Shu-Fen Lin

Exploitation of custom-designed nucleases to induce DNA double-strand breaks at genomic locations of choice has transformed our ability to edit genomes, regardless of their complexity. DSBs can trigger either error-prone repair pathways that induce random mutations at the break sites or precise homology-directed repair pathways that generate specific insertions or deletions guided by exogenously supplied DNA. Prior editing strategies using site-specific nucleases to modify the Caenorhabditis elegans genome achieved only the heritable disruption of endogenous loci through random mutagenesis by error-prone repair. Here we report highly effective strategies using TALE nucleases and RNA-guided CRISPR/Cas9 nucleases to induce error-prone repair and homology-directed repair to create heritable, precise insertion, deletion, or substitution of specific DNA sequences at targeted endogenous loci. Our robust strategies are effective across nematode species diverged by 300 million years, including necromenic nematodes, male/female species, and hermaphroditic species. Thus, genome-editing tools now exist to transform nonmodel nematode species into genetically tractable model organisms. We demonstrate the utility of our broadly applicable genome-editing strategies by creating reagents generally useful to the nematode community and reagents specifically designed to explore the mechanism and evolution of X chromosome dosage compensation. By developing an efficient pipeline involving germline injection of nuclease mRNAs and single-stranded DNA templates, we engineered precise, heritable nucleotide changes both close to and far from DSBs to gain or lose genetic function, to tag proteins made from endogenous genes, and to excise entire loci through targeted FLP-FRT recombination. © 2013 by the Genetics Society of America.

© 2014 American Chemical Society. We describe a manufacturable and scalable method for fabrication of multiscale wrinkled silica structures on shrink-wrap film to enhance fluorescence signals in DNA fluorescence microarrays. We are able to enhance the fluorescence signal of hybridized DNA by more than 120 fold relative to a planar glass slide. Notably, our substrate has improved detection sensitivity relative to planar glass slide. Furthermore, this is accompanied by a 30-45 times improvement in the signal-tonoise ratio. Unlike metal enhanced fluorescence based enhancements, this is a far-field and uniform effect based on surface concentration and photophysical effects from the nano- to microscale SiO 2 structures. Notably, the photophysical effects contribute an almost 2.5 fold enhancement over the concentration effects alone. Therefore, this simple and robust method offers an efficient technique to enhance the detection capabilities of fluorescence based DNA microarrays.

The study of education systems as social phenomena has led scholars to question the role of education in modern society. The question of how to improve education naturally leads to concerns about what is wrong with the present education system. If education is meant to elevate the next generation, how can it meet the goal of ensuring a meaningful existence for those being educated? Scholars have demonstrated that education has been reduced to a process of the construction of objects, where curriculum as techne commodifies students into products with market value. We propose that the tendency of interpreting techne as technology is a perspective of the modern age, and the rules of modern education are based on the rules of modern technology, under the guidance of the paradigm of productivity. We will introduce a broader interpretation of techne which frames it as the cultivation of virtue, i.e., virtue-techne. On this basis, education could be viewed as techne in the sense of praxis, rather than as fabrication in the sense of production. We highlight the rising rate of student suicides in Taiwan in recent years, where we determine the education system lacks a focus on praxis. This article investigates alternative praxis-oriented notions of education, from Aristotle's cultivation of virtue to Hadot's "spiritual exercises," to advocate for a shift away from the production paradigm. Indebted to Heidegger, we clarify his "techne as revealing" by emphasizing two frameworks for education: The first, modern education being valued by its adherence to metrics based in the paradigm of production. The second, education as a process wherein its value is derived from the life context of the participating individual. Finally, as a comparative study, we explore the current state of education in Russia and Taiwan, and present the case of one high school in Taiwan which has adopted the practice of spiritual exercises in its curriculum, including a required hike to the peak of Taiwan's tallest mountain, to cultivate a sense of the liberated life before its students graduate.