Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to have a devastating effect on a global scale. COVID-19 variants continue to arise and counteract vaccination efficacy. As such, preventative health measures, such as social distancing and stay at home mandates, will continue for the foreseeable future. Evidence on those at greatest risk for poor outcomes if infected with COVID-19 has rapidly come to light. It has become clear that those with unhealthy lifestyle characteristics, chronic disease risk factors and/or a confirmed diagnosis of one or more chronic conditions are at greatest risk for hospitalization, intensive care unit admission, mechanical ventilation, and death if infected with COVID-19. The cytokine storm is a phenomenon that has been posited as a pathophysiologic response to COVID-19 infection that leads to poor outcomes. The current graphical review illustrates the association between unhealthy lifestyle characteristics and increased vulnerability to the cytokine storm as well as the physiologic mechanisms healthy living behaviors elicit and decrease risk for the cytokine storm. Through this graphical review, we will demonstrate unhealthy lifestyle characteristics, chronic disease risk factors and diagnoses, and COVID-19 outcomes are intricately linked, creating a new global syndemic. It is also clear that a primary way to uncouple this syndemic is through increasing healthy living behaviors, as illustrated in this graphical review. Moving forward, healthy living medicine should be practiced with renewed vigor to improve human resiliency to health threats posed by both chronic disease and viral infections.

Laboratory classes have consistently played a crucial role in science education for many years. Common to all labs is the need to understand essential lab techniques. Students often lack this foundational understanding, and this can lead to poor performance or confidence (Gallagher et al. 2008).Virtual labs have been found to be effective in promoting active learning and increasing performance (Lewis 2014). In this project, a virtual lab for preparing a phosphate-buffered saline solution (PBS) was created to educate undergraduate biology students on essential laboratory techniques. The virtual lab included animations and interactive elements to visually communicate each step.Content experts provided input on the accuracy of the scientific content throughout development. Focus group testing with biology teaching assistants (TAs) at the University of Illinois at Chicago was conducted to assess the potential effectiveness of the virtual lab.

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Recent recommendations for undergraduate biology instruction emphasize teaching foundational biological principles and helping students transfer these principles to more complex biological phenomena. These curricular endeavors can be facilitated by the incorporation of interactive visualization materials. The following research project was developed to explore whether a visual interactive didactic tool could be developed to improve learning outcomes for undergraduate biology students on the topic of allosteric regulation within the context of glycolysis. The results of this research could be beneficial for improving the development of interactive applications for science education.A pretest-posttest design method was used during an introductory biology course at the University of Illinois at Chicago in Spring 2017. 16 students completed the pretest and 12 completed the posttest. Both tests were worth 5 points. A decrease of 1.38 points was observed for the average score on the posttest. Due to the lack of control with this research study and the small sample sizes, it is not possible to draw meaningful conclusions from these preliminary quantitative results. Qualitative results aggregated from the posttest reveal an overall positive experience with the interactive application (see figure 8 below).Glycolytic enzymes with resolved structures were first aggregated from the Protein Data Bank and modified in the Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD) software. Enzyme models were then exported to Pixologic ZBrush where they were retopologized for efficiency of geometry and performance (see figure 3). Enzymes and substrates were animated in Autodesk 3ds Max. The user interface elements were created in Adobe Illustrator. All assets were imported into Unity and scripted for interactivity. Finally, lighting and materials were applied within the Unity environment. The completed application was built out on the WebGL platform in order to be accessed online. For the 2D animation, all elements were created within Adobe Illustrator. Adobe After Effects was used for compositing and the finished animation was encoded with Adobe Media Encoder for deployment and integration into the online module. Overall ProcessThere were two primary scenes in the application:Functional level scene (see figure 4): Students were able to control the amount of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the environment and observe the effects on enzymatic activity. By manipulating this value, allosteric enzymes were either activated or deactivated. User interface elements were implemented strategically to help scaffold student understanding of this process. Students were then encouraged to click on the third enzyme, phosphofructokinase, to observe allosteric regulation at the structural level. Structural level scene (see figure 5):The final scene allowed students to interact with and observe the regulatory mechanisms of phosphofructokinase (PFK). Students could again manipulate the levels of ATP in the system and observe the effects on PFK. At this level, direct struc...