What is the educational challenge?Medical schools invest significant resources into the creation of multiple-choice items for assessments. This process is costly and requires faculty training. Recently ChatGPT has been used in various areas to improve content creation efficiency, and it has otherwise been used to answer USMLE-style assessment items.What are the proposed solutions?We proposed the use of ChatGPT to create initial drafts of multiple-choice items.What are the potential benefits to a wider global audience?The use of ChatGPT to generate assessment items can decrease resources required, allowing for the creation of more items, and freeing-up faculty time to perform higher level assessment activities. ChatGPT is also able to consistently produce items using a standard format while adhering to item writing guidelines, which can be very challenging for faculty teams.What are the next steps?We plan to pilot ChatGPT drafted questions and compare item statistics for those written by ChatGPT with those written by our content experts. We also plan to further identify the types of questions that ChatGPT is most appropriate for, and incorporate media into assessment items (e.g. images, videos).

While numerous studies have examined how scientists perceive doing public communication and engagement, there is limited research on undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) student attitudes toward these meaningful activities. Undergraduate students are more diverse than STEM faculty and may serve as boundary spanners in communities, so exploring their motivations and behaviors in STEM engagement is valuable.

Communication regarding COVID-19 vaccines requires evidence-based strategies. We present findings from a quantitative survey measuring participants’ understanding, trust, and decision-making in response to information conveying low or high uncertainty regarding the vaccine. Communication conveying high uncertainty led to lower self-assessed understanding but higher actual understanding of possible outcomes. Communication conveying low uncertainty increased vaccine acceptance by those who previously opposed vaccines. This indicates that communicating uncertainty may have different effects over time and that adjusting messaging depending on audiences’ prior vaccine attitudes might be important. These findings support the need for further investigation of how uncertainty communication influences vaccine acceptance.

Published science communication trainings for STEM students have increased over the past 20 years, but the authors show that these trainings often lack a focus on inclusiveness and evaluation of the efficacy of the trainings. This essay identifies areas for future work in the field of science communication training.

Progesterone receptor membrane component 1 (PGRMC1) interacts with PGRMC2, and disrupting this interaction in spontaneously immortalized granulosa cells (SIGCS) leads to an inappropriate entry into the cell cycle, mitotic arrest, and ultimately cell death. The present study revealed that PGRMC1 and PGRMC2 localize to the cytoplasm of murine granulosa cells of nonatretric follicles with their staining intensity being somewhat diminished in granulosa cells of atretic follicles. Compared to controls (Pgrmc1^fl/fl), the rate at which granulosa cells entered the cell cycle increased in nonatretic and atretic follicles of mice in which Pgrmc1 was conditionally deleted (Pgrmc1^d/d) from granulosa cells. This increased rate of entry into the cell cycle was associated with a ≥ 2-fold increase in follicular atresia and the nuclear localization of nuclear factor-kappa-B transcription factor P65; (NF_ΚB/p65, or RELA). GTPase activating protein binding protein 2 (G3BP2) binds NF_ΚB/p65 through an interaction with NF_ΚB inhibitor alpha (IκBα), thereby maintaining NF_ΚB/p65’s cytoplasmic localization and restricting its transcriptional activity. Since PGRMC1 and PGRMC2 bind G3BP2, studies were designed to assess the functional relationship between PGRMC1, PGRMC2, and NF_ΚB/p65 in SIGCs. In these studies, disrupting the interaction between PGRMC1 and PGRMC2 increased the nuclear localization of NF_ΚB/p65, and depleting PGRMC1, PGRMC2, or G3BP2 increased NF_ΚB transcriptional activity and the progression into the cell cycle. Taken together, these studies suggest that PGRMC1 and 2 regulate granulosa cell cycle entry in follicles by precisely controlling the localization and thereby the transcriptional activity of NF_ΚB/p65.

Adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a highly conserved heterotrimeric complex that acts as an intracellular energy sensor. Based on recent observations of AMPK expression in all structures of the female reproductive system, we hypothesized that AMPK is functionally required for maintaining fertility in the female. This hypothesis was tested by conditionally ablating the two catalytic alpha subunits of AMPK, Prkaa1 and Prkaa2, using Pgr-cre mice. After confirming the presence of PRKAA1, PRKAA2 and the active phospho-PRKAA1/2 in the gravid uterus by immunohistochemistry, control (Prkaa1/2 fl/fl) and double conditional knockout mice (Prkaa1/2 d/d) were placed into a six-month breeding trial. While the first litter size was comparable between Prkaa1/2 fl/fl and Prkaa1/2 d/d female mice (P = 0.8619), the size of all subsequent litters was dramatically reduced in Prkaa1/2 d/d female mice (P = 0.0015). All Prkaa1/2 d/d female mice experienced premature reproductive senescence or dystocia by the fourth parity. This phenotype manifested despite no difference in estrous cycle length, ovarian histology in young and old nulliparous or multiparous animals, mid-gestation serum progesterone levels or uterine expression of Esr1 or Pgr between Prkaa1/2 fl/fl and Prkaa1/2 d/d female mice suggesting that the hypothalamic–pituitary–ovary axis remained unaffected by PRKAA1/2 deficiency. However, an evaluation of uterine histology from multiparous animals identified extensive endometrial fibrosis and disorganized stromal-glandular architecture indicative of endometritis, a condition that causes subfertility or infertility in most mammals. Interestingly, Prkaa1/2 d/d female mice failed to undergo artificial decidualization. Collectively, these findings suggest that AMPK plays an essential role in endometrial regeneration following parturition and tissue remodeling that accompanies decidualization.