Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Transcriptomics technologies are the techniques used to study an organism's transcriptome, the sum of all of its RNA transcripts. The information content of an organism is recorded in the DNA of its genome and expressed through transcription. Here, mRNA serves as a transient intermediary molecule in the information network, whilst non-coding RNAs perform additional diverse functions. A transcriptome captures a snapshot in time of the total transcripts present in a cell. Transcriptomics technologies provide a broad account of which cellular processes are active and which are dormant. A major challenge in molecular biology is to understand how a single genome gives rise to a variety of cells. Another is how gene expression is regulated. The first attempts to study whole transcriptomes began in the early 1990s. Subsequent technological advances since the late 1990s have repeatedly transformed the field and made transcriptomics a widespread discipline in biological sciences. There are two key contemporary techniques in the field: microarrays, which quantify a set of predetermined sequences, and RNA-Seq, which uses high-throughput sequencing to record all transcripts. As the technology improved, the volume of data produced by each transcriptome experiment increased. As a result, data analysis methods have steadily been adapted to more accurately and efficiently analyse increasingly large volumes of data. Transcriptome databases have consequently been growing bigger and more useful as transcriptomes continue to be collected and shared by researchers. It would be almost impossible to interpret the information contained in a transcriptome without the knowledge of previous experiments. Measuring the expression of an organism's genes in different tissues or conditions, or at different times, gives information on how genes are regulated and reveals details of an organism's biology. It can also be used to infer the functions of previously unannotated genes. Transcriptome analysis has enabled greater insight into gene expression changes in different organisms and has been instrumental in the understanding of human disease. An analysis of gene expression in its entirety allows detection of broad coordinated trends which cannot be discerned by more targeted assays.
In the field of molecular biology, gene expression profiling is the measurement of the activity (the expression) of thousands of genes at once, to create a global picture of cellular function. These profiles can, for example, distinguish between cells that are actively dividing, or show how the cells react to a particular treatment. Many experiments of this sort measure an entire genome simultaneously, that is, every gene present in a particular cell. Several transcriptomics technologies can be used to generate the necessary data to analyse. DNA microarrays measure the relative activity of previously identified target genes. Sequence based techniques, like RNA-Seq, provide information on the sequences of genes in addition to their expression level.
Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) (also called functional enrichment analysis or pathway enrichment analysis) is a method to identify classes of genes or proteins that are over-represented in a large set of genes or proteins, and may have an association with different phenotypes (e.g. different organism growth patterns or diseases). The method uses statistical approaches to identify significantly enriched or depleted groups of genes. Transcriptomics technologies and proteomics results often identify thousands of genes, which are used for the analysis. Researchers performing high-throughput experiments that yield sets of genes (for example, genes that are differentially expressed under different conditions) often want to retrieve a functional profile of that gene set, in order to better understand the underlying biological processes. This can be done by comparing the input gene set to each of the bins (terms) in the gene ontology – a statistical test can be performed for each bin to see if it is enriched for the input genes.
New approach methodologies (NAMs) are alternative testing protocols, technologies, and strategies that are in alignment with the 3Rs principles (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) for the ethical use of animal models. Both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the two principal authorities in global pharmaceutical regulation, have established frameworks to facilitate the evaluation and potential integration of these NAMs into regulatory pipelines. NAMs comprise basic 2D cell-based assays, advanced 3D in vitro human-derived systems such as organoids or organs-on-a-chip, predictive in silico computational models such as QSAR and omics such as transcriptomics technologies among other techniques. By using these human-derived biological models, NAMs are designed to predict human health outcomes, lower operational costs, and accelerate drug development schedules.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.