The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research holds an annual summer STEM program called Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science (GEMS) in which rising 7th-12th graders are mentored by undergraduate STEM majors (near-peer mentors - NPMs) who facilitate hands-on, inquiry-centered activities. To make GEMS accessible to underserved and underrepresented populations, we recruit both students and NPMs from local, underserved communities and minority-serving institutions, while additionally broadcasting the opportunities to surrounding counties. We mitigate financial barriers to participation by offering both student and NPM stipends. Although GEMS is traditionally held in person, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the creation of virtual GEMS (eGEMS). We compared NPM and student survey responses for eGEMS to the prior year of in-person GEMS. Despite logistical differences, we maintained similar participant demographics, program elements, and shifts in attitudes towards STEM for all student groups while providing comparable personal and professional growth for NPMs. Going forward, though, eGEMS can be improved by incorporating more group work and use of laboratory tools alongside alleviating technical barriers. Furthermore, both eGEMS and in-person GEMS must increase recruitment amongst FARMS (free and reduced price meals at school) recipients, English language learners, and potential first-generation college students to align with accessibility goals.

Educational inequity is widely prevalent in United States (U.S.) public schools and creates barriers to STEM education for underserved and underrepresented populations, including racial minority, low-income, and first-generation college students. Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) recognized the need in its community, the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area, to improve STEM education by increasing opportunities for STEM experiential learning. By 1995, WRAIR scientists began investigating how to bring science-enthusiastic but novice high school (HS) students into their laboratories where they could be mentored, along with providing a stipend to mitigate financial barriers; importantly, this process was funded by two Science Education Partnership Awards from 2001-2006. WRAIR’s Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science (GEMS) program now guides local middle and HS students to take part in hands-on, inquiry-based STEM laboratory investigations led by undergraduate “near peer mentors” (NPMs), so named due to their close age to participants. GEMS is now sustained at 14 sites nationwide through the U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program. Recent evaluations of the program explore service to underrepresented groups in STEM and growth of the local program. Further evaluation of the nationwide programs reveals positive student feedback, especially regarding working with NPMs and hands-on learning.

This retrospective study, from 2004 to 2015, explored the career trajectories of undergraduates and recent post-baccalaureates who participated in an undergraduate research experience (URE) that combined both laboratory experience and mentoring younger students. Forty former interns completed an online survey focusing on their path from internship to career. Interns were queried about the skills they perceived as being critical in their subsequent STEM-related endeavors. They also wrote narratives that indicated their attitudes about STEM education, outreach and mentoring. The responses showed all but one of the 40 participants were engaged in either STEM-related careers or education. The participants provided examples of what aspects of the internship had long-term impact on their persistence in the sciences. As the majority of the respondents were from populations traditionally underrepresented in STEM careers, this study adds to the literature on the positive effect of internships on individual STEM persistence. The results indicated that this internship helped create a cadre of professionals who not only persisted in STEM and retained an active commitment to helping younger students gain an appreciation for science. It was concluded that undergraduate persistence in the sciences is strengthened when interns are given training in and the responsibility for mentoring.

Designed to bring experiential learning and mentoring to middle and high school students from diverse populations in the MNOP area, the ABC program has provided thousands of community students a one-week internship in a fully equipped teaching laboratory at the XXX Institute. Pre-college ‘interns’ participate in laboratory-based scientific investigations and explore their unique interests through projects that mirror current research. The program is guided by near-peer mentors, college STEM majors in a combined laboratory and mentoring internship. This study examines the experiences of ABC students through their own words. Over three years, free-response surveys were administered to 222 ABC students in eleventh and twelfth grades. The research questions focused on: 1) how relationships with near-peer mentors’ impacted them; 2) their involvement with the inquiry-based approaches; and 3) any increased and/or continued interest in pursuing STEM as an extension of their experience. Students reported significant benefits from near-peer mentorship, particularly guidance in the areas of science learning, educational planning, and life lessons. Students indicated that the ABC program allowed them to learn important life skills and that they wanted to pursuit scientific education and careers.

The near-peer mentor model provides undergraduates and recent post-baccalaureates in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields with an internship in two related disciplines, STEM research and STEM education. The near-peer mentor is both a mentored research intern and a mentor to pre-college students. During the 2013 summer, 43 near-peer mentors from seven sites reported on the benefits, challenges, and personal development they experienced during the internship. In addition, 1,328 pre-college students reported their perceptions of near-peer mentors. In this qualitative study, we indicate that learning by being mentored, while simultaneously acquiring the abilities to mentor and teach, is an effective model for promoting career advancement and the psychosocial support associated with the acquisition of professional behaviors.

This study examined a novel mentoring model, near-peer mentorship, that supports the development of mentee and mentor, incorporates established principles of mentoring, and offers unique opportunities to integrate research and teaching in a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) internship. Using qualitative methods, this model was examined from the perspectives of near-peer mentors and student mentees during a science education internship at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Results revealed that this mentorship model contributed to personal, educational, and professional growth for near-peer mentors and increased the interest and engagement of students studying STEM. We discuss implications, limitations, and future directions.

The occurrence of status epilepticus (SE) is considered the main cause of brain lesions and morphological alterations, such as hippocampal neuron loss, that result in chronic epilepsy. Previous work demonstrated the convulsive and widespread neuropathological effects of soman, an organophosphorus compound that causes SE and severe recurrent seizures as a result of exposure. Seizures begin rapidly after exposure, can continue for hours, and contribute to prolonged physical incapacitation of the victim. This study attempts to identify anticonvulsive and neuroprotective drugs against soman exposure. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to 1.0 LD50 soman. EEGraphical and neuropathological (Fluoro-Jade B staining) effects were analyzed at 72 h post-exposure to soman and subsequent treatments with diazepam (DZP) alone or in combination with histone deacetylase inhibitors, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) or valproic acid (VPA). The extent of brain damage was dependent on the length of SE and not on the number of recurrent seizures. DZP treatment alone decreased SE time and damage in hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus and cortex, but not in piriform nuclei. The combination of DZP and VPA 100 mg/kg showed more anticonvulsive effects, decreased SE time, and afforded more neuroprotection in the hippocampus, mainly the ventral portion. The combination DZP and SAHA 25 mg/kg was more neuroprotective, but not more anticonvulsant than DZP alone. The DZP combination with VPA HDAC inhibitor proved to be a good treatment for SE and neuronal damage caused by soman exposure.

SummaryPurpose: Exposure to toxic levels of organophosphorus (OP) nerve agents can lead to seizures, respiratory failure, and, if untreated, death. The cholinesterase inhibitor soman belongs to the class of OP nerve agents and can cause status epilepticus (SE) and brain damage due to neuroexcitotoxicity. In the present study, electroencephalographic seizures are characterized through telemetry implants in rats exposed to soman, followed by treatment with therapeutics similar to those administered after nerve agent exposure.Methods: Cortical electroencephalography (EEG), motor activity and body temperature were recorded continuously for 2 days preexposure and 15 days postexposure to verify the occurrence of spontaneous recurrent seizures (SRS) after soman exposure.Results: Behavioral seizures were monitored and the latency to SE was 7.8 ± 4.0 min after exposure. Among the rats that showed SE, approximately 90% had prolonged seizures within the initial 3 days after soman exposure. Five percent of the rats developed stage 1 seizures, 16% stage 2, 23% stage 3, 18% stage 4, and 38% stage 5. Seventy‐nine percent of the rats presented SE and epileptiform‐like discharges several days after SE, and 28.9% of those with SE experienced electrographic SRS. The latency to the appearance of SRS ranged from 5–10 days. Fiber degeneration evaluated through silver staining revealed damage in cortical and subcortical areas directly correlated with SE.Discussion: The presence of SRS after seizures induced by soman highlights the importance of quantifying SRS in studies where the objective is to find new therapeutics against soman‐induced seizures.

Four out of five animals on Earth are nematodes, making them the most ubiquitous multi-cellular organisms on our planet (Bongers and Ferris 1999). Nematodes significantly affect humans ecologically, biologically, and economically. They can be free-living, animal parasitic, plant parasitic, or insecticidal in nature. Model organisms have long been used in research laboratories and in classrooms to advance our understanding of life and human diseases (WORM 2004). Nematode worms, especially insecticidal nematodes (Figure 1), are excellent model organisms for high school biology inquiry-based laboratory activities. In a collaborative effort between university researchers and high school science teachers, we designed an inquiry-based laboratory module using two species of insecticidal nematodes to help high school biology students apply scientific inquiry and elements of thoughtful experimental design. Groups of students investigated the insecticidal properties of two nematode species by asking questions, planning and conducting investigations, using appropriate tools and techniques to gather data, thinking critically and logically about relationships between evidence and explanations, constructing and analyzing alternative explanations, and communicating scientific arguments (NRC 1996, p. 105). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Why nematodes? Nematodes or roundworms are of inherent biological importance, and although they are popular model organisms in research laboratories and ubiquitous in freshwater, marine, and terrestrial environments, they are often given little significance in most secondary science education curricula. The important ecological niches occupied by these organisms make the study of nematodes in high school classrooms an exciting topic and justify a place in the biology core curriculum (Tylka and Jasalavich 2001). For instance, free-living nematodes play a major role in carbon cycling and decomposition. One free-living species, Caenorhabditis elegans, was the first animal to have its genome sequenced and is currently used as a model organism in biomedicine, genetics, and developmental biology. (Editor's note: For an activity investigating C. elegans, see Using Digital Microscopy in the April/ May 2006 issue of The Science Teacher.) Animal parasitic nematodes cause serious diseases-even death-in humans, pets, and stock animals. Plant parasitic species cause over 100 billion dollars a year in crop damage worldwide. Conversely, insecticidal nematodes-parasitic roundworms that only infect insects-are increasingly being used as an environmental alternative to chemical pesticides to protect our crops from harmful insects (see Ecology of insecticidal nematodes). Due to the significance of insecticidal nematodes, and the advantages of using this model organism at the secondary science level, we developed and tested a high school-level nemotology module in the 2005 Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science (GEMS) program at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. In GEMS, students in grades 8-12 spend one to four weeks in an Army lab performing experiments that highlight basic scientific principles (www.usaeop.com/programs/GEMS). The initial inquiry-based activity involving insecticidal nematodes, introduced to the 2005 GEMS students, was used as an evaluation of the laboratory procedure. The majority of students cited the module as the favorite part of their internship experience. With the preliminary nematology module revealing such broad student interest in insecticidal nematodes, we set to further develop and field-test the activity in high school biology classrooms. The module, which required three class periods to complete, was integrated in several biology classrooms at Lehi High School in Lehi, Utah, with over 300 10th-grade students. The remainder of this article describes the experience and model. Classroom integration Class period 1: Introduction to scientific inquiry, experimental design, and nematodes To give students the tools necessary to carry out scientific experiments involving nematodes, the first day of integrating the module into science classrooms was used to introduce scientific inquiry, experimental design, and general nematology. …

The potential for personalized cancer management has long intrigued experienced researchers as well as the naïve student intern. Personalized cancer treatments based on a tumor's genetic profile are now feasible and can reveal both the cells' susceptibility and resistance to chemotherapeutic agents. In a weeklong laboratory investigation that mirrors current cancer research, undergraduate and advanced high school students determine the efficacy of common pharmacological agents through in vitro testing. Using mouse mammary tumor cell cultures treated with "unknown" drugs historically recommended for breast cancer treatment, students are introduced to common molecular biology techniques from in vitro cell culture to fluorescence microscopy. Student understanding is assessed through laboratory reports and the successful identification of the unknown drug. The sequence of doing the experiment, applying logic, and constructing a hypothesis gives the students time to discover the rationale behind the cellular drug resistance assay. The breast cancer experiment has been field tested during the past 5 yr with more than 200 precollege/undergraduate interns through the Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science program hosted by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Mefloquine is associated with adverse neurological effects that are mediated via unknown mechanisms. Recent in vitro studies have shown that mefloquine disrupts neuronal calcium homeostasis via liberation of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) store and induction of calcium influx across the plasma membrane. In the present study, global changes in gene expression induced in neurons in response to mefloquine-induced disruption of calcium homeostasis and appropriate control agents were investigated in vitro using Affymetrix arrays. The mefloquine transcriptome was found to be enriched for important regulatory sequences of the unfolded protein response and the drug was also found to induce key ER stress proteins, albeit in a manner dissimilar to, and at higher equivalent concentrations than, known ER-tropic agents like thapsigargin. Mefloquine also down-regulated several important functional categories of genes, including transcripts encoding G proteins and ion channels. These effects may be related to intrusion of extracellular calcium since they were also observed after glutamate, but not thapsigargin, hydrogen peroxide, or low-dose mefloquine treatment. Mefloquine could be successfully differentiated from other treatments on the basis of principle component analysis of its "calcium-relevant" transcriptome. These data may aid interpretation of expression of results from future in vivo studies.

Glutamate carboxypeptidase (GCP) II (EC 3.4.17.21), which is also known as N-acetylated-alpha-linked acidic dipeptidase (NAALADase), hydrolyses the endogenous acidic dipeptide N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG), yielding N-acetyl-aspartate and glutamate. Inhibition of this enzyme by 2-(phosphonomethyl) pentanedioic acid (2-PMPA) has been shown to protect against ischemic injury to the brain and hypoxic and metabolic injury to neuronal cells in culture, presumably by increasing and decreasing the extracellular concentrations of NAAG and glutamate, respectively. Since both NAAG and GCP II are found in especially high concentrations in the spinal cord, injuries to the spinal cord involving pathophysiological elevations in extracellular glutamate might be particularly responsive to GCP II inhibition. Lumbar subarachnoid injections of dynorphin A in rats cause ischemic spinal cord injury, elevated extracellular glutamate and a persistent hindlimb paralysis that is mediated through excitatory amino acid receptors. We therefore used this injury model to evaluate the protective effects of 2-PMPA. When coadministered with dynorphin A, 2-PMPA significantly attenuated the dynorphin A-induced elevations in cerebrospinal fluid glutamate levels and by 24 h postinjection caused significant dose-dependent improvements in motor scores that were associated with marked histopathological improvements. These results indicate that 2-PMPA provides effective protection against excitotoxic spinal cord injury.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is often complicated by the occurrence of seizures, which adversely affect clinical outcome. The risk of seizures increases to the extent that the injury is associated with sub-arachnoid hemorrhage and hematoma. A likely mechanism of seizure development post-TBI is decompartmentalization of iron from extravasated hemoglobin (Hb). It is well known that iron can catalyze formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Based on this proposed mechanism, a descriptive model of TBI-induced seizures, using intracortical injection of iron salts, was developed by Willmore. We have added modifications to enhance the quantifiability of seizure activity and have used the model to examine the therapeutic efficacy of lipoic acids (ROS-scavenging antioxidants). Male SD rats were pretreated with alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) and dihydrolipoic acid (DHLA) or appropriate vehicles. Under anesthesia, unilateral intracortical infusions of ferric choride were performed stereotaxically. EEG was recorded via extradural electrodes. EEG was sampled for 10 s of every 60-s interval over a 24-h period following injection of ferric chloride. We measured the number of seconds of epileptiform discharges or seizure activity in every 10-s EEG sample during the 24 h. The EEGs of rats pretreated with ALA and DHLA exhibited 55% less seizure activity than vehicle-treated ferric chloride-injected animals, suggesting that lipoic acids may be of use in preventing or attenuating TBI-induced seizures.

Recent international guidelines for the conduct of in vitro skin absorption studies put forward different approaches for addressing the status of chemicals remaining in the stratum corneum and epidermis/dermis at the end of a study. The present study investigated the fate of three chemicals [dihydroxyacetone (DHA), 7-(2H-naphtho[1,2-d]triazol-2-yl)-3-phenylcoumarin (7NTPC), and disperse blue 1 (DB1)] in an in vitro absorption study. In these studies, human and fuzzy rat skin penetration and absorption were determined over 24 or 72 h in flow-through diffusion cells. Skin penetration of these chemicals resulted in relatively low receptor fluid levels but high skin levels. For DHA, penetration studies found approximately 22% of the applied dose remaining in the skin (in both the stratum corneum and viable tissue) as a reservoir after 24 h. Little of the DHA that penetrates into skin is actually available to become systemically absorbed. 7NTPC remaining in the skin after 24 h was approximately 14.7% of the applied dose absorbed. Confocal laser cytometry studies with 7NTPC showed that it is present across skin in mainly the epidermis and dermis with intense fluorescence around hair. For DB1, penetration studies found approximately 10% (ethanol vehicle) and 3% (formulation vehicle) of the applied dose localized in mainly the stratum corneum after 24 h. An extended absorption study (72 h) revealed that little additional DB1 was absorbed into the receptor fluid. Skin levels should not be considered as absorbed material for DHA or DB1, while 7NTPC requires further investigation. These studies illustrate the importance of determining the fate of chemicals remaining in skin, which could significantly affect the estimates of systemically available material to be used in exposure estimates. We recommend that a more conclusive means to determine the fate of skin levels is to perform an extended study as conducted for DB1.

The acidic dipeptide N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG) is the most prevalent peptide in the central nervous system. NAAG is a low potency agonist at the NMDA receptor, and hydrolysis of NAAG yields the more potent excitatory amino acid neurotransmitter glutamate. β-NAAG is a competitive inhibitor of the NAAG hydrolyzing enzyme N-acetylated α-linked acidic dipeptidase (NAAG peptidase activity) or glutamate carboxypeptidase II, and may also act as a NAAG-mimetic at some of the sites of NAAG pharmacological activity. Since NAAG has been shown to have neuroprotective characteristics in a number of experimental preparations, it is the purpose of the present study to specifically evaluate the possible efficacy of NAAG and β-NAAG against NMDA- and hypoxia-induced injury to spinal cord mixed neuronal and glial cell cultures. NAAG (500–1000 μM) protected against NMDA- or hypoxia-induced injuries to spinal cord cultures, and the nonhydrolyzable analog β-NAAG (250–1000 μM) completely eliminated the loss of viability caused by either insult. Both peptides also attenuated NMDA-induced increases in intraneuronal Ca2+. Nonspecific mGluR antagonists, pertussis toxin, a stable cAMP analog, and manipulation of NAAG peptidase activity did not by themselves alter cell damage and did not influence the neuroprotective effects of NAAG. NAAG was not protective against kainate- or AMPA-induced cellular injury, while β-NAAG was partially neuroprotective against both insults. At 2 mM, NAAG and β-NAAG reduced neuronal survival and increased intraneuronal Ca2+; these effects were only marginally attenuated by dizocilpine and APV. The results indicate that NAAG and β-NAAG protect against excitotoxic and hypoxic injury to spinal cord neurons, and do so predominantly by interactions with NMDA and not mGluR receptors.