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Abstract Science identity, or one's sense of recognition and competence as a scientist, is an invaluable tool for predicting student persistence and success, but is understudied among undergraduates completing preparatory work for later studies in medicine, nursing, and allied health (“pre‐health career students”). In the United States, pre‐health career students make up approximately half of all biology students and, as professionals, play important roles in caring for an aging, increasingly diverse population, managing the ongoing effects of a pandemic, and navigating socio‐political shifts in public attitudes toward science and evidence‐based medicine. Pre‐health career students are also often members of groups marginalized and minoritized in STEM education, and generally complete their degrees in community college settings, which are chronically under‐resourced and understudied. Understanding these students' science identities is thus a matter of social justice and increasingly important to public health in the United States. We examined science identity and engagement among community college biology students using two scales established and validated for use with STEM students attending four‐year institutions. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used on two sub‐samples drawn from the pool of 846 participants to confirm that the factor structures functioned as planned among the new population. Science identity values were then compared between pre‐health career students (pre‐nursing and pre‐allied health) and other groups. Pre‐health career students generally reported interest and performance/competence on par with their traditional STEM, pre‐med, and pre‐dentistry peers, challenging popular assumptions about these students' interests and abilities. However, they also reported significantly lower recognition than traditional STEM and pre‐med/dentistry students. The implications for public health, researchers, and faculty are discussed.more » « less
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Despite significant advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment, osteosarcoma (OSA), an aggressive primary bone tumor, has eluded attempts at improving patient survival for many decades. The difficulty in managing OSA lies in its extreme genetic complexity, drug resistance, and heterogeneity, making it improbable that a single-target treatment would be beneficial for the majority of affected individuals. Precision medicine seeks to fill this gap by addressing the intra- and inter-tumoral heterogeneity to improve patient outcome and survival. The characterization of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) unique to the tumor provides insight into the phenotype and can be useful for informing appropriate therapies as well as the development of novel treatments. Traditional DEG analysis combines patient data to derive statistically inferred genes that are dysregulated in the group; however, the results from this approach are not necessarily consistent across individual patients, thus contradicting the basis of precision medicine. Spontaneously occurring OSA in the dog shares remarkably similar clinical, histological, and molecular characteristics to the human disease and therefore serves as an excellent model. In this study, we use transcriptomic sequencing of RNA isolated from primary OSA tumor and patient-matched normal bone from seven dogs prior to chemotherapy to identify DEGs in the group. We then evaluate the universality of these changes in transcript levels across patients to identify DEGs at the individual level. These results can be useful for reframing our perspective of transcriptomic analysis from a precision medicine perspective by identifying variations in DEGs among individuals.more » « less
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