Ice Cores as a Source for Antimicrobials: From Bioprospecting to Biodesign.

The golden age has passed for antibiotic discovery, and while some antibiotics are currently in various phases of clinical trials in the United States, many pharmaceutical companies have abandoned antibiotic research. With the need for antibiotics, we should expand our horizon for therapeutic mining and can look toward understudied sources such as ice cores. Ice cores contain microorganisms and genetic material that have been frozen in time for thousands of years. The antibiotics used by these organisms are encoded in their genomes, which can be unlocked, identified, and characterized with modern advances in molecular biology, genetic sequencing, various computational approaches, and established natural product discovery pipelines. While synthetic biology can be used in natural product discovery approaches, synthetic biology and bioengineering efforts can also be leveraged in the selection and biodesign of increased compound yields, potency, and stability. Here, we provide the perspective that ice cores can be a source of novel antibiotic compounds and that the tools of synthetic biology can be used to design better antimicrobials.

Re-Imagining Public Health Education: Students' Perspectives and Considerations.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the shortcomings and neglected weaknesses of public health systems have risen to the surface, emphasizing the need for new approaches to designing and delivering public health training. Higher education institutions have a critical role in advocating for societal change and sufficiently prepare the next generations of public health. Therefore, this commentary shares the unique voices of current and recently completed graduate students from public health programs across the United States in identifying areas of improvement, so that proactive steps toward refining the current landscape of public health education and training may be taken. We speak upon the inaction and accountability of public health academic spaces in dismantling the various forms of systemic oppression, such as racism, colonialism, and epistemic injustice, while encouraging prospective and current graduate colleagues to be mindful and curious to re-imagine the role of such pedagogies of public health to reduce the progressing health inequities.

Extended reality as a means to enhance public health education.

Technology has transformed the classroom and learning environments. From electronic whiteboards to tablet computers, educators now have access to a multitude of tools that enhance the learning experience. Educational technologies that rely on extended reality (XR) such as augmented and virtual reality are being used, or suggested for use, in various settings and often focus on technical fields such as medicine, dentistry, and aviation. Here, we propose that XR can be used in public health education to better prepare both undergraduate and graduate trainees for real world, complex public health scenarios that require public engagement, investigative skills, and critical decision making. Several opportunities for XR use are outlined that provide perspective on how XR can supplement traditional classroom instruction methods by providing an immersive, participatory training environment. XR offers an opportunity for public health students to gain confidence, have repeated simulated exposures in a safe and equitable environment, and build competency in critical functions they will likely perform as future public health professionals.