Loss of Quaking RNA binding protein disrupts the expression of genes associated with astrocyte maturation in mouse brain.

Quaking RNA binding protein (QKI) is essential for oligodendrocyte development as myelination requires myelin basic protein mRNA regulation and localization by the cytoplasmic isoforms (e.g., QKI-6). QKI-6 is also highly expressed in astrocytes, which were recently demonstrated to have regulated mRNA localization. Here, we define the targets of QKI in the mouse brain via CLIPseq and we show that QKI-6 binds 3'UTRs of a subset of astrocytic mRNAs. Binding is also enriched near stop codons, mediated partially by QKI-binding motifs (QBMs), yet spreads to adjacent sequences. Using a viral approach for mosaic, astrocyte-specific gene mutation with simultaneous translating RNA sequencing (CRISPR-TRAPseq), we profile ribosome associated mRNA from QKI-null astrocytes in the mouse brain. This demonstrates a role for QKI in stabilizing CLIP-defined direct targets in astrocytes in vivo and further shows that QKI mutation disrupts the transcriptional changes for a discrete subset of genes associated with astrocyte maturation.

"Personal excellence" as a value for health professionals: a patient's perspective.

PURPOSE: To bring to the attention of health care professionals a framework and set of ideas for conceptualising a typical patient's experience and ways to respond out of a subjective inner quality called personal excellence. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: This paper essays the viewpoint of the author on a selection of his experiences as a patient over 19 hospital admissions during his lifetime. He integrates these findings with his understanding of personal construct psychology, the psychology of change and the Greek philosophical concept of "arete" or excellence. FINDINGS: The paper offers a theory that patients experience three kinds of emotions or anguish when admitted to hospitals called threat, fear and anxiety. These three ways of interpreting an experience of change are based on the diagnostic constructs of transition from the psychology of personal constructs or the psychology of change. The paper asserts that a holistic approach is more likely to be delivered by health care staff with a calling than those who are merely doing a job or pursuing a career. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This paper is significant in that it draws on authentic experiences of a patient that are conceptualised into a coherent framework and linked to a well-accepted theory within the science of psychology. Further it offers an alternative to essays on quality that are confined to objective features only. It offers a way, via the philosophical concept of "arete" to tap into the subjective attitudinal dimension of quality that is often the lever or more often the impediment to enabling quality improvement programmes to be effective.

Challenge-based instruction in biomedical engineering: a scalable method to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of teaching and learning in biomedical engineering.

Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University, the University of Texas and the Harvard/MIT Health Sciences Technology Program have collaborated since 1999 to develop means to improve bioengineering education. This effort, funded by the National Science Foundation as the VaNTH Engineering Research Center in Bioengineering Educational Technologies, has sought a synthesis of learning science, learning technology, assessment and the domains of bioengineering in order to improve learning by bioengineering students. Research has shown that bioengineering educational materials may be designed to emphasize challenges that engage the student and, when coupled with a learning cycle and appropriate technologies, can lead to improvements in instruction.

Roles for learning sciences and learning technologies in biomedical engineering education: a review of recent advances.

Education in biomedical engineering offers a number of challenges to all constituents of the educational process-faculty, students, and employers of graduates. Although biomedical engineering educational systems have been under development for 40 years, interest in and the pace of development of these programs has accelerated in recent years. New advances in the learning sciences have provided a framework for the reexamination of instructional paradigms in biomedical engineering. This work shows that learning environments should be learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered. In addition, learning technologies offer the potential to achieve this environment with efficiency. Biomedical engineering educators are in a position to design and implement new learning systems that can take advantage of advances in learning science, learning technology, and reform in engineering education.