Steve Dutton

Bio: Steve Dutton is an academic researcher from Bath Spa University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Bit (horse) & Painting. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 5 publications receiving 21 citations.

Writing encounters: Institute of Beasts (2008)

Abstract: In 1998 Steve Dutton and Steve Swindells formed the artist collaboration Dutton and Swindells. In 2008 they completed a three-month artist residency programme at Ssamzie Space, Seoul, South Korea. During the residency the artists founded the Institute of Beasts by introducing live animals into the studio as members of a faculty; to suggest new readings of the work but also as a strategy to potentially generate art as a form of encounter in which different compulsions or pathologies pull in various ways but equally live together in a frame or scenario in much the same way as practice can exist as performance, text and as object. An interesting aspect of having an animal(s) in the studio is the unpredictable nature of what happens to the work when it becomes a perch, a hutch or a burrow and what happens to the artist's practice when they share a space with other animal(s). This article and accompanying images form a written/visual extension to a presentation they delivered at Writing Encounters, York St John University, 1113 September 2008.

WRITING/ PAINTING/READING/DRAWING: something not yet, and yet, still something

Abstract: An artistic practice might suggest an act of work as the act of seeking (and finding) or summoning something, but what is the practice of the writing up of a practice, working in the present tense ...

Text + Work = Work

Abstract: Catalogue published in connection with an exhibition held at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth 2006.

Transfusion independence and HMGA2 activation after gene therapy of human β-thalassaemia

Abstract: Blood disorders caused by abnormal β-globin — β-thalassaemia and sickle cell disease — are the most prevalent inherited disorders worldwide, with patients often remaining dependent on blood transfusions throughout their lives So a report of the successful use of gene therapy in a case of severe β-thalassaemia — using a lentiviral vector expressing the β-globin gene — is an eagerly awaited event More than two years after gene transfer, the adult male patient has been transfusion-independent for 21 months The therapeutic benefit seems to result from a dominant, myeloid-biased cell clone that may remain benign, although it could yet develop into leukaemia — a reminder that gene therapy is still at an early stage Disorders caused by abnormal β-globin, such as β-thalassaemia, are the most prevalent inherited disorders worldwide For treatment, many patients are dependent on blood transfusions; thus far the only cure has involved matched transplantation of haematopoietic stem cells Here it is shown that lentiviral β-globin gene transfer can be an effective substitute for regular transfusions in a patient with severe β-thalassaemia The β-haemoglobinopathies are the most prevalent inherited disorders worldwide Gene therapy of β-thalassaemia is particularly challenging given the requirement for massive haemoglobin production in a lineage-specific manner and the lack of selective advantage for corrected haematopoietic stem cells Compound βE/β0-thalassaemia is the most common form of severe thalassaemia in southeast Asian countries and their diasporas1,2 The βE-globin allele bears a point mutation that causes alternative splicing The abnormally spliced form is non-coding, whereas the correctly spliced messenger RNA expresses a mutated βE-globin with partial instability1,2 When this is compounded with a non-functional β0 allele, a profound decrease in β-globin synthesis results, and approximately half of βE/β0-thalassaemia patients are transfusion-dependent1,2 The only available curative therapy is allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, although most patients do not have a human-leukocyte-antigen-matched, geno-identical donor, and those who do still risk rejection or graft-versus-host disease Here we show that, 33 months after lentiviral β-globin gene transfer, an adult patient with severe βE/β0-thalassaemia dependent on monthly transfusions since early childhood has become transfusion independent for the past 21 months Blood haemoglobin is maintained between 9 and 10 g dl−1, of which one-third contains vector-encoded β-globin Most of the therapeutic benefit results from a dominant, myeloid-biased cell clone, in which the integrated vector causes transcriptional activation of HMGA2 in erythroid cells with further increased expression of a truncated HMGA2 mRNA insensitive to degradation by let-7 microRNAs The clonal dominance that accompanies therapeutic efficacy may be coincidental and stochastic or result from a hitherto benign cell expansion caused by dysregulation of the HMGA2 gene in stem/progenitor cells

DNA methylation protects hematopoietic stem cell multipotency from myeloerythroid restriction

Abstract: DNA methylation is a dynamic epigenetic mark that undergoes extensive changes during differentiation of self-renewing stem cells. However, whether these changes are the cause or consequence of stem cell fate remains unknown. Here, we show that alternative functional programs of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are governed by gradual differences in methylation levels. Constitutive methylation is essential for HSC self-renewal but dispensable for homing, cell cycle control and suppression of apoptosis. Notably, HSCs from mice with reduced DNA methyltransferase 1 activity cannot suppress key myeloerythroid regulators and thus can differentiate into myeloerythroid, but not lymphoid, progeny. A similar methylation dosage effect controls stem cell function in leukemia. These data identify DNA methylation as an essential epigenetic mechanism to protect stem cells from premature activation of predominant differentiation programs and suggest that methylation dynamics determine stem cell functions in tissue homeostasis and cancer.

Moral Epistemology: The Mathematics Analogy

Abstract: In this paper I discuss apparent similarities and differences between moral knowledge and mathematical knowledge, realistically conceived. I argue that many of these are only apparent, while others are less philosophically significant than might be thought. The picture that emerges is surprising. There are definitely differences between epistemological arguments in the two areas, contrary to what Putnam suggests. However, these differences, if anything, seem to increase the plausibility of moral realism as compared to mathematical realism, contrary to what Rachels suggests. It is hard to see how one might argue, on epistemological grounds, for moral antirealism while maintaining commitment to mathematical realism. But it may be possible to do the opposite.

Archipelagos of Peace: Australian Peacekeepers in Bougainville, East Timor and Solomon Islands 1997-2006

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