervasive compensation disparity that exists in the early childhood workforce and revealed the need for financial incentives to pursue and attain higher education degrees to help ensure the delivery of quality early childhood education. Specific recommendations for policy change include sharing the data across other state systems and with other nations for the purpose of supporting the growth and development of the early childhood workforce in the United States and beyond. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10643-022-01308-3.

Geranyl-geraniol addition affects potency of bisphosphonates-a comparison in vitro promising a therapeutic approach for bisphosphonate-associated osteonecrosis of the jaw and oral wound healing.

PURPOSE: Analysis of the influence of geranyl-geraniol (GG) addition on four bisphosphonate derivatives regarding their influence on cell viability and migration ability of bone metabolism and endothelial cells in vitro. METHODS: Clodronate, pamidronate, ibandronate, and zoledronate were observed with and without GG addition, for their effect on human osteoblasts (HOB), normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDF), human endothelial progenitor cells (EPC), and endothelial cells of the human umbilical cord (HUVEC) using migration-, MTT-, and colony-forming cell assays. RESULTS: Data pointed to a depressing effect of all bisphosphonates on the migration ability of NHDF, EPC, and HOB. MTT assay demonstrated a decreased cell viability of HUVEC of all bisphosphonates in a 50 µM concentration and of NHDF when treated with 50 µM of clodronate, ibandronate, or zoledronate. Tested drugs showed a depressing effect on colony-forming potential of EPC even in a 5 µM concentration. GG addition demonstrated an attenuate impact on bisphosphonate effect on all primary cell cultures, respectively. CONCLUSION: In vitro comparison showed that the addition of GG weakens the effect of all bisphosphonates examined. It supports investigations that suggest GG to be able to prevent bisphosphonate-associated osteonecrosis of the jaw (BP-ONJ) in vivo. Future clinical trials may discover the local therapeutic use of GG for the prevention of BP-ONJ.

A stage-specific functional role of the leucine zipper transcription factor c-Maf in lung Th2 cell differentiation.

The transcription factor c-Maf controls IL-4 gene expression in CD4(+) T cells, and its expression is up-regulated in human asthmatic airways after allergen challenge. In the present study, we addressed the role of c-Maf in asthma by studying transgenic (Tg) mice overexpressing c-Maf in CD4(+) T cells under the control of the CD2 promoter. As shown, lung CD4(+) T cells of c-maf-Tg mice produced more IL-5 at the early stage (day 2) of culture in the presence of IL-4 than wild-type control cells. Consistently, c-maf-Tg mice spontaneously showed increased IL-5 expression and eosinophils in the bronchial alveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and activated IL-5 signal transduction via Raf-1 and Ras in lung eosinophils. Finally, IL-13 was suppressed in the BALF of c-maf-Tg mice and in supernatants of Tg lung CD4(+) T cells cultured in the presence of IL-2. Consistently, retroviral overexpression of c-Maf suppressed IL-13 production in developing lung Th2 cells. In summary, c-Maf induces IL-5 production in lung CD4(+) T cells at an early stage, but along with IL-2 suppresses IL-13 production in differentiating lung Th2 cells, thereby explaining the finding that overexpression of c-Maf does not cause airway hyperresponsiveness, a hallmark feature of asthma.