Best Selling Books by Jennifer Chu

The Kentucky Derby is coming up soon, and Christina and Star need a change of pace. They go to California in hopes of changing Star''s attitude in time for the Derby.

While Christina reconsiders veterinary medicine after she and Wonder''s Star''s tragic accident at Belmont, her cousin, Melanie, resumes her dreams of becoming a jockey when she rides a new horse and betrays Christina''s trust.

An injury keeps Christina from riding for at least three months. In the meantime, she reluctantly allows Melanie to train Star.

"Protein synthesis (also known as translation) is a core step in the gene expression pathway that allows cells to rapidly alter the proteome in response to intra- and extracellular cues, and deregulation of this process can severely reduce cellular fitness or lead to malignant transformation. The rate-limiting step for protein synthesis is the initiation phase, which can be broken down into 4 phases: 1) activation of the mRNA through association of the eIF4F complex (comprised of the cap-binding protein, eIF4E, the scaffolding protein, eIF4G, and the RNA helicase, eIF4A) to the 5’ cap; 2) recruitment of the 40S ribosome; 3) scanning of the 40S ribosome; 4) start codon recognition and joining of the 60S ribosomal subunit. Because the availability of eIF4F is limiting, the competitive ability of an mRNA to associate with this complex is a major determinant for how efficiently it gets translated. As well, eIF4F availability is under the regulation of several different signalling cascades, and perturbance of these pathways can dramatically alter the make-up of the translatome. For these reasons, this complex is considered to be an attractive target for anti-neoplastic therapy.Small molecules belonging to the rocaglate family of compounds have garnered considerable interested in recent years. In this dissertation, we provide genetic evidence demonstrating that eIF4A1 is the primary cellular target of rocaglates. These compounds appear to inhibit protein synthesis by stimulating eIF4A RNA binding activity, and it had been proposed that mRNAs with purine-rich 5’ leaders display heightened sensitivity towards these compounds. However, we discovered that this bias is not shared among all rocaglates, indicating that although these compounds have a common cellular target, their mechanism of action may not be entirely identical. Lastly, we offer a model that provides a rationale for how stimulation of eIF4A activity leads to inhibited protein synthesis"--

Transplantation of marrow stromal cells (MSC) shows promise as a vehicle for gene therapy. However, engraftment efficiency must be improved. To enhance homing and hence engraftment, we expressed VLA-4 on MSC to elicit interactions with adhesion molecules on marrow stem and stromal cells. Electroporation was used to transfect murine stromal cells with VLA-4 Ã chain cDNA. Cell surface VLA-4 expression and functional binding to VCAM-Ig were demonstrated by flow cytometry. Male MSC were infused into untreated or irradiated female Balb/c recipients with or without co-infusion of marrow cells. Male donor cells were detected by FISH or PCR for Y chromosome specific sequences. The highest level of MSC engraftment was with transfected MSC co-infused with marrow cells. The data show that stromal cell engraftment can be improved by almost 50 fold over infusion of unmodified stromal cells alone and suggest that this approach may have clinical utility.

"To improve teacher quality and student outcomes, teachers involved in the Reading and Mathematics Project (RAMP) in Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Sydney have been required to de-privatise their classrooms so that teaching and learning can be observed by, and studied with, other educational colleagues within their own school. This study sought to ascertain how this approach to professional learning has impacted teachers, from their perspective, in the context of primary mathematics education." -- from abstract.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 has changed the accountability of student achievement in American public schools. Since the enactment, achievement has increased for low-achieving students (Loveless, 2008). However, achievement for high-achieving students is leveling (Finn, Scull, & Winkler, 2011). This study identified and analyzed the performance trends of a cohort of students at the individual student level in mathematics and reading over four years. Students maintained, gained, lost, or never had high-achieving status during the study. Math lost high achievers overtime whereas reading gained high achievers overtime. Achievement status groups and trends across grade levels were examined by gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status to determine differences. There were differences in the performance of ethnic and economically disadvantaged groups but not by gender. This study highlights the need to examine achievement gaps among high achievers, not just low achievers, to ensure all students'' needs are met.