Science faculty��s subtle gender biases favor male students

Despite efforts to recruit and retain more women, a stark gender disparity persists within academic science. Abundant research has demonstrated gender bias in many demographic groups, but has yet to experimentally investigate whether science faculty exhibit a bias against female students that could contribute to the gender disparity in academic science. In a randomized double-blind study (n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student—who was randomly assigned either a male or female name—for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant. These participants also selected a higher starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant. The gender of the faculty participants did not affect responses, such that female and male faculty were equally likely to exhibit bias against the female student. Mediation analyses indicated that the female student was less likely to be hired because she was viewed as less competent. We also assessed faculty participants’ preexisting subtle bias against women using a standard instrument and found that preexisting subtle bias against women played a moderating role, such that subtle bias against women was associated with less support for the female student, but was unrelated to reactions to the male student. These results suggest that interventions addressing faculty gender bias might advance the goal of increasing the participation of women in science.     

Discrimination between prion‐infected and normal blood samples by protein misfolding cyclic amplification

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis of prion disease from blood samples requires the detection of minute quantities of misfolded protein (PrP^Sc) against a high background of correctly folded material (PrP^C). Protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) is a technique that can amplify small amounts of seed PrP^Sc to a level detectable by conventional methods. Application of PMCA to the testing of whole blood samples enhances the ability to detect PrP^Sc and allows antemortem detection of prion infection and could facilitate blood screening. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: The PMCA method was used to detect prion infection in blood samples obtained from mice experimentally infected with prion disease. Mice were culled at various time points throughout the incubation period for disease and subjected to serial PMCA (sPMCA). Amplified samples were then analyzed by Western blotting to confirm the presence or absence of infection. RESULTS: After sPMCA, blood samples from Rocky Mountain Laboratory–infected mice showed amplification of PrP^Sc to levels readily detectable by Western blotting. Control samples obtained from mice mock inoculated with sterile phosphate‐buffered saline did not yield any amplification products. CONCLUSION: sPMCA performed on small volumes of whole blood gave amplification of PK‐resistant material to a level detectable by standard methods. Discrimination between infected and control samples was achieved without the need for processing or fractionation of whole blood. The use of whole blood as an analyte circumvents the need to identify the optimal blood compartment for analysis and guarantees the totality of misfolded PrP will be available for detection.     

Multiecho coarse voxel acquisition for neurofeedback fMRI

“Real‐time” functional magnetic resonance imaging is starting to be used in neurofeedback applications, enabling individuals to regulate their brain activity for therapeutic purposes. These applications use two‐dimensional multislice echo planar or spiral readouts to image the entire brain volume, often with a much smaller region of interest within the brain monitored for feedback purposes. Given that such brain activity should be sampled rapidly, it is worthwhile considering alternative functional magnetic resonance imaging pulse sequences that trade spatial resolution for temporal resolution. We developed a prototype sequence localizing a column of magnetization by outer volume saturation, from which densely sampled transverse relaxation time decays are obtained at coarse voxel locations using an asymmetric gradient echo train. For 5 × 20 × 20 mm3 voxels, 256 echoes are sampled at ～1 msec and then combined in weighted summation to increase functional magnetic resonance imaging signal contrast. This multiecho coarse voxel pulse sequence is shown experimentally at 1.5 T to provide the same signal contrast to noise ratio as obtained by spiral imaging for a primary motor cortex region of interest, but with potential for enhanced temporal resolution. A neurofeedback experiment also illustrates measurement and calculation of functional magnetic resonance imaging signals within 1 sec, emphasizing the future potential of the approach. Magn Reson Med, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.