Launch Event - SMP Seminar Series

Image: Luis Quintero, Pexels

We are delighted to announce that Russell Gruen (Dean of the College of Health and Medicine), and Bruce Christensen (Deputy Director, School of Medicine and Psychology) will be attending in support of the series.

Lunch and tea/coffee will be provided, so please register to ensure sufficient catering. We hope you can make it!

PRESENTATIONS:

1. RNAs as biomarkers for early detection of age-related macular degeneration

Presenter: Riemke Aggio-Bruce. Riemke is a lecturer in anatomy and a postdoctoral researcher in the CVR laboratory. Her research focuses on the use of non-coding RNAs as diagnostic tools for, and their role in inflammation in, retinal degenerations such as AMD.

Abstract: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of vision loss in the developed world. However, the detection of AMD onset and progression are based on morphological assessments which are highly variable and are therefore unreliable for timely and accurate disease prediction. MicroRNA (miRNA) have been explored extensively as biomarkers for a range of neurological diseases including AMD, however, differences in experimental design and the complexity of human biology have resulted in little overlap between studies. Using preclinical animal models and clinical samples, we have developed a novel approach to developing a serum-based signature of AMD progression.

Serum miRNAs were examined in and between, a mouse model of photo-oxidative damage (PD; 0, 1, 3 and 5 days), and clinical samples from patients diagnosed with reticular pseudodrusen (early stage) or atrophic AMD (late stage). MiRNA expression changes were compared against quantifiable retinal histological indicators and the overlap of miRNA changes observed in the mouse model and human patient samples was investigated.

Differential miRNA abundance was identified at all PD time-points and in clinical samples. Importantly, these were found to be associated with inflammatory pathways and histological changes in the retina. Further, we were able to align findings in the mouse serum to those of clinical patients.

We hypothesise that early alterations in circulating RNA, such as miRNA, composition can serve as a diagnostic and prognostic tool for assessing AMD onset and progression. The combination of pre-clinical animal models and human patient samples led to the identification of a preliminary serum miRNA signature for AMD. Our future work will utilise longitudinal patient data to further develop a comprehensive serum RNA signature that aids diagnosis and prognosis in the clinical setting to support patient monitoring and treatment.

2. Salient Social Identities Guide Perceptions of Truth

Presenter: Chris Wang. Chris is a post-graduate student. His Ph.D. research examines the relationship between social identity and self-categorization processes and people’s judgements of truth. He was led to study truth by work done in during his undergraduate study, which identified a negative relationship between judgements of prejudice and judgements of truth.

Abstract: Social commentators have characterised this era as one of partisan-based truth, where the ways of determining truth have moved away from established methods (i.e., science) towards identity-based criteria. Indeed, there are a variety of methods for determining truth (e.g., science, religion). We currently propose that that acceptance or rejection of one or another of these methods is an outcome of one’s salient social identification. Accepting the validity of the scientific method, for example, represents both who one is (e.g., a modernist, a rationalist) and who one is not (e.g., a theologist). Three studies with participants sampled from Amazon Turk (total N = 1,258) tested the hypothesis that claims aligned with the normative content of people’s salient social identities would be seen more as truthful than claims not aligned with this normative content. In experiment 1a, participants were randomly assigned to “inductive-thinker” and “intuitive-thinker” groups. Those with salient “inductive-thinker” social identities judged aphorism claims randomly associated with “science” to be more true than when the exact same claim was attributed to “popular wisdom”. Experiment 1b was a preregistered replication with additional conditions eliminating an alternative semantic-priming explanation. In experiment 2, American Conservatives and Liberals judged as more true claims associated with the ideological content of their social identities. This difference was attenuated through a manipulation framing participants as more moderate than they had originally indicated. Overall, these experiments suggest an identity-truth malleability, such that making salient specific social identities can lead to related perceptions of truth normatively aligned with those identities.