How much is the Godfather of Mar-a-Lago paying Republicans who blamed him for the insurrection on camera and to the media to perjure themselves and lie to those same cameras, denying they ever said those words? They will not get their money.
Today, ABC’s web page article cited a Huffpost comment by Andrew Clyde (R-Ga), saying, “Let me clear: There was no insurrection. To call it an insurrection, in my opinion, is a bald-faced lie.” It was just “a normal tourist visit,” despite a photo of Clyde holding a chair, assisting Security in defense of the House chamber and representatives. Does he protect himself during every “normal tourist visit?”
Arizona’s white nationalist, Paul Gosar, called those who broke down doors and windows to gain access to the Capitol and the Chamber, chasing representatives into hiding, “patriots,” comparing them to peaceful BLM and antifa protestors last year. Remember, last year, the Godfather sent unmarked goons with no authority to break up protestors and ‘arrest (?)’ them.
Sheldon Metz
Northeast side
Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.
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WITH the 2021 Toyota AFL Premiership season up and running, naturally, Damian Barrett's Sliding Doorsis also up and about.
So what's Damo saying about your club? Who is in the firing line? And what's he saying about the AFL? You can't say that, Damo, can you?
Oh, and be sure you tune in to AFL Daily as Nat and Damo put the spotlight on all the big issues. Check it out.
IF ...
big Texan is back to his best ...
THEN ...
it's a perfect time for him to take on Jake Lever, his former teammate in sparkling form with the unbeaten Demons, the one to whom he gave an almighty verbal send-off in late 2017.
IF ..
there are bigger profiles at Brisbane than Lester and Gardiner ...
THEN ...
in the eyes of coach Fagan there is no one more valued and loved. Massive losses through injury for Friday night lights against Tigers.
IF ...
Jack Silvagni hasn't walked under a ladder, spotted a black cat or broken a mirror this week ...
THEN ...
he might actually get to finish a match of football without injury.
IF ...
you look up the word "shambles" in the dictionary ...
THEN ...
there's an image of the Collingwood Football Club board room. And some reckon Buckley is the problem. Please.
IF ...
Darcy Parish is to emerge from Sunday's match against North Melbourne with another three-voter ...
THEN ...
surely he enters All-Australian conversations.
IF ...
this team was an ice cream flavour ...
THEN ...
it'd be vanilla.
IF ...
the Cats have been the benchmark for recruiting and list management for the past 20 years ...
THEN ...
with their main man (Wells) considering his future and another (Troy Selwood) moving to another club, fair to say there is more than a bit going on in that space. At least they've still got Andrew Mackie analysing future talent. Was a gun in three premiership campaigns, well poised to be head planner for the next one.
IF ...
the Suns couldn't fire a shot at home last weekend in a QClash ...
THEN ...
there is no reason to think they will against Geelong at GMHBA Stadium in round 10. As big a concern as at any stage of their troubled 11-year AFL life.
IF ...
Toby's unavailability is a massive problem ...
THEN ...
Haynes' return for Sunday's match against the Eagles goes a significant way to making up for it. A genuine star.
IF ...
Hawthorn doesn't soon officially lock away a future with Sam Mitchell ...
THEN ...
Collingwood simply has to ask the question. Realise there are no guarantees in footy or life, but in my eyes the closest thing to one is this: Mitchell will one day be an outstanding AFL coach.
IF ...
the focus, albeit understandably, is subconsciously on what could be the match of the year on Friday week against Western Bulldogs ...
THEN ...
that might pose a small problem on Saturday at Adelaide Oval, against the Crows.
IF ...
the season's first win was well deserved after a reasonable stretch of competitive losses ...
THEN ...
there's no reason the Roos can't push Essendon all the way on Sunday at Marvel Stadium.
IF ...
the flat-track bully tag is to be shed ...
THEN ...
unfortunately an away game win against Collingwood won't mean a thing. It's gonna stick for a while.
IF ...
you look at the top eight ...
THEN ...
the team which looks most vulnerable, even after last week's retrieval of a 28-point deficit against GWS, when it comes to premiership credentials is the team sitting eighth. But that team is Richmond. And because it is Richmond it is probably still favourite.
IF ...
at nearly 33 and after 14 seasons at the top level Jarryn Geary is no longer at the top of his game ...
THEN ...
he's still very, very important to this club. Returns for his first game of 2021. And he won't be thinking his team is no chance against the Dogs.
IF ...
Tom Hickey's first 102 AFL matches at three clubs were largely OK ...
THEN ...
in the context of what they have done for the premiership chances of his fourth team, the eight he has played in 2021 have been outstanding and have him, in my eyes at this stage of the season, the recruit of the year.
IF ...
Jack Darling has already compiled an outstanding career since a 2011 debut ...
THEN ...
season 2021 is looming as his standout year. Can now lay claim to being THE key to the Eagles' premiership hopes.
IF ...
depth may have once been an issue ...
THEN ...
it's not now. Dunkley, Wood, English, Martin, McLean, Gardner, Jong, Richards all unavailable. Yet not one dent on the push for a flag.
AND THIS ONE'S FOR THE AFL
IF ...
everyone else has this week expressed a view on the holding-the-ball rule ...
THEN ...
here's mine: stop allowing players do 360s - and sometimes 450s and even 540s - looking for a free teammate before making fake attempts to dispose of the ball. And stop falling for players "pretending" they can’t dispose of the ball.
During development, precise control of gene expression establishes reproducible patterns, leading to the formation of organs at the right time and place. The emergence of developmental patterns has been primarily studied at the transcriptional level, but the fate of these transcripts has received little attention. Dufourt et al. used the SunTag labeling method to image the dynamics of translation of individual messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules in living fruit fly embryos. This work revealed “translation factories”—clusters of mRNA and translation machinery—and heterogeneities in the efficiency of translation between identical mRNAs.
Science, abc3483, this issue p. 840
Abstract
Much is known about the factors involved in the translation of messenger RNA (mRNA) into protein; however, this multistep process has not been imaged in living multicellular organisms. Here, we deploy the SunTag method to visualize and quantify the timing, location, and kinetics of the translation of single mRNAs in living Drosophila embryos. By focusing on the translation of the conserved major epithelial-mesenchymal transition–inducing transcription factor Twist, we identify spatial heterogeneity in mRNA translation efficiency and reveal the existence of translation factories, where clustered mRNAs are cotranslated preferentially at basal perinuclear regions. Observing the location and dynamics of mRNA translation in a living multicellular organism opens avenues for understanding gene regulation during development.
More than 60 years ago, it was established that mRNA is translated to make protein. However, studies have revealed that the level of a given mRNA and the amount of protein it encodes do not directly correlate (1). This lack of colinearity may partially result from differential translational regulation in subcellular compartments where mRNAs are targeted (2, 3). To quantitate and compare mRNA and nascent protein, methods are needed to visualize these molecules in vivo. Live imaging of mRNA has been possible since 1998 (4), but a similar method to image many cycles of translation was only established in 2016 in cultured cells (5–9) and has yet to be established in an intact developing organism. With its rapid development and the simple arrangement of nuclei in the syncytial blastoderm stage, the Drosophila melanogaster embryo represents a model organism to image gene expression.
To visualize translation using a reporter transgene, we used the SunTag system, whereby repetitions of an epitope (named suntag) are added to the protein of interest and are detected with a genetically encoded single-chain antibody (called scFv) fused to a fluorescent protein (10) (Fig. 1A). To implement the SunTag method in Drosophila embryos, we focused on the gene twist, which encodes a conserved transcriptional activator of the mesodermal program in metazoans (11). In Drosophila early embryos, this gene is expressed during the activation of the zygotic genome in a specific ventral domain. We created a twi_suntag transgene (fig. S1F and supplementary text) that enables the labeling of Twi protein with 32 suntag repeats. Additionally, we created scFv-fluorescent lines to detect suntag peptides (fig. S1, A to E; movie S8; and supplementary text). In the presence of the twi_suntag transgene and scFv–green fluorescent protein (GFP) detector protein, distinct spots were detected within the presumptive mesoderm of living embryos (figs. S1 and S2, movie S9, and supplementary text). However, twi_suntag expression appeared stochastically in this domain (fig. S1G; fig. S2, B, E, and F; and supplementary text).
Having demonstrated our ability to observe translation with a reporter transgene, we then monitored twi translational dynamics from its endogenous locus with a twi_suntag_CRISPR allele (fig. S3, A and B). By performing single-molecule mRNA labeling [single-molecule fluorescence in situ hybridization (smFISH)] with the simultaneous detection of native scFv-GFP, we could detect two populations of cytoplasmic mRNA molecules: (i) those colocalizing with a bright GFP signal—i.e., 69 ± 3% in nuclear cycle 14 (n.c.14) (n = 5 embryos)—presumably corresponding to mRNAs being translated and (ii) those devoid of a GFP signal (Fig. 1B). Next, we questioned whether these bright scFv foci could be detected in living embryos with light sheet microscopy, and we found that twi translation was strongly induced during n.c.14 (Fig. 1C and movie S1) and was specific to the mesoderm. Bright but rare scFv-GFP foci appeared as early as n.c.12 and persisted during mitoses (fig. S3C).
To determine whether scFv-GFP spots correspond to nascent sites of translation, we imaged twi_suntag_CRISPR embryos injected with puromycin, a translation inhibitor. We did not observe scFv-GFP spots close to the injection site (fig. S3D and movie S10C). To observe nascent translation of single mRNA particles in live embryos, we engineered a twi_suntag_MS2_CRISPR and combined a scFv-mScarlet with an MCP-GFP transgenic line (fig. S4 and supplementary text). For this dual cytoplasmic imaging, single mRNA molecules are labeled with an MS2 array, visualized using the coat protein of bacteriophage MS2 (MCP) fused to GFP (12), while nascent proteins are labeled with the suntag peptides, recognized by the scFV antibody fused to mScarlet. Confocal imaging revealed distinct molecules of cytoplasmic mRNAs with, in some cases, a red scFv-mScarlet signal on top (fig. S4G and movie S2). This dual-color live imaging confirms the existence of two mRNA pools, with a subset of twi mRNA undergoing translation. It further shows that these mRNA and nascent proteins move together (Fig. 1D and movie S3), revealing that mRNAs in translation are not static.
By combining SunTag and MS2 labeling, it is possible to image transcription and translation and quantify their degree of correlation. In the case of twi, the timing of translation is consistent with its mRNA production (fig. S5A). Live imaging of the twi_suntag_MS2_CRISPR reveals that transcription peaks in n.c.13 (Fig. 2, A and B) (13). Thus, the largest wave of mRNA production precedes the timing of the largest burst of twi translation (Fig. 2, C and D; fig. S4D; and movies S1 and S12A). Further, the timing of twi translation is consistent with the timing of nuclear Twi protein emergence (fig. S5B).
To gain more insight into the dynamics of twi translation, we used the SunTag method to reveal translation kinetics (5, 7–9). We determined that Suntag-Twi fusion protein was fully translated (fig. S5C). Then, by correlating temporal intensity fluctuations of single spot scFv-GFP (5, 7–9), elongation and initiation rates were estimated to be in the order of 35 amino acids per second and 13 s, respectively (fig. S5, D to H). These rates are probably upper estimates and do not reflect the variability between mRNAs. Nonetheless, these rates lead to an overall translation efficiency of seven ribosomes per mRNA (fig. S5I), consistent with ribosome profiling experiments (14). Collectively these data suggest that the relatively late timing of twist translational activation could be partly compensated by its fast translation kinetics.
Using a transverse view of a developing embryo, the sites of translation in n.c.14 appeared much more prominent in the basal perinuclear region (i.e., toward the interior of the embryo), although translation was also observed in the apical perinuclear space (Fig. 3A, fig. S6A, and movies S4 and S12B). To further investigate this apparent spatial bias, we quantified the scFv-GFP signal in these two compartments (fig. S6, B and C, and fig. S7). In contrast to earlier developmental stages—where translation is equivalent in the apical and basal cytoplasmic spaces—in n.c.14, the largest and brightest spots of twi translation appeared mainly in the basal cytoplasm. To estimate translation efficiency, we extracted the intensity of the scFv-GFP signal overlapping individual mRNA molecules (see materials and methods). We found that in the basal perinuclear space, a single molecule of mRNA is on average 50% more intense in the scFv-GFP channel than a single molecule located apically, which suggests an enhanced efficiency of translation (Fig. 3, B and C). This bias is also observed with twi_suntag transgene (fig. S6, D and E). Collectively, these data demonstrate that translation efficiency of identical mRNA molecules depends on their subcellular localization. This spatial heterogeneity does not seem to rely on a differential distribution of ribosomes and might be supported by a higher basal availability of mitochondria (fig. S6, F and G, and movie S5).
Live imaging data revealed the existence of large scFv-GFP foci predominantly present in the basal cytoplasm. Simultaneous detection of mRNA and translation foci shows that these large size translation foci overlap large mRNA foci (Fig. 3B and fig. S6D). To better characterize these large foci, we quantified mRNA densities and scFv-GFP signal. Although mRNA molecules were present along the entire depth of a cell volume, their intensity was clearly enhanced at the level of the basal perinuclear space (Fig. 4A), where they tend to assemble in clusters (fig. S8, A and B). These mRNA clusters were of varying sizes and were larger in the basal perinuclear cytoplasm (Fig. 4, A and B, and fig. S8, B and C). In total, 94 ± 3% of these mRNA clusters were engaged in translation (n = 4 embryos). Thus, we consider them as translation factories, echoing what has been shown in mammalian cells (7, 15, 16). Similar translation factories are observed with an ilp4-suntag transgenic reporter (fig. S9 and supplementary text).
Twi translation factories are distinct from germ plasm granules and processing bodies (P-bodies) (fig. S10, A and B, and movie S15). Clustering of twi mRNA in the basal cytoplasm is also observed in wild-type as well as in twi hemizygous embryos, albeit with a reduced frequency, which suggests that clustering partly depends on mRNA concentration (fig. S8D). Basal mRNA clustering is also detected for other mRNAs (fig. S11A). However, clustering of mRNAs is not a specific feature of the basal cytoplasm, as it is also observed apically (fig. S11, B and C) and largely documented for pair-rule genes (17, 18).
The site of twi mRNA major clustering might be, in part, dictated by the localization of its site of transcription (Fig. 4C; fig. S12, A and B; and movie S6). A preferential export of mRNA toward the basal cytoplasm would favor basal twi mRNA clustering, which would be rapidly cotranslated in factories. In the case of a nuclear protein like Twi, its translation in factories nearby the nuclear periphery could favor rapid nuclear import of newly formed proteins, as suggested by Twi protein stainings (fig. S12C).
twi translation occurs before complete cellularization. Consequently, its messenger ribonucleoproteins (mRNPs) could theoretically diffuse between neighboring pseudocells. To gain insight into twi mRNP mobilities, we tracked twi_suntag_CRISPR mRNPs in different cytoplasmic locations (Fig. 4D and movie S7). The trajectories and the mean square displacement (MSD) revealed clear, distinct properties of apical versus basal particles (fig. S13 and supplementary text). For example, the diffusion coefficient of mRNPs is one-third as fast in the basal compartment compared with the apical (Fig. 4E). The sublinear growth of the MSD curves suggests subdiffusive behavior in both compartments (fig. S11, C to G). Thus, we conclude that, in the basal perinuclear cytoplasm, twi translation sites diffuse slower because of their larger size.
By focusing on twi mRNAs as a paradigm for transcription factor encoding transcripts, we have uncovered fundamental features of translation in a living organism such as heterogeneity in translation efficiencies of identical mRNAs and the existence of translation factories. Local translation of multiple mRNAs could have several benefits. First, it could favor the assembly of newly synthesized proteins in complexes. This is potentially the case for Twi, known to homodimerize (19). Second, localized protein synthesis could favor fast delivery of newly formed proteins to their destinations. Correlation between mRNA localization and protein function is well documented (2). The SunTag method now allows us to bridge the gap between mRNA and protein localization. In the case of twi, we propose that local and enhanced translation close to the nuclear envelope favor rapid nuclear import of neosynthesized Twi protein. This might be generalizable to other transcription factors, as proposed for pair-rule proteins (18).
Finally, the clustering of mRNAs and their cotranslation restricts the diffusion capacities of mRNPs. In the context of a syncytial embryo, this property could be exploited to limit the diffusion and allow spatial precision in cell fate decisions. As cellularization proceeds with an apico-basal directionality, apical anchoring of mRNAs represents an optimal strategy to limit diffusion. However, translation dynamics of these apical mRNAs remain to be demonstrated. In contrast, for mRNAs located basally in a compartment, where short-range diffusion lasts for a relatively long period of time, we propose that clustering and rapid local translation restrict the diffusion capacities of mRNPs. Thus, precision in the establishment of developmental patterns cannot only be attributed to precision in transcriptional activation. We anticipate that our approaches will pave the way to investigating previously inaccessible translation modalities during development and differentiation.
Supplementary Materials
Acknowledgments: We are grateful to E. Bertrand, R. Zinzen, I. Izzedin, P. Lasko, T. Hurd, and X. Pichon for sharing flies, reagents, and software. We thank C. Desplan, J. Chubb, R. Bordonne, F. Besse, T. E. Saunders, J. Dejardin, and V. L. Pimmett, for their critical reading of the manuscript. We acknowledge L. Bellec, H. Lenden, and M. Goussard for technical assistance. We acknowledge the Montpellier Ressources Imagerie facility (France-BioImaging). Funding: M.B. is a recipient of an FRM fellowship. This work was supported by the ERC SyncDev starting grant and a HFSP-CDA grant to M.L. M.L., J.D., and C.F. are sponsored by CNRS. S.D.R. is sponsored by INSERM. Author contributions: M.L. conceived the project. M.L. and J.D. designed the experiments. J.D., M.B., and M.D. performed experiments. A.T. developed software. C.F., M.B., and J.D. performed kinetic analysis. S.D.R. and J.D. performed MuViSPIM imaging. J.D., M.L., A.T., M.B., and C.F. analyzed the data. J.D., M.L., and M.B. interpreted the results. M.B. created artwork. M.L. wrote the manuscript with help from J.D. and M.B. All authors discussed, approved, and reviewed the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data are available in the main text and/or the supplementary materials, and fly stocks will be deposited at Vienna Drosophila Resource Center.
World party: selling products internationally means offering local language versions
It’s critical that British businesses do not communicate in English alone. In addition to the UK’s domestic language diversity, overseas customers and suppliers appreciate being spoken to in their native language. It can avoid cultural or communication barriers with employees and suppliers, and it can help customers feel like the brand values them as people. Below are five reasons why a translation service is necessary and helpful for business growth.
#1 – local, relatable content
If you want to bring your business into a new culture, you’ll need to focus on local content adaptations. This process helps all the details of a message or product appropriately fit into the local culture. Updating for local content can:
Adjust graphics so they include the new language or represent the local demographic
Change the layout of a message so that it works with the new language, like making sure text that reads vertically rather than horizontally is easy to read on the page
Make sure the product or marketing fits local regulations like privacy or disclosure laws
Avoid cultural insensitivity in messaging
Change small details so the product or message looks natural, like currency symbols or address formats
#2 – social media outreach
Social media is a major way to reach new customers and grow your business. Some companies even use it to communicate with employees and businesses partners. Below are some tips for making sure you address customers or business partners in their native language and culture on social media.
Look into what the popular social media platforms are in the region or language you are looking to communicate in. As an example, China uses Renren rather than Facebook
Familiarize yourself with how to post on each platform. Instagram is more photo-heavy, while Twitter tends to make use of shorter posts. Facebook can absorb slightly longer posts
Keep in mind that translating social media posts will be an ongoing need. Facebook accounts that have over 10,000 followers had the most clicks per post when they posted 31-60 times per month. The steadiest clicks per post for all types of accounts were for those that posted one to five times per month. This is a regular expense, so make sure to put costs for this in your marketing budget
Social media posts have to be professionally translated. Social media is very casual, so it has to reach people in a way that is both native and natural. Bad translations could offend local cultures or sound stilted. Many social media users unfollow brands because they feel the posts are offensive or inappropriate
#3 – Website SEO and translation service
SEO entails optimising a website so that search engines recognize it. International SEO is optimising a website in a way that lets search engines know which countries you’re targeting or the languages you are using. As complex as that sounds, it’s actually just a question of following certain processes. To get a website to rank in a foreign region you would:
Use a URL structure that fits the conventions of the area you are targeting. This is the foreign version of how a UK site tends to have co.uk at the end of its website addresses
Add language tags in the HTML coding to tell search engines the language(s) you are using
And, of course, translate the website content into the new language
There are other approaches that you can use. You can host your website on a local IP in the new region. You could build links from regional resources on your website. You can even find which search engines are more common in the new region and target those, since not everywhere uses Google.
>See also: 3 ways to improve your chances of success exporting overseas
#4 – Make e-commerce easier to navigate
Forty per cent of consumers will not buy from websites that in other languages, so a translation service is necessary if you want to reach customers who speak another language, whether domestically or abroad.
E-commerce pages also need to take account of local conventions. While updating an e-commerce page, you may need to address some of the elements of how the website is designed. On top of translating the text, you may need to tweak the layout of the website so that it is easy to read in the new language. You may also have to update various formatting details, such as currency symbols on product pages and checkout carts or address and phone number formats on contact pages. Finally, you might need to change graphics to fit local conventions, like capturing local landmarks in photos or replacing images with ones featuring models who represent local demographics.
Updating to local content can also make sure an e-commerce site fits local regulations, like cookie notifications or privacy policies. Also, it makes sure the product or messaging can fit with the local culture in a way that is easy to understand and non-offensive. To these ends, the process might involve you rewriting things to avoid certain references or avoid phrases that do not have a literal translation in the language the message is translated into.
#5 – targeted email marketing campaigns
You can easily manage e-mail marketing through services like Constant Contact, iContact, HubSpot or MailChimp. But you still need to have your emails translated by a professional service so that they read well in the new language.
A translation service can take a look at an email campaign in a way a machine can’t. A human translator can:
Make sure the tone of the email stays the same from language to language
Lay out the email so that it works in any language
Remove or change anything that might be culturally offensive
Tailor an email to fit certain use habits, which may change from region to region
Marketing also tends to use a lot of figurative language, which needs a high level of cultural understanding to translate. Machines often miss this.
If an email looks unprofessional in any way, the recipient is likely to delete it as possible spam. You can increase the chance of reaching more customers or even business partners by making sure your emails look professional in any language.
Ofer Tirosh is CEO of translation serviceTomedes
Further reading
Series A to Series D, everything you need to know about funding rounds
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The MissouriAttorney General’s Officespent about $11,000 on a New Jersey-based company for translation and international process servicing fees tosueChina over thecoronaviruspandemic.
The Attorney General’s Office hiredDGR Legalafter soliciting competitive bids. It officially served the Chinese Communist Party, the Wuhan Institute for Virology, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences with lawsuits via email Tuesday to “to hold [them] accountable for their role in the COVID-19 pandemic.”
According to a news release, DGR Legal identified service addresses, provided translations of service documents into Chinese, and prepared the service packets. A spokesperson confirmed the firm was retained in August for translation and “fees related to international process services” and was paid about $11,000.
Costs for these types of international processing services can often be calculated based on word count and the type of translation needed, experts told The Missouri Times. A representative for DGR Legal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is running for U.S. Senate,announced he was suing the Chinese governmentover its handling of the pandemic in April 2020. And about one year later, a federal court gave Schmitt’s office the ability to serve the three non-governmental defendants by email after China objected to being served through the Hague Convention.
Schmitt’s office must go through the proper “diplomatic channels” through the State Department to serve the People’s Republic of China and five other subsidiaries, the Attorney General’s Office said.
Schmitt has asked the State Department to aid in serving Chinaas well as waivethe $2,275 per defendant consular fees as it pertains to the People’s Republic of China, the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, the Ministry of Emergency Management of the People’s Republic of China, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, the People’s Government of Hubei Province, and the People’s Government of Wuhan City.
“Unlike private disputes among private litigants, our lawsuit is filed on behalf of the people of Missouri as a whole, and it serves the public interest,” Schmitt said in the request. “Moreover, all Americans have an overpowering interest in achieving truth and accountability regarding the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This lawsuit serves the interest of all Americans, not just Missourians.”
Thesuit is filedin the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri Southeastern Division.
According to a timeline from the Attorney General’s Office, it solicited bids from firms from May to August 2020 before DGR attempted to submit service packets to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Missouri was the first state to attempt to sue China regarding COVID-19. Mississippihas also suedChina.
“The Chinese government lied to the world about the danger and contagious nature of COVID-19, silenced whistleblowers, and did little to stop the spread of the disease. They must be held accountable for their actions,” Schmitt has said.
Kaitlyn Schallhorn is the editor of The Missouri Times. She joined the newspaper in early 2019 after working as a reporter for Fox News in New York City.
Throughout her career, Kaitlyn has covered political campaigns across the U.S., including the 2016 presidential election, and humanitarian aid efforts in Africa and the Middle East.
She is a native of Missouri who studied journalism at Winthrop University in South Carolina. She is also an alumna of the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C.
DURHAM, N.C. – Duke’s Office of Licensing and Ventures is getting a new name as part of the drive to expand Duke’s commercialization efforts, and its director is getting a new title.
Robin Rasor has been named the University Associate Vice President for Translation and Commercialization.
The re-named Office of Translation & Commercialization that she leads oversees the protection, marketing and licensing of innovations made by Duke inventors. Its New Ventures group provides assistance to faculty or staff who want to explore starting their own companies around their ideas.
“The university’s pipeline and the deal flow that comes out of it have grown quite nicely over the past few years,” said Rasor, who joined Duke five years ago. “In particular, we have focused on ensuring that our agreement terms are commensurate with our peers and that we close as many deals as possible. The number of our startups has increased and we’re focused on the quality of the startups in terms of their attractiveness to investors and potential for exits via public markets or acquisitions.”
Just over a year ago, Rasor also added a two-person team that directly markets Duke technology and innovations to potential licensees and research partners. “The result is more companies talking to faculty about their research and technologies,” she said.
“Sometimes that results in research dollars; sometimes that results in a license; sometimes it results in both.”
When it comes to nurturing startups and helping them find funds and leadership talent, Rasor’s office has always engaged with their counterparts at UNC-Chapel Hill. But now the partnership will be even stronger, with a recently announced $750,000 grant to create a startup entrepreneurial hub. This collaboration will expand both schools’ ability to provide their startups with market analysis, leadership talent, potential investors and hopefully, deals. The hub launches this summer and aims to create 18 new startups in the next year and a half.
Last year alone, Duke created 17 startups and 105 licensing agreements, while bringing in $65 million in revenue.
“I came here with a vision: ‘I want Duke to be in the national conversation about innovation and entrepreneurship,’” Rasor said. “While we're not on the coasts, we are a major research university with deep capabilities in areas as diverse as gene therapy and gene editing, vaccine technologies, medical devices, machine learning and digital health and quantum computing.”
“We are definitely making progress as evidenced by the increased numbers of licenses and startups,” Rasor said. “But we have a chance to continually do better with the ongoing re-structuring of how we manage translation and commercialization at Duke.”
Rasor came to Duke from the University of Michigan, where she had been managing director of licensing. She also worked in licensing at The Ohio State University and Battelle Columbus Laboratories. She has an MS in genetics from Ohio State and a BS in bacteriology and zoology from Ohio Wesleyan University. She is also a past president of both the Board of Governors of Certified Licensing Professionals and the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM).
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation has created an online Umatilla language dictionary. Modesta Minthorn is the director of education for the confederated tribes and Thomas Morning Owl is the General Council interpreter. They join us to reflect on the importance of the online dictionary and how it can be used to support the language.
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