14 LEHIGH UNIVERSITY | COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13) monograph about Austen’s work and its relationship to the humanities. The podcast coincides with the 250th anniversary of the novelist’s birth. Austen, Kramp notes, was the first woman to earn a place in the canon of English literature and her popularity endures. Austen is popular with readers both in and outside of academia because she is more accessible to readers, particularly in terms of her language. “You don’t need a decoder lens to understand her,” he says. Kramp says three things set Austen apart. “I talk about her versatility, her accessibility, and her ostensible safety, which are the three defining features that make Austen a distinct cultural figure,” he explains. For Kramp, the podcast is more than an homage to Austen. He is using his episode-by-episode examination of her work to make a case for the value of studying the humanities. Leveraging Austen’s appeal provides a way to have that conversation with public audiences. “Austen has a distinct cultural status that very few people have because she’s popular, respected, global, accessible, the effects of the “transgene” on host biology. In a recent study, the team also developed molecular tools to measure rare Wolbachia without the assistance of standard microbiology techniques. “We really want to get into reductionist biology,” Shropshire says. “We want to know the entire pathways involved in each of these different processes so we can use that information to understand why Wolbachia is the world’s most common animal-associated symbiont and improve tools for vector control.” Wolbachia’s potential is enormous. Insecticides are often untargeted, killing not only pests but also many other species. In contrast, Wolbachia can be used in select species to control specific diseases, with remarkable success rates. English Beyond Pride and Prejudice: A Professor’s Podcast Makes the Case for Jane Austen— and the Humanities Lehigh English Professor Michael Kramp remembers the first time he read one of Jane Austen’s novels. It was Pride and Prejudice—required reading in a college English class. “Ever since I first read Jane Austen at age 18, I have been pretty much enamored of her narratives, her characters, and her ideas,” Kramp says. It’s a statement he makes introducing each episode of his podcast, “Jane Austen and the Future of the Humanities.” The podcast can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other platforms. The podcast is one part of a larger public-facing project that includes a YouTube channel where videos of his ongoing interviews with artists, scholars, and writers from around the world can be viewed. Kramp is also writing a The real-world stakes of understanding Wolbachia are high. In 2010, Wolbachia-bearing mosquitoes were first released in Australia to curb dengue transmission. Since then, Wolbachia levels have remained above 90 percent, and virus transmission has plummeted. Similar releases are now underway worldwide to combat dengue, Zika, Chikungunya and other diseases. But as Shropshire points out, it took three years and a 0.125 percent success rate to move Wolbachia from the humble fruit fly into Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Some releases also fail because the traits that help them spread aren’t strong enough. Shropshire and his team work with fruit flies using the same Wolbachia strain used in public health efforts. Their goal? To understand the genetic, cellular and ecological underpinnings of the microbe’s behavior so interventions can become more effective—and efficient. “We’re trying to understand how Wolbachia acts in nature so we can improve the way we use it to protect humans from disease,” he says. Because Wolbachia can’t be cultured outside host cells, traditional microbiological tools don’t work. But fruit flies, with their rich genetic toolkit and research history, provide a workaround. Shropshire’s team can inject Wolbachia genes into the fruit fly genome, clear the flies of natural Wolbachia, and study (CONTINUED ON PAGE 17) Science Source, Alamy Aedes aegypti mosquito An illustration of Caroline Bingley and Elizabeth Bennet at the Netherfield Ball in Pride and Prejudice.
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