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In this ethnography of LGBTQ street youth, I argue that despite the regulation and containment of their bodies, queer street youth consistently create spaces of resistance that move them away from the tropes of infection, contamination, and deservedness that are inscripted onto the bodies of queer youth. Using the work of feminist philosopher Maria Lugones, this essay articulates a framework for resistance researchers - scholars who enact a "faithful witnessing" in solidarity with the communities they are describing, a movement away from the radical othering that often happens in social science research. It is in this positioning as a faithful witness that researchers can attend to the deconstruction of the discursive climates of deficit tropes that obscure the gestures and maneuvers of resistance. The tropes of contamination and irresponsibility intersect many of the experiences of LGBTQ street youth in ways that implicate not only LGBTQ street youth, but also other marginalized bodies. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.

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Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) claims thousands of lives around the world each year and ranks as one of the most lethal types of cancer. The majority of these cases are caused by Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection, with few effective treatments since the underlying mechanisms of how it contributes to cancer remains unclear. Studies on HBV-tumorgenesis link Hepatitis B virus protein X (HBX) to liver oncogenesis initiation. To develop a better understanding of the underlying mechanism, we aim to develop a "humanized" liver mouse model that monitors the progression of HBX-dependent HCC. Previous work in our lab had establish knock-in human embryonic stem (huES) 8 cell lines transfected with a gene construct embedded with the HBX coding sequence through bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) --- based recombination system. The gene construct expresses HBX once huES 8 cells are differentiated into human hepatocytes. Our modified differentiation protocol successfully generated hepatocytes that expressed specific human hepatic gene markers, such as albumin and AFP, at similar levels to that of HepG2 cells. However, HBX failed to strongly express as a protein. We then tested whether our Anti-F- liver damaged mouse model could reconstitute huES 8- derived hepatocytes within murine livers. Results show that hepatocytes failed to repopulate after Day 15 and Day 28 of intrasplenic-transplantation, but HepG2 control cells were identified in the Day 28 spleen. In conclusion, our differentiation protocol and HBX and transplantation results will benefit in establishing an in vivo HBX- dependent HCC model which can provide valuable knowledge on HBX-based HCC development

Testimonio, as a genre of the dispossessed, the migrant, and the queer, is a response to larger discourses of nation-building and has the potential to undermine the larger narratives that often erase and make invisible the expendable and often disposable labor and experiences of immigrants, the working class, African Americans, and others. This essay explores the use of testimonio in urban classrooms in Los Angeles and its use as a mediating tool in critical thinking and community based learning projects. I argue that there is a pedagogy to testimonio that is intersubjective and accessible and that, under certain circumstances, re-centers and revitalizes curriculum in this era of standardization and accountability, a hearkening to social justice movements that begin in education. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

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