Having identified gaps in implementation of Rhode Island's syringe access law and police occupational safety education, public health and police professionals developed police training to boost legal knowledge, improve syringe access attitudes, and address needlestick injuries. Baseline data (94 officers) confirmed anxiety about needlestick injuries, poor legal knowledge, and occupational risk overestimation. Before training, respondents believed that syringe access promotes drug use (51%), increases likelihood of police needlestick injuries (58%), and fails to reduce epidemics (38%). Pretraining to posttraining evaluation suggested significant shifts in legal and occupational safety knowledge; changes in attitudes toward syringe access were promising. Training that combines occupational safety with syringe access content can help align law enforcement with public health goals. Additional research is needed to assess street-level effect and to inform intervention tailoring.
Considerable interest has arisen in precision fabrication of cell bearing scaffolds and structures by free form fabrication. Gelatin is an ideal material for creating cell entrapping constructs, yet its application in free form fabrication remains challenging. We demonstrate the use of gelatin, crosslinked with microbial transglutaminase (mTgase), as a material to print cell bearing hydrogels for both 2-dimensional (2-D) precision patterns and 3-dimensional (3-D) constructs. The precision patterning was attained with 3 % gelatin and 2 % high molecular weight poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO) whereas 3-D constructs were obtained using a 5 % gelatin solution. These hydrogels, referred to as “bioinks” supported entrapped cell growth, allowing cell spreading and proliferation for both HEK293 cells and Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs). These bioinks were shown to be dispensable by robotic precision, forming patterns and constructs that were insoluble and of suitable stiffness to endure post gelation handling. The two bioinks were further characterized for fabrication parameters and mechanical properties.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10544-014-9915-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Background: TGF-beta is one of the key cytokines implicated in various disease processes including cancer. TGF-beta inhibits growth and promotes apoptosis in normal epithelial cells and in contrast, acts as a pro-tumour cytokine by promoting tumour angiogenesis, immune-escape and metastasis. It is not clear if various actions of TGF-beta on normal and tumour cells are due to differential gene regulations. Hence we studied the regulation of gene expression by TGF-beta in normal and cancer cells.
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