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Legacies Align with Colby’s Acquisition of Allen and Benner Islands
No full textThe College creates a 500-acre island campus in Muscongus Ba
The Greene Block + Studios: Raising the Bar Downtown
No full textSince it opened in fall 2021, the Greene Block + Studios has contributed to the remarkable revitalization of downtown Waterville as a convening space for public events, exhibitions, and concerts
Developing a Circuit Model to Study the Mechanisms of DNA Damage and Repair Feedback Dynamics in Cancer Cells
No full textCancer therapies over the last decade have promoted a growing interest in the manipulation of DNA damage and repair pathways due to its beneficial consequences on cancer cell viability. Simultaneously attacking genetic code with DNA-damaging chemotherapies while eliminating mechanisms of DNA repair – the protectors of our genome – has enormous therapeutic potential. Biological circuit engineering interfaces biochemistry and systems biology with electrical engineering analyses to accurately model and simulate biological pathways such as DNA damage and repair. Circuit models can also be used to identify weaknesses within pathways, highlighting the most efficient protein targets for drugs that aim to reduce cancer cell viability. This project explores the impact of two small molecules, cisplatin and spironolactone, on the fate of cancer cells. Cisplatin is a platinum-based chemotherapeutic agent that induces mono- and di-adducts on DNA, which distort its characteristic double-helix and hinder replication. Such lesions are primarily restored by a DNA repair pathway called Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER). Recent drug-repurposing studies have revealed spironolactone, a small molecule drug, as a potent and effective inhibitor of NER that, when combined with cisplatin, can significantly impact the viability of cancer cells. In this thesis, I create a biological circuit model of Cisplatin-induced DNA damage and spironolactone-mediated NER inhibition using Cadence, an electrical engineering analysis software. The model was derived with a combination of parameters from literature, laboratory experiments, and engineering insights. The tools employed in this project form the basis of a new and innovative instrument for drug design and crossing the threshold between authentic and synthetic biology
SOBLU at 50
Get PDFI think it’s extraordinary that the organization has not only endured but has thrived. It has changed with the times over these last 50 years
Opening a Window to Evolution: David Angelini’s research on genetic adaptation gets push from McVey Data Science Initiative
Get PDFMost people think of soapberry bugs as little more than a nuisance, if they think of them at all. Found across much of the southeastern United States, the oblong insect is harmless to humans and likes to hang out on plants native to the soapberry family, hence its straightforward name
Is France Having a Populist Moment?
No full textThe word populism is often thrown around in news media and academic scholarship, but there is a lack of understanding of what it actually means as a political theory. In France, the two presidential candidates that made it to the second round in 2017, Emmanuel Macron and Marine le Pen, were both called populist, despite having vastly different campaign strategies and messages. This study used a computer-based method to analyze Campaign books from 24 candidates beginning in 1981 that determined that Populist language is on the rise, but not as aggressively as news media suggests
Discrimination Among College Football Head Coaches
No full textSeveral major sports organizations have come under scrutiny in recent years for alleged discriminatory practices towards minority coaches. In this paper, I analyze whether minority college football head coaches are more likely to be fired and to earn a lower salary. I observe a sample of 300 head coaches from 132 Division-I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools between the years 2006 to 2021. After controlling for performance and experience variables and holding the time and school or conference variables fixed in a Cox hazard regression model, I find statistically significant evidence that minority coaches face a higher likelihood of being terminated than their white counterparts. Second, by running an ordinary least squares regression, I find no statistically significant evidence that minority coaches are more likely to earn a lower wage than white coaches. These findings highlight the fact that minority coaches face higher levels of scrutiny, and open the door for potential further research to be done on the hiring processes of these programs as well
Assembling Place: White Supremacist Formations at a Place-Based Educational Institution
No full textThis research considers white supremacist formations at an elite, place-based educational institution in the Bahamas. Place-based education is an educational philosophy that connects “learning” to the setting in which students are engaging in that learning. Through the structuring philosophy of place-based education, I examine how white supremacist formations are/were engaged with, experienced, remembered, and reinforced by 11 former and current educators, administrators and students who have attended/worked at the school. I contend with my interlocutors’ memories and experiences through four interwoven threads: tourism and imperialism in the Bahamas as manifested through the school’s “place-based” educational philosophy, militarist ordering of every-day experience, institutional renderings of diversity, and curricular frames of place. A structuring concept of this research is “assemblage;” building on a variety of scholars’ work, I consider assemblage as a way to locate how white supremacist formations at the school become, remain, and are reinforced and obscured. Assemblage allows for a critique of the project of place-based education as it illuminates how experiences are never just and only experiences, but rather complex locations shaped through systemic forces such as imperialism
Meeting All the Challenges: These Five Colby Alumnae are Reshaping the World of Business, Finance, and Technology with Their Liberal Arts Education
No full textFive high-achieving alumnae talk about their lives, careers, and Colby