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- Genre: Masters Thesis
Description
Researchers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries identify the study of the intrinsic and external factors that influence human aging as senescence. A commonly held belief in the year 2015 is that at least some kinds of cells can replicate over long periods or even indefinitely, thereby meaning the cell does not undergo senescence (also known as replicative senescence) and is considered immortal. This study aims to provide information to answer the following question: While some scientists claim they can indefinitely culture a stem cell line in vitro, what are the consequences of those culturing practices? An analysis of a cluster of articles from the Embryo Project Encyclopedia provides information to suggest possible solutions to some potential problems in cell culturing, recognition of benefits for existing or historical culturing practices, and identification of gaps in scientific knowledge that warrant further research. Recent research suggests that hESCs, and immortalized cell lines in general, do not escape the effects of senescence. While there exists a constant change in the practices of cell culturing, a large portion of scientists still rely on practices established before modern senescence research: research that seems to suggest that cultured hESCs, among other immortal cell lines, are not truly immortal.
ContributorsBartlett, Zane (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Ellison, Karin (Committee member) / Hurlbut, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Nearly seven decades ago, the US government established grants to the states for family planning and acknowledged the importance of enabling all women to plan and space their pregnancies, regardless of personal income. Since then, publicly-funded family planning services have empowered millions of women, men, and adolescents to achieve their childbearing goals. Despite the recognized importance of subsidized family planning, services remain funded in a piecemeal fashion. Since the 1940s there have been numerous federal funding sources for family planning, including the Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Program, Office of Economic Opportunity grants, Title XX Social Services Program, Title X Family Planning Program, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, alongside state and local support. Spending guidelines allow states varying degrees of flexibility regarding allocation, to best serve the local population. With nearly two billion dollars spent annually on subsidized family planning, criticism often arises surrounding effective local program spending and state politics influencing grant allocation. Political tension regarding the amount of control states should have in managing federal funding is exacerbated in the context of family planning, which has become increasingly controversial among social conservatives in the twenty-first century. This thesis examines how Arizona’s political, geographic, cultural, and ethnic landscape shaped the state management of federal family planning funding since the early twentieth century. Using an extensive literature review, archival research, and oral history interviews, this thesis demonstrates the unique way Arizona state agencies and nonprofits collaborated to maximize the use of federal family planning grants, effectively reaching the most residents possible. That partnership allowed Arizona providers to reduce geographic barriers to family planning in a rural, frontier state. The social and political history surrounding the use of federal family planning funds in Arizona demonstrates the important role states have in efficient, effective, and equitable state implementation of national resources in successfully reaching local populations. The contextualization of government funding of family planning provides insight into recent attempts to defund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood, cut the Title X Family Planning Program, and restructure Medicaid in the twenty-first century.
ContributorsNunez-Eddy, Claudia (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Hurlbut, James (Committee member) / O'Neil, Erica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This is a project about medicine and the history of a condition called premenstrual syndrome (PMS), its “discovery” and conceptual development at both scientific and socio-cultural levels. Since it was first mentioned in medical literature, PMS has been explored empirically as a medical condition and conceptually as non-somatic cultural phenomenon. Many attempts have been made to produce scientific, empirical evidence to bolster the theory of PMS as a biological disease. Some non-medical perspectives argue that invoking biology as the cause of PMS medicalizes a natural function of the female reproductive system and shallowly interrogates what is actually a complex bio-psycho-social phenomenon. This thesis questions both sides of this debate in order to reveal how criteria for PMS were categorized despite disagreement surrounding its etiology.
This thesis illustrates how the concept of PMS developed and was informed by the discovery of hormones and the resulting field of endocrinology that provided a framework for conceptualizing PMS. It displays how the development of the medical diagnostic category of PMS developed in tandem with the emergence of the field of endocrinology and was legitimized and effectively medicalized through this connection. The diagnosis of PMS became established though the diagnostic techniques like questionnaires in spite of persistent disagreement over its definition. The thesis shows how these medical concepts and practices legitimated the category of PMS, and how it has become ubiquitous in contemporary culture.
This thesis illustrates how the concept of PMS developed and was informed by the discovery of hormones and the resulting field of endocrinology that provided a framework for conceptualizing PMS. It displays how the development of the medical diagnostic category of PMS developed in tandem with the emergence of the field of endocrinology and was legitimized and effectively medicalized through this connection. The diagnosis of PMS became established though the diagnostic techniques like questionnaires in spite of persistent disagreement over its definition. The thesis shows how these medical concepts and practices legitimated the category of PMS, and how it has become ubiquitous in contemporary culture.
ContributorsZietal, Bianca (Author) / Hurlbut, James (Thesis advisor) / Robert, Jason (Committee member) / Brian, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Writing speculative fiction is a valuable method for exploring the potential societal transformations elicited by advances in science and technology. The aim of this project is to use speculative fiction to explore the potential consequences of precision medicine for individuals’ daily lives. Precision medicine is a vision of the future in which medicine is about predicting, and ultimately preventing disease before symptoms arise. The idea is that identification of all the factors that influence health and contribute to disease development will translate to better and less expensive healthcare and empower individuals to take responsibility for maintaining their own health and wellness. That future, as envisioned by the leaders of the Human Genome Project, the Institute for Systems Biology, and the Obama administration’s Precision Medicine Initiative, is assumed to be a shared future, one that everyone desires and that is self-evidently “better” than the present. The aim of writing speculative fiction about a “precision medicine” future is to challenge that assumption, to make clear the values underpinning that vision of precision medicine, and to leave open the question of what other possible futures could be imagined instead.
ContributorsVenkatraman, Richa (Author) / Brian, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Hurlbut, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022