American Society for Cell Biology

Despite decades of interventions aiming to transform the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce to be more inclusive and diverse, little progress has been made in creating long-lasting, sustainable change. For a long period of time, the STEM workforce has been described as a leaky pipeline. While there has been some utility to thinking about the STEM workforce in this way, in this article, we discuss how characterizing the STEM workforce as a leaky pipeline can impede the design of innovative interventions that contribute to sustainable change toward a more inclusive scientific enterprise. As an alternative, we join others in proposing the braided river ecosystem model, related social sciences and career development theories as more inclusive ways to think about the STEM workforce and how a target group or an individual navigates their career choices and development as a scientist. New models and paradigms to understand the STEM workforce and individuals’ careers in science may open the door to finding novel strategies to make careers in STEM accessible to all. We present case studies demonstrating the practical applications of these inclusive models.

International audience

Promoting diversity and inclusiveness in the STEM academic workforce remains a key challenge and national priority. Scientific societies can play a significant role in this process through the creation and implementation of programs to foster STEM academic workforce diversification, and by providing mentoring and skills development training that empower scientists from under-represented minority (URM) backgrounds to succeed in their communities of practice. In this article, we provide examples of challenges met by scientific societies in these areas and present data from the American Society for Cell Biology, highlighting the benefits received by trainees through long-term engagement with its programs. The success of these initiatives illustrates the impact of discipline-specific programming by scientific societies in supporting the development of URM scientists and an increasingly diverse and inclusive academic STEM community.

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The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is a community dedicated to helping prepare the next generation of scientists to advance our understanding of the cell to an unprecedented level of sophistication and detail. Its Education Committee fosters this process by creating educational and professional development opportunities around best practices in science pedagogy, while its Minorities Affairs Committee aims to strengthen the scientific workforce by broadening participation of and support for underrepresented minorities in cell biology. To act upon these complementary priorities, the ASCB has developed a Declaration on Effective and Inclusive Biology Education. Its purpose is to outline practical actions for stakeholders in undergraduate education at the levels of faculty, departments, institutions, professional organizations, and funding agencies. Its recommendations are rooted in evidence-based best practices to support the success of diverse and heterogeneous undergraduate demographics and are designed to be highly adaptable to the existing strengths and needs of individual practitioners, student populations, and institutions. We acknowledge the ever-evolving nature of best practices in undergraduate education and hope that the dissemination of this declaration will play a role in this iterative process.

Contributing to the literature on affective processing and attitude formation, this study investigates the effects of a discrete emotion (disgust) and an emotional disposition (need for affect [NFA]) on support for regulation in the context of microbiome research. Data from a web-based experiment (N = 1,005) showed that experienced disgust mediated the effect of disgust-eliciting information on support for regulation. This mediated relationship was moderated by NFA. More specifically, NFA moderated the path between experienced disgust and regulatory attitudes but not that between message exposure and experienced disgust. The two dimensions of NFA played different moderating roles: Emotional approach amplified the relationship between disgust and the attitudinal outcome, whereas emotional avoidance attenuated it. The study furthers understanding about how NFA influences emotional processing and contributes to research on disgust as a relatively understudied discrete emotion.

Tom Pollard has played an instrumental role in the creation of the life science policy and advocacy programs familiar to life scientists today. This article reviews the creation of that program and the role Tom played. In addition, it briefly discusses advocacy activities now available to life scientists and why they should participate in these activities.

Postnatal epididymal development and differentiation of the epithelium is associated with changes in
\nthe expression of connexins 32 (Cx26) and 32 (Cx32). Previous studies have shown that as differentiation
\nof the epithelium progresses, Cx26 mRNA and protein levels decrease while Cx32 levels increase. The
\nswitch in expression of Cxs has been reported in several other tissues. What is not known, however, is
\nhow these changes occur. Androgens play an important role in regulating the differentiation of the
\nepididymal epithelium. The objective of this study was to determine the interactions between Cx26 and
\nCx32 during development and the role of androgens in regulating Cx26 and Cx32 in two androgen
\ndependant tissues: the epididymis and the ventral prostate. To determine whether or not loss of Cx26 is
\nimportant for the regulation of Cx32, epididymal RCE cells were treated with a Cx26 siRNA. While Cx26
\nmRNA levels were significantly decrease by more than 60% there were no changes in Cx32 mRNA levels.
\nIn order to assess the role of androgens in the regulation of Cx32 and Cx26, an in vivo experiment in
\nwhich rats were either sham operated, orchidectomized or orchidectomized and treated with
\ntestosterone. Results indicate that in the caput epididymidis and ventral prostate, Cx26 mRNA levels
\nwere increased with orchidectomy and repressed with the addition of testosterone. In contrast, Cx32
\nlevels were decreased with orchidectomy but significant increase by testosterone treatment in both
\ntissues. To further confirm the role of androgens in this regulation, androgen responsive LnCAP cells
\nwere cultured with stripped serum and treated with dihydrotestosterone (10nM, DHT) for 24 hrs. The
\nresults indicate that DHT significantly decreased levels of Cx26 and increased those of Cx32. Gene
\npromoter analysis indicates that both genes contain a palindromic androgen response element
\nupstream from the transcriptional start site. These results suggest that Cx26 to Cx32 switch is regulated
\nby androgen repression of the Cx26 gene and activation of Cx32. Supported by NSERC.

Technologies and policies can improve authentication