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Ionizable lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) have gained attention as mRNA delivery platforms for vaccination against COVID-19 and for protein replacement therapies. LNPs enhance mRNA stability, circulation time, cellular uptake, and preferential delivery to specific tissues compared to mRNA with no carrier platform. However, LNPs have yet to be developed for safe and effective mRNA delivery to the placenta as a method to treat placental dysfunction. Here, we develop LNPs that enable high levels of mRNA delivery to trophoblastsin vitroand to the placentain vivowith no toxicity. We conducted a Design of Experiments to explore how LNP composition, including the type and molar ratio of each lipid component, drives trophoblast and placental delivery. Our data revealed that a specific combination of ionizable lipid and phospholipid in the LNP design yields high transfection efficiencyin vitro. Further, we present one LNP platform that exhibits highest delivery of placental growth factor mRNA to the placenta in pregnant mice, which demonstrates induced protein synthesis and secretion of a therapeutic protein. Lastly, our high-performing LNPs have no toxicity to both the pregnant mice and fetuses. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of LNPs as a platform for mRNA delivery to the placenta. Our top LNPs may provide a therapeutic platform to treat diseases that originate from placental dysfunction during pregnancy.

We outline a simple, low-cost design—both scalable and adaptable worldwide—to decontaminate filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) using ultraviolet bulbs and supplies found in most hardware stores. The setup will help health care workers safely reuse FFRs in light of the shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic., Key Messages Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) systems can be used to decontaminate filtering facepiece respirators that are in short supply during the current COVID-19 pandemic, but are costly and scarce.Custom-built UVGI systems can be easily and affordably created using common items found in hardware stores and within research institutions.Health care workers and administrators should consider this setup as a cost-effective option to combat personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages during the current pandemic.Academic institutions should consider fostering collaborations with local health care institutions to provide idle resources to front line health care workers facing PPE shortages., As the current COVID-19 pandemic illustrates, not all hospitals and other patient care facilities are equipped with enough personal protective equipment to meet the demand in a crisis. Health care workers around the world use filtering facepiece respirators to protect themselves and their patients, yet during this global pandemic they are forced to reuse what are intended to be single-use masks. This poses a significant risk to these health care workers along with the people they are trying to protect. Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) has been validated previously as a method to effectively decontaminate these masks between use. However, not all facilities have access to the expensive commercial ultraviolet type C (UV-C) lamp decontamination equipment required for UVGI. UV-C bulbs are sitting idle in biosafety cabinets at universities and research facilities around the world that have been shuttered to slow the spread of COVID-19. These bulbs may also be available in existing medical centers where infectious diseases are commonly treated. We developed a method to modify existing light fixtures or create custom light fixtures that are compatible with new or existing UV-C bulbs. This system is scalable; can be created for less than US$50, on site and at the point of need; and leverages resources that are currently untapped and sitting unused in public and private research facilities during the pandemic. The freely accessible design can be easily modified for use around the world. Health care facilities can obtain this potentially lifesaving UVGI resource with minimal funds by collaborating with research facilities to obtain the UV-C meters and UV-C bulbs if they are unavailable from other sources. Although mask reuse is not ideal, we must do what we can in emergency situations to protect our health care workers responding to the pandemic and the communities they serve.

COVID-19 is a disease that manifests itself in a multitude of ways across a wide range of tissues. Many factors are involved, and though impressive strides have been made in studying this novel disease in a very short time, there is still a great deal that is unknown about how the virus functions. Clinical data has been crucial for providing information on COVID-19 progression and determining risk factors. However, the mechanisms leading to the multi-tissue pathology are yet to be fully established. Although insights from SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV have been valuable, it is clear that SARS-CoV-2 is different and merits its own extensive studies. In this review, we highlight unresolved questions surrounding this virus including the temporal immune dynamics, infection of non-pulmonary tissue, early life exposure, and the role of circadian rhythms. Risk factors such as sex and exposure to pollutants are also explored followed by a discussion of ways in which bioengineering approaches can be employed to help understand COVID-19. The use of sophisticated in vitro models can be employed to interrogate intercellular interactions and also to tease apart effects of the virus itself from the resulting immune response. Additionally, spatiotemporal information can be gleaned from these models to learn more about the dynamics of the virus and COVID-19 progression. Application of advanced tissue and organ system models into COVID-19 research can result in more nuanced insight into the mechanisms underlying this condition and elucidate strategies to combat its effects.

Pregnancy complications are commonplace and the challenges of treatment during pregnancy with few options available pose a risk to the health of both the mother and baby. Patients suffering from conditions such as preeclampsia, placenta accreta, and intrauterine growth restriction have few treatment options apart from emergency caesarean section. Fortunately, researchers are beginning to develop nanomedicine-based therapies that could be utilized to treat conditions affecting the mother, placenta, or fetus to improve the prognosis for mothers and their unborn children. This review summarizes the field’s current understanding of nanoparticle biodistribution and therapeutic effect following systemic or vaginal administration and overviews the design parameters researchers should consider when developing nanomedicines for maternal/fetal health. It also describes safety considerations for nanomedicines to limit undesirable maternal or fetal side effects and discusses future work that should be performed to advance nanomedicine for maternal/fetal health. With additional development and implementation, the application of nanomedicine to treat pregnancy complications may mitigate the need for emergency caesarean sections and allow pregnancies to extend to term.

This research examines the donation behavior of tourists who are asked to donate to coastal conservation aimed at addressing a bundled mix of land and sea issues. Historically, the governance and financing of land and sea conservation have been separated; yet coastal tourism directly involves a mix of activities and development challenges which link land and sea together on the coast. Marine parks, and numerous studies examining their funding schemes, have typically focused on mandatory user fees targeting specific types of activities. For example, many studies focus only on scuba divers' willingness to pay (WTP) for marine conservation. Alternative funding mechanisms, such as voluntary contributions, may be preferred, or even necessary, to traditional government imposed fees, but much less is known about effective implementation. Relatively few studies focus on bundled cross-boundary conservation activities (i.e., land and sea conservation) from all visitors of a marine park (i.e., beachgoers, surfers, boaters, snorkelers) and its encompassing coastal area. In this study we target tourists visiting a popular island and employ field experimental methods to explore the optimal donation request mechanism and pricing levels that influence real voluntary payments for conservation. The field experiment examines voluntary payments under the treatment conditions: open-ended, a set of several suggested donation amounts, and default opt-in and opt-out at two price levels. The field experiment was conducted with tourists on the island of Gili Trawangan, Indonesia. Results reveal that tourists are willing to donate to bundled land-sea conservation issues and that there is a significantly higher propensity to donate in all treatment conditions compared to the open-ended condition. The default opt-out conditions garnered the highest rate of donations at 75% and 62% respectively for the lower and higher set amounts. The mean donation amount was largest in the higher default opt-out condition. Our results suggest that the optimal method of requesting voluntary donations is a set default amount requiring users to opt-out if they do not wish to donate. Implementing a default opt-out eco-donation targeting all types of visitors represents a significant source of funding and illustrates the potential for donations to finance land and sea conservation efforts, an important avenue for future investigation in many interconnected systems that have been historically governed and financed separately.

This study aims to understand tourists' willingness to pay a price premium for a local green hotel certification, and is one of only a few in the literature for small-island tourism destinations in emerging economies with their unique and pressing sustainability challenges. In a survey of 535 tourists visiting Gili Trawangan, Indonesia, facing numerous waste management and coral reef conservation issues, the willingness to pay extra for sustainable hotel services was elicited. There were five discrete pricing levels across the surveys that ranged from $0.75 USD to $7.50 USD extra per night. We examined the relationship of the respondents' payment choice to their socio-demographic attributes and attitudes regarding environmental issues such as climate change. The main findings and practical implications of the study are: (1) to demonstrate the broad willingness to pay for sustainable hotel services. Findings indicate at all price levels (between $0.75 USD and $7.50 USD), more than 50% of tourists are willing to pay. (2) To estimate a lower bound mean willingness to pay per night for a local green hotel certificate of $1.55USD and 1.34€ EUR, and (3) To identify individual attributes that influence willingness to pay. Findings indicate environmental knowledge and preferences play a role. These results can be used generally to incorporate evidence-based practices into the development of a green hotel marketing strategy, and to help define the target market for small-scale green hotel certification. Additionally, we propose a finance strategy for funding local and sustainable initiatives that support the hotel industry and the island's infrastructure through the premiums collected from the 'Gili Green Award' certificate.

Maternal mortality rates in the United States have steadily increased since 1987 to the current rate of over 16 deaths per 100,000 live births. Whereas most of these deaths are related to an underlying condition, such as cardiovascular disease, many pregnant women die from diseases that emerge as a consequence of pregnancy. Both pre-existing and emergent diseases and conditions are difficult to treat in pregnant women because of the potential harmful effects of the treatment on the developing fetus. Often the health of the woman and the health of the baby are at odds and must be weighed against each other when medical treatment is needed, frequently leading to iatrogenic preterm birth. However, the use of engineered nanomedicines has the potential to fill the treatment gap for pregnant women. This review describes several conditions that may afflict pregnant women and fetuses and introduces how engineered nanomedicines may be used to treat these illnesses. Although the field of maternal-fetal nanomedicine is in its infancy, with additional research and development, engineered nanotherapeutics may greatly improve outcomes for pregnant women and their offspring in the future.

As the current COVID-19 pandemic illustrates, not all hospitals and other facilities are equipped with enough personal protective equipment to meet the demand in a crisis. Healthcare workers around the world utilize N95 masks to protect themselves and their patients, yet during this global pandemic they are forced to re-wear what is intended to be single-use masks. This poses significant risk to these healthcare workers along with the populations they are trying to protect. Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) has been validated previously as a way to effectively sterilize these masks between use, however, not all facilities have access to the high cost commercial UV-C lamp sterilization equipment. However, UV-C bulbs are sitting idle in biosafety cabinets (BSCs) at universities and research facilities around the globe that have been shuttered to slow the spread of COVID-19. These bulbs may also be available in existing medical centers where infectious diseases are commonly treated. Therefore, we have developed a method to modify existing light fixtures, or create custom light fixtures compatible with new or existing common UV-C bulbs. This system is scalable and can be created for less than 50 US dollars, on site, at the point of need, and leverages resources that are currently untapped and sitting unused in public and private research facilities. The freely-accessible design can be easily modified for use around the world. Hospitals can obtain this potentially life-saving UVGI resource with minimal funds, via collaboration between research facilities to obtain the UV-C meters and limited availability UVGI bulbs. While mask reuse is not ideal, we must do what we can in emergency situations to protect our frontline healthcare workers and the communities they serve.

This article examines how social networks among actors in the tourism sector have facilitated the evolution of self-organized institutions for governance on the island of Gili Trawangan, Indonesia. Increasing tourism for SCUBA diving and nightlife is driving rapid social-ecological change and challenges for sustainability in relation to waste management, social-political cohesion and conservation. While strong social networks were a sufficient means to initiate governance among the island's few early businesses in the 1990's and early 2000's, an increasing number of actors (i.e., new SCUBA businesses and hotels) and more tourists are challenging the ability of social networks to be the foundation of effective governance, where there is now an evident need for the evolution of governance to more effectively address sustainability challenges. This article combines quantitative social network analysis with the qualitative analysis of interview data, participant observations and an ethnographic examination of the island's changing social-political sphere of cooperation to examine the evolution of governance. Our results can be separated into two parts. (1) From past to present, examining how governance institutions and collective action have emerged from strong social networks. (2) From present to future, how these social networks are being undermined as the foundation for the island's governance institutions that they created, due to growth and changing social-ecological conditions. This article draws on Evolutionary Governance Theory (EGT) as an overarching frame to examine the linkages between social networks and collective action, looking specifically at the role of multi-level governance, institutional change, path dependencies and discourse analysis.

Anecdotal evidence from philanthropic fundraisers shows that virtual reality (VR) technology increases empathy and can influence people toward pro-environmental behavior. Non-profit organizations are increasingly marketing their causes using virtual reality and they report increased donations when VR technology is employed. In VR, users are immersed in situations intended to feel more like the real world through technology, such as 360° video screened through 3D headsets that block out visual and auditory distractions. The framing of the message as either positive or negative has long shown to have an effect on behavior, although consensus on the impact of framing has not been reached in relation to encouraging contributions to public goods. This paper focuses on field experiments used to investigate the effects of varying degrees of visual immersion and positive versus negative message framing on respondents’ contributions to a conservation charity. Participants were exposed to a five-minute underwater film about coral reefs and the importance of protecting them. We employed a 2×2 experimental design using 3D head-mounted displays comparing 360° film footage vs. unidirectional film and a positive message vs. a negative message. After watching the film, each participant completed a short questionnaire and had the opportunity to donate to a marine conservation charity. In addition, we tested a control treatment where no video was observed. The video was filmed in Indonesia which is host to some of the world’s most biodiverse reefs that are under great threat from human activity. We also conducted the study in Indonesia, sampling a total of 1006 participants from the Bogor city area and tourists on the island of Gili Trawangan - which is popular for scuba diving and snorkeling. We find significant differences in observed behavior and reported emotions between all treatments compared to the control condition. Among the tourist sample, we find significant differences between the 360° film with a negative message which garnered significantly larger average donation amounts compared to the unidirectional film with both positive and negative framing. Overall, we can infer from these studies that virtual reality is an effective way to raise awareness of environmental threats and encourage behavioral action, especially when tailored to target groups. New technology, such as the VR head-mounted display, is highly effective at attracting interest which is an important point to encourage organizations to invest in new technologies.

We present a study investigating the question whether and how people's intention to change their environmental behavior depends on the degrees of immersion and freedom of navigation when they experience a virtual coral reef. The most striking result is, perhaps, that the highest level of immersion combined with the highest level of navigation did not lead to the highest intentions to change behavior.

The use of nanoparticles (NPs) to deliver therapeutics to reproductive organs is an emerging approach to safely and effectively treat mothers and babies facing pregnancy complications. This study investigates the biodistribution of two different sized gold-based NPs in pregnant mice following systemic delivery as a function of gestational age. Poly(ethylene glycol)-coated 15 nm gold nanoparticles or 150 nm diameter silica core/gold nanoshells were intravenously administered to pregnant mice at gestational days (E)9.5 or 14.5. NP distribution was analyzed twenty-four hours later by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry and silver staining of histological specimens. More NPs accumulated in placentas than embryos and delivery to these tissues was greater at E9.5 than E14.5. Neither NP type affected fetal weight or placental weight, indicating minimal short-term toxicity in early to mid-stage pregnancy. These findings warrant continued development of NPs as tools to deliver therapeutics to reproductive tissues safely.

In this experiment, we test whether subjects&rsquo, responses to variations in the action set in a dictator game depends on induced group identities. The action set includes choices in which the dictator can either give money to or take money from the other player. As an extension to the anonymous setting, we introduce induced group identities using the minimal group paradigm. Based on a dictator game conducted with more than 300 students in Indonesia, we implement a full factorial design in order to analyze the framing of the action set in a varied cultural context and to examine varied prevalence of social norms given a group identity context. If group identity is not salient, we find that participants are slightly more generous when they have an opportunity to give to rather than to take from the recipient. However, when participants are matched with in-group members, this result is reversed and highly significant. The result of differing responses to framing effects in within-group interactions compared to a neutral setting are largely ascribed to the varied compliance with existing social norms.

Climate change will continue to have a largely detrimental impact on the agricultural sector worldwide because of predicted rising temperatures, variable rainfall, and an increase in extreme weather events. Reduced crop yields will lead to higher food prices and increased hardship for low income populations, especially in urban areas. Action on climate change is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 13) and is linked to the Paris Climate Agreement. The research challenge posed by climate change is so complex that a trans-disciplinary response is required, one that brings together researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers in networks where the lines between “research” and “development” become deliberately blurred. Fostering such networks will require researchers, throughout the world, not only to work across disciplines but also to pursue new South−North and South−South partnerships incorporating policy-makers and practitioners. We use our diverse research experiences to describe the emergence of such networks, such as the Direct Seeded Rice Consortium (DSRC) in South and Southeast Asia, and to identify lessons on how to facilitate and strengthen the development of trans-disciplinary responses to climate change.

This study examines the effect of participants’ distributional preferences on donations of money and time using a field experiment with marine resource users in Indonesia. Individuals participate in a real effort task to earn money and are faced with a donation decision under different treatments – monetary donation, time donation, monetary match, and time match. In the distributional preferences elicitation we classify individuals’ preferences as benevolent, egalitarian, own-money-maximizing, and spiteful. We find that the different distributional preference types are a significant indicator of participants’ donation behavior. The people showing spiteful preferences and those that focus only on maximizing their own payoff are less likely to donate any amount compared to those that make egalitarian choices. Furthermore, we find strong evidence that individuals that choose payoff structures characterized as “benevolent” donate a significantly higher amount compared to the egalitarian types. We analyze the results econometrically in two-stages to better understand the determining factors for whether an individual donates and those factors that determine how much one donates. Practical implications involve the segmentation of the target audience, not by the type of charity but by the mechanism which motivates their donation behavior., Working Paper Series