Beyond the Classroom: Inspiring Medical and Health Science Students to Learn Surface Anatomy.

This qualitative and quantitative study offered students the opportunity to participate in engaging and inspiring activities "outside the classroom", to extend their experience and knowledge of surface anatomy. Medical and health science students benefit from studying surface anatomy as it is relevant to their future professions that deal with patients and clients. Surface anatomy is an essential part of the learning process that allows students an opportunity to identify anatomical structures on living people and to develop their palpation and tactile skills for physical examinations of patients.

"Learning by Doing": a Mixed-Methods Study to Identify Why Body Painting Can Be a Powerful Approach for Teaching Surface Anatomy to Health Science Students.

Introduction: Teaching human anatomy to produce deeper understandings and knowledge retention in learners requires meaningful, engaging, and practical activities. Previous studies identify that most students who participated in body painting (BP) reported improved understanding of surface anatomy (SA). This study investigates the key factors underpinning BP helps students learn SA.

Phase 1 studies of the safety and immunogenicity of electroporated HER2/CEA DNA vaccine followed by adenoviral boost immunization in patients with solid tumors.

Background: DNA electroporation has been demonstrated in preclinical models to be a promising strategy to improve cancer immunity, especially when combined with other genetic vaccines in heterologous prime-boost protocols. We report the results of 2 multicenter phase 1 trials involving adult cancer patients (n=33) with stage II-IV disease.

Methods: Patients were vaccinated with V930 alone, a DNA vaccine containing equal amounts of plasmids expressing the extracellular and trans-membrane domains of human HER2, and a plasmid expressing CEA fused to the B subunit of Escherichia coli heat labile toxin (Study 1), or a heterologous prime-boost vaccination approach with V930 followed by V932, a dicistronic adenovirus subtype-6 viral vector vaccine coding for the same antigens (Study 2).

AMD-like lesions in the rat retina: a latent consequence of perinatal hemorrhage.

Purpose: Hemorrhaging is a commonplace event in the human retina around the time of birth. This study was conducted to examine the potential long-term sequelae of hemorrhaging in the eyes of rats that exhibited transient spontaneous microhemorrhages a few days after birth.

Methods: Retinas of Dark Agouti rats aged from day of birth to 2 years old were analyzed histologically, histochemically, and by immunocytochemistry.

EAAT1 and D-serine expression are early features of human retinal development.

In the developing central nervous system (CNS), the activation of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors is probably an important regulator of processes such as synaptogenesis and neurite growth. NMDA receptor activation is dependent upon the homeostasis of glutamate and the presence of co-agonists such as D-serine. We have investigated the expression of the glutamate transporter excitatory amino acid transporter-1 (EAAT1 or GLAST) as the key regulator of retinal extracellular glutamate levels, and the ontogeny of D-serine expression in the developing human retina.

Immunocytochemical analysis of D-serine distribution in the mammalian brain reveals novel anatomical compartmentalizations in glia and neurons.

D-Serine is a co-agonist at the NMDA receptor glycine-binding site. Early studies have emphasized a glial localization for D-serine. However the nature of the glial cells has not been fully resolved, because previous D-serine antibodies needed glutaraldehyde-fixation, precluding co-localization with fixation-sensitive antigens.