Questions are answered in relationship to Tim Clinton's work in professional leadership and marriage education. Sociocultural factors concerning the condition and treatment of marriage issues in contemporary society are discussed. Dr. Clinton's approach to marital interventions and integration are presented. In addition, recommendations are made for marital interventions to local community and church leaders as well as marital therapists.

It is common for states across America to adopt official symbols that are used for representation. For example, states may have an official state tree, animal, flower, and song. Ohio has at least 25 state symbols, including a state beverage and a state fossil. At this time it does not yet have a state microbe. There is only one state that currently has an official microbe. Oregon has chosen Saccharomyces cerevisiae, commonly referred to as brewer's and baker's yeast, because of the state's brewing industry and many craft breweries. Three other states have selected a microbe and are pursuing legislation to have the microbe officially recognized. After learning of the stories surrounding the microbes selected in other states, I decided to introduce this as a unique service learning project into my upper‐level microbiology course at Otterbein University. This is a writing intensive course that serves as an upper‐level elective for Biology as well as Biochemistry and Molecular Biology majors. Each student was required to choose a microbe that they felt represented Ohio and write a persuasive paper on the topic. Six of these microbes were then selected for a vote by the general public. While the students in the course learned about many new microbes and fulfilled their writing requirements for the course, the major service goal of the project was to educate the public about microbiology, especially the fact that there are beneficial microbes. Microbes and their beneficial roles were presented to the public in a fun, educational way via social media. This multi‐disciplinary project involved many departments at Otterbein, including Biology and Earth Science, Communication, and History and Political Science, as well as the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Program. The American Society for Microbiology and American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Student Chapters both played a vital role in relaying the information to the public and organizing events. Currently the “Microbe Term Election” is almost finished, and the next step is to write the winning “candidate microbe” into legislation. The “campaign” has been largely successful in its goals and has gained the support of various organizations, colleges and universities throughout Ohio and allowed the participation of the general public, including K‐12 classrooms in the voting process. The service learning initiative will continue throughout the year with a general education microbiology course in Spring 2019. The selection of an official state microbe is anticipated to continue to spark the public interest in microbiology and biochemistry, as people learn how microbes are beneficial and how they fulfill their important roles.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Bioinformatics research has become increasingly important for fields in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. An important question considers how to best engage undergraduate students with bioinformatics topics in the classroom. Students in my upper‐level bioinformatics classroom each chose an unknown gene from the RNA Sequencing data generated from my undergraduate research group. This exposed the students in the class to this commonly used Next Gen Sequencing technique that is not typically accessible to undergraduates. It then allowed the students to each have a unique gene/protein to generate novel bioinformatics data with the techniques that they were learning in the classroom. Each student created an annotated portfolio with figures for the various bioinformatics techniques that they applied to their gene of interest. By employing a workshop approach instead of a largely lecture format for the bioinformatics course, the course remained highly interactive. Students were highly invested in the individual gene that they chose, knowing that the techniques they employed would uncover novel information. All twelve students presented their data in class and three of the students presented their projects at a regional scientific conference. The benefits that the students gained from this approach is coupled to the impact on the professor/principal investigator's research program.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

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Many countries around the globe have been plagued with a recent epidemic in lipid‐associated diseases. These diseases include obesity, diabetes, and non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease among many others. The United States itself has fallen heavily victim to these ailments, placing first in worldwide rankings for obese persons and within the top fiftieth in rankings for the percentage of persons afflicted with diabetes. These diseases pose clear threats to modern society and having a greater understanding of the mechanistic background of them may lead to better treatments options for those afflicted. A common thread through all these devastating illnesses is their connection to lipids and more specifically lipid storage. Cellular lipids are stored in lipid storage droplets, and these droplets are coated by the perilipins, five regulatory proteins that have an integral role in regulating the breakdown of fats. One such of these family members is perilipin 3, a protein that's structure has been partially determined. In Perilipin 5 this structure has not been determined and is the current focus of this study. Previously a crystal structure of the C‐terminal region of perilipin 3 was determined for residues 206 to 431. These regions were aligned with perilipin 5 using BLAST and their analogous location within the Perilipin 5 DNA sequence was determined. This region of perilipin 5 is being expressed as a 6‐his fusion protein for subsequent characterization and structure determination. Using the predicative programs RaptorX and Phyre2 theoretical protein structures were compiled. These were labeled for regions of interest including a putative hydrophobic cleft found in perilipin 3 that was previously found to recruit that protein to lipid droplets. Collectively these findings indicate that it is highly likely that perilipin 5 has a similar structure to perilipin 3 in the carboxy terminus.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.