Teaching "medical interview and physical examination" from the very beginning of medical school and using "escape rooms" during the final assessment: achievements and educational impact in Japan.

Background: There is no consensus regarding the best time to teach two fundamental pillars of clinical medicine: medical interview and physical examination. We investigated the impacts of teaching the course "Medical Interview and Physical Examination" in Japan from the very beginning of medical school. In addition, we also evaluated the educational value of using "Escape Rooms", a series of timed, game-based scenarios using simulators, as a part of the final assessment of the course.

Characteristics and Gender Differences in the Medical Interview Skills of Japanese Medical Students.

Objective To examine the characteristics of the communication skills of medical students, we observed their performance during introductory medical interview training with simulated patients (SPs). Methods The subjects of the present study included fifth-year medical students (male, n=180, female, n=99) who were undergoing clinical training in Japan from 2012 to 2014. Each student was assigned to one of four 10-minute clinical scenarios, which was conducted with an SP.

Isolation and autoxidation profile of fish myoglobin from hoki (Macruronus magellanicus).

Myoglobin is known to be present exclusively in cardiac and red skeletal muscles, but not in white skeletal muscles. Thus, to date, only a few studies on myoglobin from fish species with white flesh have been reported. For comparative examination, we directly isolated myoglobin from cardiac muscle of hoki (Macruronus magellanicus), one of the most important commercial fish species with white muscle.

Rapid and real-time detection of hepatitis A virus by reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay.

A one-step, single tube, real-time reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay was developed for detecting sequences of the untranslated region in the genome of hepatitis A virus (HAV). The RT-LAMP assay reported in this study was very simple and rapid; the HAV-specific amplification was obtained in 50 min under isothermal conditions at 62.5 degrees C by employing a set of seven primers.

Surgical excision combined with autologous whole tumor cell vaccination is an effective therapy for murine neuroblastoma.

Background: Although a whole tumor cell vaccine strategy based on the synergistic action of granulocyte macrophage-colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) transduced tumor cells and CpG oligodeoxynucleotides induces potent tumor-specific immunity, such therapy is not curative in the face of large established tumors.

Purpose: The primary goal of this study was to determine if combining surgical resection of the tumor with whole tumor cell vaccination is an effective therapeutic strategy for established neuroblastoma. We also wished to determine if the phenotype of the immune response generated by this vaccine strategy was altered by the presence of bulky established tumor.

CpG oligonucleotides enhance the tumor antigen-specific immune response of a granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor-based vaccine strategy in neuroblastoma.

Granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)-transduced autologous tumor cells form the basis of many immunotherapeutic strategies. We tested whether combining this approach with T-helper 1 (Th-1)-like immunostimulatory CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG ODNs) would improve therapeutic efficacy in an established model of murine neuroblastoma. The weakly immunogenic Neuro-2a cell line was used in syngeneic A/J mice.

Yeast flavohemoglobin from Candida norvegensis. Its structural, spectral, and stability properties.

Flavohemoglobin was isolated directly from the yeast Candida norvegensis and studied on its structural, spectral, and stability properties. In Candida flavohemoglobin, the 155 N-terminal residues make a heme-containing domain, while the remaining 234 C-terminal residues serve as a FAD-containing reductase domain. A pair of His-95 and Gln-63 was assigned to the proximal and distal residues, respectively.