Orcokinin neuropeptides regulate sleep in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Orcokinin neuropeptides are conserved among ecdysozoans, but their functions are incompletely understood. Here, we report a role for orcokinin neuropeptides in the regulation of sleep in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The C. elegans orcokinin peptides, which are encoded by the nlp-14 and nlp-15 genes, are necessary and sufficient for quiescent behaviors during developmentally timed sleep (DTS) as well as during stress-induced sleep (SIS). The five orcokinin neuropeptides encoded by nlp-14 have distinct but overlapping functions in the regulation of movement and defecation quiescence during SIS. We suggest that orcokinins may regulate behavioral components of sleep-like states in nematodes and other ecdysozoans.

Development of an Innovative Career Development Program for Early-Career Women Faculty.

OBJECTIVE: Our institutional Women in Medicine & Science Program (formerly the Office of Women in Medicine and Science) developed the Early Career Development Program for Women to promote the careers of women faculty. At 6 monthly sessions, participants learn relevant content (imposter syndrome, strengths, change style, career management, assertive communication, feedback, personal influence, conflict management, negotiation, importance of mentors, resilience, and self-care); exchange ideas; and expand their professional networks. Here, we report changes in participants' career skills/knowledge, confidence, and perceptions of the current environment after attending the program. METHOD: Between 2014 and 2017, participants (N = 65) completed pre- and post-program surveys that assessed career knowledge and skills, confidence, and perceptions of the current environment and provided program feedback. RESULTS: Most skills showed pre-post significant improvement. The greatest increases occurred in knowing paths to promotion, tailoring communication style, ability to manage conflict, and ability to handle personal-professional role balance. Women reported a significant increase for all items measuring confidence. Among these items, establishing networks, understanding institutional culture, providing feedback, motivating others, strategic planning, delegating, and conflict management had the largest increases. Overall, 89.3% of respondents rated the program impact as very strong/profound, 98.5% rated the concepts as essential, 95.2% rated the skills as essential, and 90.8% rated the sense of community with women in their class as very/extremely close. CONCLUSIONS: Work-related skills/knowledge, confidence, and perceptions of the current environment increased significantly among program participants. These early-career women faculty indicated that the program augmented the skills needed to develop their careers in an academic medical center.

Positive Value of a Women's Junior Faculty Mentoring Program: A Mentor-Mentee Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Recently appointed women faculty in academic medicine face many challenges during their careers and can become overwhelmed managing their multiple faculty roles as teacher, scholar, and clinician, in addition to their roles in personal life. Although a mentor can be invaluable in assisting a woman junior faculty member to adjust to faculty life and providing critical career guidance, not all medical institutions have faculty mentoring programs. We created a mentoring program specifically for our women junior faculty to address this issue at our own institution. MATERIALS AND METHODS: To assess the value of this program, we conducted a novel mentor-mentee paired-data analysis of annual surveys collected from 2010 to 2015. Of the 470 responses received, 83 were from unique mentees and 61 from unique mentors. RESULTS: Career development, research, and promotion were the top topics discussed among the mentoring pairs, followed by discussions of institutional resources and administration/service. There was high congruency among the mentoring pairs that they thought these discussions, as well as other conversations about mentee professional development and well-being, had been helpful. However in some instances, mentors felt they had not been helpful to their mentee, whereas their mentees felt otherwise; this finding speaks to the value and importance of mentees providing positive feedback to their mentors. Overall, both mentees and mentors thought that the mentees had significantly benefited from the mentorship. Unexpected outcomes of these relationships included promotion, grant applications/awards, articles, presentations, and professional memberships. The use of a Mentee Needs Assessment Form to individualize the mentoring relationship for each mentee may explain the high overall satisfaction and participant recommendations of the program. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate the value in establishing mentoring programs specifically for women faculty, especially in environments in which other mentoring opportunities do not exist.

Tales of diversity: Genomic and morphological characteristics of forty-six Arthrobacter phages.

The vast bacteriophage population harbors an immense reservoir of genetic information. Almost 2000 phage genomes have been sequenced from phages infecting hosts in the phylum Actinobacteria, and analysis of these genomes reveals substantial diversity, pervasive mosaicism, and novel mechanisms for phage replication and lysogeny. Here, we describe the isolation and genomic characterization of 46 phages from environmental samples at various geographic locations in the U.S. infecting a single Arthrobacter sp. strain. These phages include representatives of all three virion morphologies, and Jasmine is the first sequenced podovirus of an actinobacterial host. The phages also span considerable sequence diversity, and can be grouped into 10 clusters according to their nucleotide diversity, and two singletons each with no close relatives. However, the clusters/singletons appear to be genomically well separated from each other, and relatively few genes are shared between clusters. Genome size varies from among the smallest of siphoviral phages (15,319 bp) to over 70 kbp, and G+C contents range from 45-68%, compared to 63.4% for the host genome. Although temperate phages are common among other actinobacterial hosts, these Arthrobacter phages are primarily lytic, and only the singleton Galaxy is likely temperate.