STEM education tends to avoid extensive discussion of ethics on topics such as climate change, treatment of disease, and nutrition. However, as textbooks set the foundation for curricula, it is crucial that they allow students to think critically about the ethics of performing science and societal impacts of biological research. Our work tests the hypothesis that introductory biology textbooks use predictable strategies to humanize science (e.g., inviting the reader to act like a scientist to develop a solution) and that some topics are more likely to have humanizing elements than others (e.g., some topics are better positioned to serve as launching points for instructors who seek to include humanizing elements in their class). Bringing in discussions of ethics into the science classroom is one strategy instructors can use to humanize biology. We define humanization as the act of positioning science in a social context and/or the act of discussing science through the lens of justice and/or injustice. Of the instances of humanization identified in these textbooks, ethics was mentioned in only 4.57% of these quotes. Ethics was discussed in relation to impacts on humans (41.0%), impacts on humans by humans (41.0%), and impact of humans (16.7%). Discussion of ethics was nuanced (43.6%), detailed (30.8%), and rarely included justice (10.3%) and equity/inequity (5.1%). Ethics was most commonly discussed in terms of biotechnology (38.7%), treatment of disease (12.0%), and environment (10.7%). These findings demonstrate that ethics is rarely made reference to in introductory biology textbooks, yet the field of biotechnology is at the forefront of biomedical innovation, thus having nuanced discussions about controversial subjects (e.g., CRISPR, GMOs, and eugenics) rather than only teaching what these subjects are is pertinent to the training of future scientists.

To navigate their surroundings, migratory cells respond constantly to many signals in their environment, including both chemical and electric cues. These signals are produced locally by other cells, pathogens, and in the context of electrical signals, by disruption to the normal ionic balance across cell boundaries. Disruption to this ionic balance will create a local electric field to which immune cells will respond to guide their movement and prevent infection. How cells sense or respond to this electrical cue is not known. To better understand this phenomenon, we are using HL-60 cells that are a migratory neutrophil-like human leukemia cell line, which we have found migrates to the cathodal pole of an applied DC electric field. We have identified a number of gene candidates related to glycosylation, the modification of proteins with the addition of sugar molecules, that reduce the directionality of HL-60 cells in an electric field. Using CRISPR interference to create cell lines with reduced expression (knockdown) for eleven of the gene candidates, we are studying how the loss of these genes alter migration. We used video microscopy to track their migration in 3D at different intensity levels of current to see how the loss of these genes affected cell movement when cells are exposed to an electric field. All of these knockdown lines showed marked change in the cell's response, with less persistence towards the cathode at higher currents than control HL-60 cells. Of these eleven, knockdown of UXS1, a gene that encodes for UDP-xylose that is used in the attachment of long sugar chains (glycosaminoglycans) to certain proteins on the cell surface, showed the greatest effect. Our results suggest that UXS1 is critical for neutrophils' ability to sense or respond to DC electric fields. 

Identifying risk factors for alcohol misuse among young adults is a critical public health priority given high rates of heavy drinking and alcohol-related consequences observed in this population. The field of behavioral economics has provided a set of quantifiable metrics that measure individuals’ demand for alcohol, which are important predictors of alcohol use, consequences, and response to treatment. Previous literature has also found that one’s self-reported drinking motives (e.g., drinking to cope with negative affect, to conform to peers, etc.) have important associations with drinking outcomes. Despite this literature, little is known regarding how one’s drinking motives relate to one’s demand. The study aims to investigate how different drinking motives may be differentially related to alcohol demand and whether birth sex moderates these relationships. The current study recruited 220 young adults (18-25 year-olds) from Washington state who report drinking at least twice a week and at least one recent heavy drinking episode (4+/5+ drinks for females/males). Participants completed online assessments that included the alcohol purchase task, which asked how many drinks they would hypothetically purchase and consume at various prices ranging from free to $20. Participants were also asked to report their birth sex and drinking motives (social, coping-anxiety, coping-depression, enhancement, conformity). I will conduct regression analyses to test for associations between drinking motives and alcohol demand, and to examine whether these associations are moderated by sex while controlling for age and discretionary spending. I hypothesize (1) stronger positive associations between coping motives and demand relative to other drinking motives, and (2) this relationship to be stronger for males. Results will improve our understanding of the relationship between drinking motives and demand between sexes and inform interventions focused on reducing alcohol misuse through alternate coping strategies or reducing demand.

Intermediate metabolism in cells has generally been studied without considering the arrangement of enzymes within the cell. However, recent developments have shown that many metabolic enzymes form organization systems that are made up of oligomers stacking linearly into filaments. The enzyme phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate synthetase (PRPS) makes a precursor required for all de novo nucleotide synthesis in cells, and therefore plays an important role in cellular metabolism. This project aims to characterize the PRPS protein in Xenopus tropicalis and Giardia lamblia. We hypothesize that PRPS from X. tropicalis will have similar biochemical and structural properties as compared to human PRPS, while PRPS from G. lamblia will have different biochemical and structural properties. This hypothesis is supported by the small evolutionary difference between PRPS from humans and X. tropicalis as compared to the large evolutionary difference between PRPS from humans and G. lamblia. This difference would be especially interesting to examine from the perspective of filament formations in the PRPS protein. So far, we have created the Xenopus tropicalis and Giardia lamblia plasmids by cloning. Test expressions of the X. tropicalis yielded protein expression in E. coli cell strains C43 and RIL, while test expressions for G. lamblia have been successful in C43, BL21, pLysS, and Rosetta cell strains. This demonstrates that both X. tropicalis and G. lamblia PRPS can be expressed in E. Coli strains. An analysis of X. tropicalis will allow us to test how filament formation changes with only small evolutionary differences in PRPS. It could also be used for further research in vivo using frog eggs that act as a singular cell system. If it is confirmed that the G. lamblia protein is different from human PRPS, PRPS in G. lamblia could serve as an antibiotic target since current methods of treatment for the organism are very harmful to the human microbiome.

The modern education system has the opportunity to raise students with a well-rounded, interdisciplinary knowledge base, but that does not begin until textbooks (the backbone of many science curricula) include such topics. We wondered to what extent Multiple Ways of Knowing (MWoK), particularly in the topics of religion, culture, traditional medicine, and philosophy, are represented in introductory biology textbooks. The term MWoK describes these topics and recognizes that there is more than one way to learn and understand, crediting different cultures for their scientific contributions. This study is a spin-off from a greater project in which our team scored and evaluated six introductory biology textbooks on how much and how well they included a variety of social justice topics. Using the data gathered from the aforementioned study, we categorized the instances of MWoK by frequently occuring themes - religion, culture, traditional medicine, and other. We found that across over 9670 pages, these textbooks lack adequate discussion of MWoK, with only 32 mentions. Within these few instances, only one showed themes of justice or injustice, and one demonstrated themes of equity and inequity. Textbooks alone are insufficient for implementing the diversity of science in American classrooms. We envision this research as a starting point for instructors to integrate these topics into their classes. Incorporating more involved conversations about MWoK within the context of science can act as a way to foster a more inclusive learning environment wherein all students are able to engage more meaningfully with the material. Including MWoK in biology textbooks, and thus, biology curricula, would bring the STEM classroom one step closer towards increased diversity. 

Science and biology are intextricably linked to policymaking and thus interconnected to justice and injustice in our society. Yet, STEM education fails to emphasize this perspective. Our purpose in this research was to find ways undergraduate biology students can apply their scientific knowledge in the pursuit of justice, such that they can go beyond reading the text, thinking critically and answering questions applying science to the policymaking process. Accordingly, we asked, to what level of humanization do undergraduate biology textbooks frame scientific influence on policy as a tool for achieving justice? To investigate this, we, along with a larger team, analyzed six popular introductory biology textbooks searching for excerpts that contextualized science in society through ideas such as government policy or the judicial system. If an excerpt was found to contain these topics, it was coded based on topic and degree of humanization (in increasing order of humanization: none/scarce, detail, nuance, equity/inequity, or justice). For this project, we defined humanization as discussing or positioning science within the context of society or justice and/or injustice. We found that textbooks' contextualization of science within society is underdeveloped and does not foster critical thinking about the applications of science in policy and justice. Additionally, where this is addressed, there is limited depth in the text and breadth of examples. While our data suggests that these textbooks rarely contain humanizing concepts related to policy, our intent is not to suggest edits to the textbooks. Rather, we have identified trends in humanizing biology content that instructors can add to their curricula to contextualize the role of science in policymaking and justice in their classrooms. Additionally, these changes can encourage students to acknowledge the applications of their biology knowledge to policy in the pursuit of justice in society outside the classroom. 

It is important for us humans to take responsibility for how our actions have exacerbated climate change and the disproportionate effects that climate change has had and continues to have on various minority groups. Through educating students about climate change in a humanizing manner, we can hope that students will view science as a discipline willing to confront inequities to seek change. However, the textbooks commonly used in introductory biology classes fail to accurately communicate the full scope of the inequities behind who is intensifying climate change and who is the most impacted. My research serves to determine if the humanization of climate change is communicated to undergraduate students taking introductory biology through aiming to answer two important questions: To what extent are textbooks acknowledging humans’ responsibilities in the severity of climate change today and to what degree is equity/inequity discussed? In order to investigate these questions, my team and I evaluated six popular introductory biology textbooks in the United States by pulling passages that discussed the connection between climate change and society. Coded passages were evaluated on where their level of humanization of science fell on the following scale: none/scarce, detail, nuance, equity/inequity, and finally justice. Out of the 1351 total “humanizing” passages pulled from the text, only 7.8% of the quotes were categorized as relating to climate change. Of these quotes, 19% were coded as none/scarce, 60% had detail, 6.7% contained nuance, 11% discussed equity/inequity, and 4.8% included justice (sum total > 100% due to two quotes falling under multiple categories of humanization). As climate change will continue to negatively impact humans, it is important to teach students the specific inequities connected to climate change in order to spread awareness and help solve issues of justice in the living world.