•  33
    Framing gestation: assistance, delegation, and beyond
    Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (7): 448-449. 2022.
    Assisted conception can be distinguished from assisted gestation.1 These processes have tended to be grouped together under the generic term assisted reproductive technology in the bioethical literature. According to Chloe Romanis, however, it is worth distinguishing interventions such as surrogacy, uterus transplantation, and potentially artificial placenta technology, as falling under the genus assisted gestative technologies. This is because gestation carries unique ethico-legal implications …Read more
  •  26
    Uterus transplantation (UTx) is an experimental surgery likely to face the issue of organ shortage. In my article, I explore how this issue might be addressed by changing the prevailing practices around live uterus donor recruitment. Currently, women with children – often the mothers of recipients – tend to be overrepresented as donors. Yet, other potentially eligible groups who may have an interest in providing their uterus – such as transgender men, or cisgender women who do not wish to gestat…Read more
  •  25
    Should involuntarily childless people have the same opportunities to access parenthood as those who are not involuntarily childless? In the context of assisted reproductive technologies, affirmative answers to this question are often cashed out in terms of positive rights, including rights to third-party reproduction. In this paper, we critically explore the scope and extent to which any such right would hold up morally. Ultimately, we argue for a departure away from positive parental rights. In…Read more
  •  23
    Abortion & Artificial Wombs
    Philosophy Now 144 26-27. 2021.
    Abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. In current practice, this involves the death of the foetus. Consequently, the debate on whether those experiencing an unwanted pregnancy have the right to abortion is usually dichotomized as a matter of pro-choice versus pro-life. Pro-choice advocates maintain that abortion is acceptable under various circumstances. The idea that we ought to respect pregnant people’s rights to choose what to do with their bodies – respect for bodily autonomy…Read more
  •  23
    Philosophy Compass, EarlyView.
  •  21
    Normative competence, autonomy, and oppression
    Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 8 (1). 2022.
    Natalie Stoljar posits that purely procedural theories of autonomy are unable to explain the ‘feminist intuition’, which is the idea that the internalization of false and oppressive norms are incompatible with autonomy. She claims instead that an account based on ‘normative competence’ – which requires true beliefs and critical reflection – can explain why oppressive norms should be excluded as legitimate decision-making inputs. On my view, however, the normative competence approach is subject t…Read more
  •  20
    Does ectogestation have oppressive potential?
    Journal of Social Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.
  •  8
    Epigenetic Regulation of Phosphodiesterases 2A and 3A Underlies Compromised β-Adrenergic Signaling in an iPSC Model of Dilated Cardiomyopathy (review)
    with H. Wu, L. G. Vincent, Q. Wang, M. Gu, F. Lan, J. M. Churko, K. I. Sallam, E. Matsa, A. Sharma, J. D. Gold, A. J. Engler, Y. K. Xiang, D. M. Bers, and J. C. Wu
    © 2015 Elsevier Inc. β-adrenergic signaling pathways mediate key aspects of cardiac function. Its dysregulation is associated with a range of cardiac diseases, including dilated cardiomyopathy. Previously, we established an iPSC model of familial DCM from patients with a mutation in TNNT2, a sarcomeric protein. Here, we found that the β-adrenergic agonist isoproterenol induced mature β-adrenergic signaling in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes but that this pathway was blunted in DCM iPSC-CMs. Although…Read more
  •  8
    Treating insomnia improves mood state, sleep, and functioning in bipolar disorder: A pilot randomized controlled trial
    with A. G. Harvey, A. M. Soehner, K. A. Kaplan, K. Hein, J. Kanady, D. Li, S. Rabe-Hesketh, T. A. Ketter, T. C. Neylan, and D. J. Buysse
    © 2015 American Psychological Association.Objective: To determine if a treatment for interepisode bipolar disorder I patients with insomnia improves mood state, sleep, and functioning. Method: Alongside psychiatric care, interepisode bipolar disorder I participants with insomnia were randomly allocated to a bipolar disorder-specific modification of cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia or psychoeducation as a comparison condition. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, the end of 8 sessions of tr…Read more
  •  6
    Androgen receptor and chemokine receptors 4 and 7 form a signaling axis to regulate CXCL12-dependent cellular motility
    with J. J. Hsiao, B. H. Ng, M. M. Smits, J. Wang, R. J. Jasavala, H. D. Martinez, J. J. Alston, H. Misonou, J. S. Trimmer, and M. E. Wright
    © Hsiao et al.; licensee BioMed Central.Background: Identifying cellular signaling pathways that become corrupted in the presence of androgens that increase the metastatic potential of organ-confined tumor cells is critical to devising strategies capable of attenuating the metastatic progression of hormone-naïve, organ-confined tumors. In localized prostate cancers, gene fusions that place ETS-family transcription factors under the control of androgens drive gene expression programs that increas…Read more
  •  5
    We present noninvasive, quantitative in vivo measurements of methemoglobin formation and reduction in a rabbit model using broadband diffuse optical spectroscopy. Broadband DOS combines multifrequency frequency-domain photon migration with time-independent near infrared spectroscopy to quantitatively measure bulk tissue absorption and scattering spectra between 600 nm and 1,000 nm. Tissue concentrations of methemoglobin, deoxyhemoglobin, and oxyhemoglobin were determined from absorption spectra …Read more
  •  5
    Human induced pluripotent stem cell-based microphysiological tissue models of myocardium and liver for drug development
    with A. Mathur, P. Loskill, S. Hong, Marcus S. G., L. Dumont, B. R. Conklin, H. Willenbring, L. P. Lee, and K. E. Healy
    Drug discovery and development to date has relied on animal models, which are useful but are often expensive, slow, and fail to mimic human physiology. The discovery of human induced pluripotent stem cells has led to the emergence of a new paradigm of drug screening using human and disease-specific organ-like cultures in a dish. Although classical static culture systems are useful for initial screening and toxicity testing, they lack the organization of differentiated iPS cells into microphysiol…Read more
  •  4
    Nrf2 is involved in maintaining hepatocyte identity during liver regeneration
    with Y. Zou, S. M. Nambiar, M. Hu, W. Rui, Q. Bao, J. Y. Chan, and G. Dai
    © 2014 Zou et al. Nrf2, a central regulator of the cellular defense against oxidative stress and inflammation, participates in modulating hepatocyte proliferation during liver regeneration. It is not clear, however, whether Nrf2 regulates hepatocyte growth, an important cellular mechanism to regain the lost liver mass after partial hepatectomy. To determine this, various analyses were performed in wild-type and Nrf2-null mice following PH. We found that, at 60 h post-PH, the vast majority of hep…Read more
  •  3
    © 2016, UNESCO IBE.Using comparative data, this article examines the level and distribution of participation in adult education opportunities among countries that participated in PIAAC. It considers observed cross-country patterns in relation to some mechanisms that drive unequal chances to participate and to some policy issues that surround the provision, governance, and financing of different types of adult learning. It also explores recent policy developments relevant to AE in three selected …Read more
  •  3
  •  1
    Well developed deformation in Si42
    with S. Takeuchi, M. Matsushita, N. Aoi, P. Doornenbal, K. Li, T. Motobayashi, H. Scheit, D. Steppenbeck, H. Wang, H. Baba, D. Bazin, L. Càceres, H. Crawford, P. Fallon, R. Gernhäuser, J. Gibelin, S. Go, S. Grévy, C. Hinke, C. R. Hoffman, R. Hughes, E. Ideguchi, D. Jenkins, N. Kobayashi, Y. Kondo, R. Krücken, T. Le Bleis, G. Lee, A. Matta, S. Michimasa, T. Nakamura, S. Ota, M. Petri, T. Sako, H. Sakurai, S. Shimoura, K. Steiger, K. Takahashi, M. Takechi, Y. Togano, R. Winkler, and K. Yoneda
    Excited states in Si38,40,42 nuclei have been studied via in-beam γ-ray spectroscopy with multinucleon removal reactions. Intense radioactive beams of S40 and S44 provided at the new facility of the RIKEN Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory enabled γ-γ coincidence measurements. A prominent γ line observed with an energy of 742 keV in Si42 confirms the 2 + state reported in an earlier study. Among the γ lines observed in coincidence with the 2 +→0 + transition, the most probable candidate for the tr…Read more