Evolving challenges of leadership in surgery to improve inclusivity, representation, and well-being.

Background: Leadership is a complex and demanding process crucial to maintaining quality in surgical systems of care. Once an autocratic practice, modern-day surgical leaders must demonstrate inclusivity, flexibility, emotional competence, team-building, and a multidisciplinary approach. The complex healthcare environment challenges those in leadership positions.

Speaking Up and Speaking Out: Gender Diversity in the Scientific Programme of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Annual Scientific Congress.

Background: Disparities in gender representation at medical meetings have been documented despite women representing half of medical school graduating classes. Lack of role models is touted as one of a myriad of factors that perpetuate gender imbalance, particularly in the field of surgery. We evaluated the trend in gender distribution of participants at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) Annual Scientific Congress (ASC) and whether there was a correlation between the gender distribution of the organising committee and speakers and chairpersons invited to attend.

Gender Representation by Specialty Track at Surgical Meetings: The American and Australasian Experiences.

Background: We compared the representation of women panelists at two large, general interest surgical meetings: the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress and Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) Scientific Congress.

Materials And Methods: We performed comprehensive analyses of panels and panelists at ACS and RACS meetings (2013-2018). Manual review was conducted to determine counts and proportions of invited panelists by gender.

Tweeting the meeting: an analysis of Twitter activity at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Annual Scientific Congress from 2015 to 2018.

Background: Twitter has been shown to expand the audience and impact of material discussed at medical conferences, however, this phenomenon has not been analysed at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Annual Scientific Congress. The purpose of this study is to document the amount of Twitter activity at the Annual Scientific Congress, and to describe the way delegates use Twitter.

Methods: The number of tweets, retweets and contributors from the 2015 to 2018 congresses were determined using the Twitter advanced search function.

Trends in Gender Representation at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress and the Academic Surgical Congress: A Mixed Picture of Progress.

Background: There has been increasing attention to gender inequity in speakers at professional meetings. The aim of this study was to evaluate temporal trends in representation of women at the Academic Surgical Congress (ASC) and American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress (CC), 2 prominent general interest, national surgical meetings.

Study Design: We reviewed ASC (2014-2019) and CC (2013-2018) meeting programs to determine counts and proportions of invited panelists and moderators by gender, including the frequency of men-only panels.

Genetic and molecular identification of three human TPP1 functions in telomerase action: recruitment, activation, and homeostasis set point regulation.

Telomere length homeostasis is essential for the long-term survival of stem cells, and its set point determines the proliferative capacity of differentiated cell lineages by restricting the reservoir of telomeric repeats. Knockdown and overexpression studies in human tumor cells showed that the shelterin subunit TPP1 recruits telomerase to telomeres through a region termed the TEL patch. However, these studies do not resolve whether the TPP1 TEL patch is the only mechanism for telomerase recruitment and whether telomerase regulation studied in tumor cells is representative of nontransformed cells such as stem cells.

Human intestinal tissue with adult stem cell properties derived from pluripotent stem cells.

Genetically engineered human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have been proposed as a source for transplantation therapies and are rapidly becoming valuable tools for human disease modeling. However, many applications are limited due to the lack of robust differentiation paradigms that allow for the isolation of defined functional tissues. Here, using an endogenous LGR5-GFP reporter, we derived adult stem cells from hPSCs that gave rise to functional human intestinal tissue comprising all major cell types of the intestine.

Time to breast cancer relapse predicted by primary tumour characteristics, not lymph node involvement.

Introduction: The risk of breast cancer recurrence has been linked to tumour size, grade, oestrogen (ER) receptor status, and degree of lymph node (LN) involvement. However, the role of these variables in predicting time to relapse is not well defined. This study was designed to identify patient and primary tumour characteristics that predict risk periods for breast cancer recurrence within our institution, to enable more tailored surveillance strategies.

Genetic engineering of human pluripotent cells using TALE nucleases.

Targeted genetic engineering of human pluripotent cells is a prerequisite for exploiting their full potential. Such genetic manipulations can be achieved using site-specific nucleases. Here we engineered transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) for five distinct genomic loci.