Cancer immunotherapy: breaking the barriers to harvest the crop

Successful translation of modern molecular immunology into effective cancer immunotherapy is threatened by regulatory barriers and challenges to the development of novel agents and combinatorial strategies through effective public-private partnerships. For its promise to be fully realized, both the National Cancer Institute and Food and Drug Administration must take active steps to help academic investigators and companies jointly navigate the pathways from laboratory to clinic.     

Methodological interculturalism: breaking down epistemological barriers around diversity management

As part of the post-multicultural era, transnationalism, super-diversity, cosmopolitanism and solidarity develop a sense of awareness to live in a complex society. This requests us to identify the epistemological barriers preventing us to produce new knowledge, since there is a raising consciousness that these new frameworks cannot be addressed with old policy maps. All share the need to go beyond methodological nationalism, and one of its by-products: multiculturalism. Methodological interculturalism is a promising epistemological lens through which to cluster this new diversity geography. It is a direct answer to the key question, what happens when the unit of analysis from which we argue about “how to live together” is diversity itself rather than a supposed us/we/unity/ majority/state/nation lens. The outcome is the recognition that super-diversity and transnationalism is a fact that we need to incorporate into our public culture, together with new normative claims of justice related to cosmopolitanism and solidarity.     

Symmetry breaking in C. elegans: another gift from the sperm

Polarization of the C. elegans embryo depends on the sperm-contributed centrosome, which cues a retraction of the actomyosin cortex to the opposite end of the embryo by an unknown mechanism. New evidence reveals that the sperm donates a second polarizing cue that may locally relax the actomyosin cortex near the point of sperm entry.     

Reprogramming DNA methylation in the mammalian life cycle: building and breaking epigenetic barriers

In mammalian development, epigenetic modifications, including DNA methylation patterns, play a crucial role in defining cell fate but also represent epigenetic barriers that restrict developmental potential. At two points in the life cycle, DNA methylation marks are reprogrammed on a global scale, concomitant with restoration of developmental potency. DNA methylation patterns are subsequently re-established with the commitment towards a distinct cell fate. This reprogramming of DNA methylation takes place firstly on fertilization in the zygote, and secondly in primordial germ cells (PGCs), which are the direct progenitors of sperm or oocyte. In each reprogramming window, a unique set of mechanisms regulates DNA methylation erasure and re-establishment. Recent advances have uncovered roles for the TET3 hydroxylase and passive demethylation, together with base excision repair (BER) and the elongator complex, in methylation erasure from the zygote. Deamination by AID, BER and passive demethylation have been implicated in reprogramming in PGCs, but the process in its entirety is still poorly understood. In this review, we discuss the dynamics of DNA methylation reprogramming in PGCs and the zygote, the mechanisms involved and the biological significance of these events. Advances in our understanding of such natural epigenetic reprogramming are beginning to aid enhancement of experimental reprogramming in which the role of potential mechanisms can be investigated in vitro. Conversely, insights into in vitro reprogramming techniques may aid our understanding of epigenetic reprogramming in the germline and supply important clues in reprogramming for therapies in regenerative medicine.     

Walker Evans: Florida

Six Views of a Greek Village Everyday is not a Feast Day (1980, color, 110 minutes; video sale, $150) Thread of the Needle (1982, color, 22 minutes; video sale, $50) Let's Get Married! (1985, color, 35 minutes; video sale, $60) My Family and Me (1986, color, 65 minutes; video sale, $100) A Hard Life (1988, color, 55 minutes; video sale, $90) Charcoal‐Makers (1990, color, 30 minutes; video sale, $55) Filmmaker‐anthropologist: Colette Piault. All films available in 16mm, 1/2‐in. video. Distributed by Les Films du Quotidien, 5 rue des Saints‐Pères, 75006 Paris, France. Tel: 1–42 60 25 76; fax: 1–42 61 67 92); or Dr. Peter Allen, 98 Transit Street, Providence, R.I. 02906 (Tel: 401/274–2397; fax: 401/456–8379).

The Nehru Dynasty Life and Death of a Dynasty Produced by Anne and Robert Drew; narrated by Cliff Robertson. 1991, 90 minutes, color and black‐and‐white, 1/2” videotape, narration in English. Distributor: Direct Cinema Limited, P.O. Box 10003, Santa Monica, CA, 90410. Tel: (800)525–0000; Fax: (313)396–3233. Institutional sale, $195.00; rental $85.00.