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Microbial infection and the rise of antibiotic resistance pose a serious threat to public health. To tackle bacterial infection and resistance, new bacterial targets and non-antibiotic treatment options need to be identified. Virulence factors are gaining attention these days as they play crucial roles in bacterial pathogenicity. As their inhibition does not kill the bacteria, the selection pressure for emerging new resistant mutants is reduced, while also assisting the host immune system in eliminating the disarmed bacteria. Extracellular bacterial collagenases are the etiologic features of many bacterial infections. They are metalloproteases characterized by their ability to digest the main scaffolds of the extracellular matrix, exposing deep tissue to bacteria and other toxins. As the inhibition of virulence factors is considered one powerful non-antibiotic strategy, full characterization of these targets is essential to understand their role during infection. Furthermore, pre-clinical models imitating the infection need to be developed to decipher the role of virulence targets and their inhibitors in pathophysiological settings. This study addresses the characterization and validation of three bacterial collagenases and their inhibitors: collagenase Q1 (ColQ1) of Bacillus cereus, Collagenase H (ColH) of Clostridium histolyticum, and elastase B (LasB) of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. To promote our understanding of the pathological contribution of bacterial collagenases and to characterize the activity of small-molecule collagenase inhibitors as therapeutic agents, we developed pre-clinical systems modeling the infection settings and validating the collagenases and their inhibitors. These systems include in vitro cell-based, ex vivo pig skin, and in vivo Galleria mellonella larvae models. Furthermore, advanced microscopic techniques as well as in vitro biological and bioanalytical assays were used to evaluate the effects shown in these models. The newly discovered inhibitors investigated in this study are characterized with their potency, selectivity, and chemical stability, which many previously reported inhibitors lack. The findings of this work shed light on the roles of bacterial collagenases during bacterial infection – in particular in disease progression – and the effect of their inhibition with small-molecule antivirulence agents, which could represent an effective therapeutic strategy.

Airplanes to Nowhere is a collection of one opening essay and five auto-fiction short stories inspired from the research the writer has been doing during her work with migrant Palestinian women from Gaza who live in the Western diaspora. It’s a documentation of the process of living, leaving and longing for a home, highlighting both the collective and singular nature of the events these characters encounter as they navigate the reformation of their identities from the little conservative, war-torn, poverty-stricken Gaza to the big wild West. Airplanes to Nowhere satisfies some expectations about the war migrant experience in the west while resists certain stereotypes about “the perfect migrant” who does everything right to earn a headshake from the western reader. These characters are on the swing between the peace they’ve been craving their entire lives and the war their lives are, which creates plenty of space for them to be vulnerable, funny, guilty, brave, and scared. The accompanied craft essay navigates the use of weather as a component of migrant characters’ wider emotional landscape and the way it’s used to depict the transformative nature of their experiences in their newly found homes.

This thesis explores ways in which online activism regarding Syrian refugee women is translated to the offline sphere; what the experiences, issues and concerns of refugee women are; and whether this online activism reflects the real concerns of the refugee women. Methodologically, this paper is based on fieldwork in Jordan for six weeks during the summer of 2013. The fieldwork was conducted in three main regions: the Za’atri Refugee Camp, Amman City, and the outskirts of Amman. Data collection took place through thirty-three in-depth, semi-structured interviews, approximately 100 hours of participant observation, and discourse analysis of online spaces. Analysis of the findings indicates that: 1) social networking websites, such as Facebook, function as channels for promoting stereotypical and/or hegemonic representations of Syrian refugee women’s issues; 2) offline activism of activist organizations in Jordan has in many cases a feminist component; however, online activism of these organizations is mainly for humanitarian purposes with no visibility of the diversity of refugee women’s experiences; 3) because activists’ usage of ICTs has advantages and disadvantages, ICTs are still resources that can be used both for and against social change activism, and thus offline activism remains the major indicator for actual success of any social change movement; 4) through the process of becoming refugees, Syrian women have heterogeneous experiences, which refute the dominant global and social media representations that minimized Syrian women’s stories to not only passive victims of war but also subjects of forced marriage in exchange for money by their families.