1. Arrayed CRISPR Screening (20:02)

Date:
2020-10-30
Main contributors:
Meng, Jingwei, 1972-
Summary:
CRISPR screening is a genetic loss-of-function approach that identifies the genes in a particular pool, such as DNA Damage Response (229 genes), Protein Kinases (746 genes), or Transcription factors (1580 genes), which are responsible for the phenotype of your interests. Chemical Genomics Core Facility (CGCF) researchers will assist you with experimental design, CRISPR library selection, high-throughput equipment training and usage. In this seminar, Jingwei Meng presents the usage of the current DNA Damage Response library in two recent screening projects and explains the existing standard protocols for such arrayed CRISPR screening at CGCF. The CGCF is currently collecting potential CRISPR-related projects and closely working with the IU Genome Editing Center (IUGEC) to bring researchers an integrated service suite of genome technology.

2. Interview of Danielle Cozart-Steele (43:42)

Date:
2020-10-23
Main contributors:
Danielle Cozart-Steele, Beth South
Summary:
Interview of Cozart-Steele on the Transgender Singing Voice Conference which started at Earlham College in Richmond, IN in 2017 and the success with helping a transgender student in the process. It is now a biannual conference.

4. Making Big Data Smaller: Two Strategies to Analyze the Opioid Epidemic in the U.S. (2:00:00)

Date:
2020-02-28
Main contributors:
Byungkyu (BK) Lee
Summary:
In the era of “big data” revolution, social scientists face different types of challenges that we think are more technical, rather than theoretical. While it is certainly a challenge to analyze bigger than tera-byte data, the analysis of big data is not just a matter of solving computational problems. Big data provides a unique opportunity to solve society’s big problems if and only if it is analyzed through careful research designs and strong theoretical frameworks. This talk introduces two practical strategies for social scientists — parallel aggregation and matching — to make big data smaller so that we can overcome technical difficulties while making robust statistical inference. I will illustrate them based on my own trial and error during the analysis of large-scale medical claims data under the context of the US opioid epidemic. This talk also presents several tips for the effective management of big data.

5. Multiplicity in systematic reviews and meta-analysis: Dealing with multiple source multiple outcomes (1:10:00)

Date:
2020-02-21
Main contributors:
Evan Mayo-Wilson
Summary:
Publication and reporting bias are well-documented in the scientific literature. Increased data and code sharing, and access to other sources of information such as Clinical Study Reports (CSRs), address concerns about the non-reproducibility of individual studies. Ironically, greater transparency has given rise to new problems. That is, systematic reviewers and meta-analysts can choose from among dozens of effect sizes that could be included in their analyses. Initiatives that increase validity and reproducibility in individual studies also create opportunities for bias in research synthesis and clinical guideline development. Scientists could adopt new methods to avoid cherry-picking at all stages of research and evidence synthesis.

6. Aspects of Mapping and GIS Service in Higher Education Library (44:42)

Date:
2020-11-20
Main contributors:
Girmaye Misgna
Summary:
Based on experience at the Penn Libraries, my talk will explore the landscape of Mapping and GIS services at higher education institutions, and the role and core competency of the GIS librarian in promoting spatial literacy on campus through presentation of several examples: 1) The Penn MapRoom/MapTable as a collaborative mapping method that have been successfully integrated as a course curriculum into an Urban History class; 2) Penn COVID-19 Twitter sentiment mapping; 3) crowdsourced accessbility mapping application; 4) deep mapping in an ancient history project; and 5) miscellaneous research project consultations. The examples cover applications in various disciplines from the Social sciences, humanities, and health sciences, to physical sciences.

7. Geographies of Disruption: Mapping to Make Sense of 2020's Sociopolitical Upheaval (44:00)

Date:
2020-11-10
Main contributors:
Christy Hyman, University of Nebraska Lincoln, Erik Nelson, Indiana University Bloomington, Arrianna Planey, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Heidi Rae Cooley, University of Texas at Dallas, Girmaye Misgna, University of Pennsylvania
Summary:
Experts explore the disenfranchisement and disruptions of 2020, and examine how mapping can help us make sense of crucial issues both during this historic year and beyond. Five guests across a range of disciplines—including public health, media studies, digital humanities, and library science—came together for a moderated panel discussion to discuss issues related to political ecologies of health and disease, relationships between bodies and technology, data access and geospatial methodology as applied to humanities and social sciences.

9. SAR by NMR (36:15)

Date:
2020-12-18
Main contributors:
Rai, Ratan K.
Summary:
Nuclear magnet resonance (NMR) is a powerful technique to detect and characterize the 3D structures, dynamics, and interactions of biomacromolecules. With respect to drug targets, this methodology provides an excellent tool for the identification of small organic molecules that bind weakly to a target macromolecule as fragments of candidate inhibitors. In this presentation, Ratan K. Rai, PhD (Assistant Research Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Indiana University School of Medicine) explains the principles of NMR and its application as a tool for fragment-based drug discovery. Strategies to utilize this approach are described to identify and validate initial hits. The Chemical Genomics Core Facility is equipped with a 600 MHz solution NMR with cryo-probe for the structure elucidation of biomolecules and studies of ligand interactions.

10. Phage Display Screening (41:30)

Date:
2020-11-24
Main contributors:
Waffo, Alain Bopda
Summary:
The Chemical Genomics Core Facility (CGCF) is adding phage display capability to assist research projects requiring peptide domain screening. They will employ both the traditional DNA M13 phage as well as the RNA Qβ phage for screening. An advantage of the Qβ phage is the ease with which genetic modifications can be made. Qβ phages will be used to display library of peptides (8 to 50-mer) and to screen over 1 million targets. They will be able to assist scientists with the design, experimentation, preliminary result analyses, sequencing data, amplification, reconstitution, and storage of the obtained hybrid phages of interest. In this seminar, Dr. Alain Bopda Waffo discusses the practical methodology and application of phage display as well as newly developed biopanning techniques.

11. Placing Environmental Lead Exposure on Notice (46:19)

Date:
2020-11-16
Main contributors:
Erik Nelson
Summary:
Lead is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant that causes numerous adverse health effects in children, particularly neurological and neurobehavioral deficits, lower IQ, slowed growth, and anemia. Childhood lead exposure has also been linked to impulsive behaviors, which, in turn, are associated with a host of negative health outcomes and behaviors. Those at highest risk for elevated blood lead levels are persons living in substandard housing, which are often inhabited by racial minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged persons. This talk will discuss findings of the interplay of lead, concentrated disadvantage and public health outcomes such as sexually transmitted infections and instances of crime. In addition, we will address the power of geospatial modeling techniques to estimate lead exposure risk for communities.

12. Research in Solidarity: Documenting Dispossession and Resistance with The Anti-Eviction Mapping P... (49:27)

Date:
2020-11-19
Main contributors:
Terra Graziani
Summary:
What does it mean to do research in solidarity with movements? This presentation will share lessons from the work of The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, a data-visualization, data analysis, and storytelling collective documenting dispossession and resistance upon gentrifying landscapes. With chapters in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York City, AEMP is a collective of scholars, storytellers, organizers, activists, and artists using data to fight for tenants’ rights and housing justice. Working with community partners and in solidarity with numerous housing movements, we study and visualize new entanglements of global capital, real estate, technocapitalism, and political economy. Our narrative oral history and video work centers the displacement of people and complex social worlds, but also modes of resistance. Maintaining antiracist and feminist analyses as well as decolonial methodology, the project creates tools and disseminates data contributing to collective resistance and movement building.

13. GIS and Spatial Thinking for Public Health: Potential, Pitfalls, and Considerations (52:21)

Date:
2020-11-17
Main contributors:
Arrianna Planey
Summary:
There is growing interest in geographic information science and spatial analysis in public health research and practice, with emphasis on place-based interventions. However, given the spatialization of social inequity, these tools and methods can be used to reproduce the status quo if we do not critically apply spatial thinking when we use spatial methods and tools for public health problems. In this talk, I impress the importance of place for public health and discuss potential remedies and directions.