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Harnessing Native Botanicals to Combat Dense Breast Cancer: Targeting Oxidative Stress and Senescence
No full textBreast cancer rates on Long Island are among the highest in the country, with dense breast tissue increasing both cancer risk and resistance to treatment. Dense breast cancer cells, like MCF-7, often survive chemotherapy by entering a non-dividing, senescent state. This project explores whether native plant-based antioxidants—Echinacea purpurea and Arctium lappa (burdock root)—can reduce oxidative stress and limit senescence in cancer cells, ultimately enhancing their response to chemotherapy.
In vitro studies were conducted to test cell viability, senescence, and oxidative stress levels following treatment with plant extracts, both alone and in combination with chemotherapy. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO) assays were used to quantify oxidative stress, and β-galactosidase staining was used to detect senescence.
Preliminary Conclusions:
- Treatment with Echinacea and Burdock significantly decreased oxidative stress in MCF-7 cells.
-Co-treatment with plant extracts and chemotherapy reduced the number of senescent cells compared to chemotherapy alone.
- Enhanced cell death and reduced chemoresistance were observed in antioxidant-treated cells.
These findings suggest that native botanicals may be effective in sensitizing dense breast cancer cells to chemotherapy by mitigating oxidative stress and disrupting their ability to enter a treatment-resistant senescent state.
Significance: This research, inspired by themes in The Plant Hunter, bridges cancer biology, environmental health, and plant-based medicine. It offers promising avenues for integrative cancer therapies while supporting student development through the LHVCCUC LSAMP Program and Molloy’s commitment to research and community health
Navigating Food Insecurity: Families’ Coping Strategies, Challenges, and Insights for Educators
Get PDFFood is essential for life. It fuels growth, well-being, and stability. Yet, food insecurity -uncertain or inadequate access to sufficient food- remains a jarring reality for millions. In the U.S. alone, 47 million people, including 14 million children, experience food insecurity despite government efforts. Addressing this crisis is essential for public health, socioeconomic progress, and societal welfare. This narrative study’s main objective was to understand the lived experiences of food-insecure families by examining how they navigate the challenges they face, their inventive coping mechanisms, and the insights they can provide for educators. While research has shown the adverse effects of food insecurity, there is a gap in the literature that investigates the lived experiences of parents, their coping mechanisms, and what they would like teachers to know to help and work with their children. Grounded in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, this study explores how different environmental factors—family, school, and community—converge to shape families\u27 experiences with food insecurity. The results of this study were consistent with results from previous studies. Food insecurity has serious psychosocial ramifications, poses serious mental health problems, and raises questions of equity and social justice. Families reported that food insecurity is extremely stressful, impacting household dynamics and well-being. However, their resilience and perseverance were evident in their ability to adapt and employ creative strategies to provide for their children despite systemic barriers. The findings add to a body of knowledge that promotes social justice and equity and helps educational policymakers and educators gain insights into the lived experiences of their food-insecure students. Keywords: food insecurity, low socioeconomic households, coping mechanism
Diasporic Creativity: Edward E. Boccia
No full textPresentation on this important but generally overlooked American painter Edward E. Boccia (1921-2012). A professor of fine art for over thirty years at Washington University of St. Louis, Boccia was a dedicated teacher and learned poet and artist. Boccia\u27s oeuvre offers a unique view into the diasporic community of Italian American artists (coloni) in the mid to late 20th century. This research examines how the works\u27 complex pictorial language is a synthesis of symbols and stories from Greco-Roman mythology, the Passion of Christ, Modern and Renaissance Art History as well as riveting autobiography. The presentation will feature images of the artwork and commentary on the artist\u27s lifetime dedication to teaching and developing artistic technique and original iconography to create a modernist body of work that interrogated the crisis of faith and materialism as well as universal problems such as spirituality, morality, war, consumerism, disease and personal loss. This research will be published as a book with Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2025/2026
Accelerating the Growth and Development of Entrepreneurship within the Neurodiverse Community
No full textThis paper shares the results of student efforts in a Fall 2024 undergraduate Capstone course at Molloy University’s School of Business. During the 14-week semester, eight students worked in two teams to address an opportunity for Backyard Players & Friends (BYP), a nonprofit organization based in Rockville Centre (Long Island), New York dedicated to inclusivity for people 14+ years old. To help fulfill its mission, BYP ventured into retail by opening a boutique named Front Porch Market (FPM) in December 2022. FPM was the focus of a Capstone in Spring 2024, and those efforts led to this follow-up engagement. The small specialty store features a mix of mostly one-of-a-kind merchandise conceived and produced by BYP program participants, local writers and artists, and neurodiverse entrepreneurs. As BYP celebrated the boutique’s second-year, its leaders asked Molloy students for ideas to help accelerate the growth of neurodiverse entrepreneurs and to incubate new ones. Students delivered their recommendations in reports and presentations at the end of the semester. Recommendations were based on secondary research of current business incubator and accelerator programs, best practices, and organizational research and capabilities assessments. They included implementation plans, potential benefits, risks, mitigation efforts, and more. This was the third Capstone engagement for BYP—a testament to the valued work of Molloy business students. Molloy business students are required to take Capstone in their degree program’s final year or semester. This culminating course involves using the flipped classroom with community-based experiential learning projects to deliver a unique mixed methods approach to teaching and learning
Being Good for Something: The Intersection of Care and Critical Theories (Chapter 7)
Get PDFMiles Horton (1990) differentiates being good from being good for something. Being good for something requires an understanding of place, power, and agency. It also requires being deeply and fully present. Working for and with Jeffrey Cornett was an experience in learning how to be good for something and simultaneously learning how to collectively bring active care into a department, college, and the broader world. In this chapter we discuss Jeff’s commitment to both. We examine how Jeff forged the intersection of care and critical theories. And we share a few examples of moments in which Jeff built communit
Investigating the Influence of Prenatal Metals Exposures on Childhood Mitochondrial Biomarkers
Get PDFNote: Z\u27Dhanne is a current Molloy student and conducted this research while studying at Columbia University - Mailman School of Public Health
Abstract
Background and Purpose: Mitochondrial health plays a vital role in the development of chronic health conditions, including neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases. Mitochondria have the unique ability to independently control replication of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) depending on conditions of cellular stress, including oxidative stress. Exposure to environmental metals affects a variety of health outcomes via oxidative stress pathways. Our objective was to determine the association between prenatal exposure to metals on two biomarkers of mtDNA in child blood: cellular mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) and cell-free mitochondria (cf-mtDNA) copy number. These two commonly investigated biomarkers in environmental exposures may represent different stress response pathways following metals exposure.
Methods: In this pilot project, whole blood and serum samples were collected at age 5 from the Columbia Children’s Center for Environmental Health Sibling-Hermanos birth cohort study made up of Dominican and African American children from Northern Manhattan (N=31). mtDNA copy number in buffy coat DNA and in serum cell-free DNA was quantified with a qRT- PCR-based protocol expressed as the ratio between a mtDNA gene (mtND1) and a nuclear DNA (nDNA) gene (B2M) to estimate mtDNA content per cell. Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry was used to quantify 13 essential and nonessential metals (arsenic, barium, cesium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, manganese, mercury, selenium, strontium, vanadium, and zinc) in umbilical cord blood. Linear regression models were used to estimate the associations between individual metals and mtDNA biomarkers adjusting for age at measurement, race/ethnicity, and parity.
Results: Umbilical cord copper levels were significantly negatively associated with a reduction in cellular mtDNAcn [-0.0015 (-0.003, -3.4e-5) per µg/L increase in copper, p = 0.05] and positively associated with cf-mtDNA (0.96 (-0.06, 2.0) increase in the ratio of cf-mtDNA to cf- nDNA per µg/L increase in copper, p = 0.06). Mean copper levels were 743 ± 91.0 µg/L. No associations between mtDNA biomarkers and other metals were observed.
Conclusions: In this preliminary analysis, copper levels at birth were associated with cellular and cell-free mtDNA biomarkers in opposing directions during childhood. Copper is an essential metal for child development, suggesting a complex relationship between prenatal copper and mitochondrial health
Using eDNA to assess impacts of oyster restoration on ecosystem biodiversity at a heavily impacted coastal lagoon
Get PDFThe Great South Bay (GSB), a bar-built, temperate, coastal lagoon on the south shore of Long Island, New York, USA, is a highly modified estuary due to heavy urbanization and suburbanization in the last century. GSB historically provided up to 50% of the nation’s hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria) harvest, and is the legal home of the “Blue Point” oyster (eastern oyster; Crassostrea virginica). However, due to overexploitation as well as persistent stress from ongoing nitrogen pollution and harmful algal blooms, shellfish populations are fractions of their original abundances. Restoration efforts in GSB, driven both by community efforts and local authorities, focus on bringing back the eastern oyster with the goal that these filter feeders will improve water quality, build reef habitat, provide protection from storm surge, and thus positively impact greater ecosystem stability. In summer 2023, we collected samples from 15 stations to isolate environmental DNA (eDNA) and implement next-generation sequencing to determine how new oyster reef habitat impacts community biodiversity. This is the first year of an ongoing project that will determine the impacts of oyster restoration on resiliency at different sites in the GSB, as determined from eDNA-based biodiversity estimates
Intersections of trauma and grief: Navigating multilayered terrain in music therapy to support youth through bereavement
Get PDFExperiencing the death of a loved one as a young person is challenging in its own right, and underlying trauma can complicate one’s bereavement. With little available research exploring the intersections of trauma and grief, this paper aims to provide a foundational understanding of how trauma contexts and histories manifest in music therapy bereavement support programming for young people. Theoretical models that are culturally grounded, resource-oriented, and adopting an ecological, multisystemic lens are presented. The impacts of interpersonal trauma, trauma from systemic oppression, collective trauma, and intergenerational trauma are explored within the context of bereavement support. Diverse music therapy approaches to support the various trauma and grief intersections are shared. Lastly, reflection questions to support a culturally humble practice are offered for those committed to providing meaningful and socially conscious support for youth who have experienced trauma and loss. Given the high prevalence of trauma and death experiences among young people, all music therapists, regardless of clinical setting, would benefit from being trauma- and bereavement-informed
We think, we smell, we remember: The effect of smell on memory for chemistry lab learning
Get PDFThe traditional five senses are the primary receptors of external stimuli for the brain. While tactile learning and visual observations are integral to the chemistry laboratory, olfaction is a sense that should be considered part of an educator\u27s repertoire. Previous studies have discovered that our sense of smell plays a significant role in triggering memories. Moreover, specific scents like vanillin can prompt anamneses to recall previous experiences. A sample of 61 college students was employed for a three-week pretest-posttest control group experimental design. In the first week, participants conducted a chemical reaction to synthesize isoamyl acetate, the familiar and nontoxic scent of bananas. Over two additional weeks, participants in the treatment group were exposed to the same banana smell, while those in the control group were not. Both groups took an identical pre- and post-test designed to measure procedural recall. T-test analyses showed a statistically significant impact (at the p \u3c 0.05 level) of smell on the recollection of simple procedural memory. Although this study compared groups using a simple procedure, research has yet to evaluate the significance of smell in complex experimentation. Ideally, the findings of this study may inspire the development of innovative pedagogical strategies infused with the commonly overlooked sense of smell
Roll-Up Strategy-Challenges, Opportunities, and Roller Coasters?
Get PDFRollup strategies have been effectively executed across many sectors, including funeral homes, pawn shops, regional casinos, ski resorts, golf clubs, veterinarian offices, institutional laundry, and car wash sectors. Amusement parks may be next, with over 400 prospective acquisition targets in the US alone; smaller parks offer untapped potential—family-owned properties priced between 5.4 million. Roll-up strategies leverage enhanced purchasing power, shared resources, and best practices exchange. Still, it is unclear if they should maintain local brand identity(covert) even if they are part of a large chain or should be overt and nationally branded. The Federal Trade Commission has started an antitrust investigation into serial acquisitions, which may broadly challenge the strategy