Dynamic Opportunities for Medical Students to Assume the Roles of "Medical Teacher".

The traditional undergraduate medical education curriculum focuses on bolstering knowledge for practice and building clinical skills. However, as future clinicians, medical students will be tasked with teaching throughout their careers, first as residents and then as attendings. Here, we describe teaching opportunities for students that foster their development as future teachers and potential clinician educators.

Impact of Experiential Learning of Nutrition Therapy on Medical Students.

Despite the recognition that nutrition is a critical component of health and disease, many medical schools struggle to incorporate nutrition education into their dense curriculum. We designed this study to determine whether a brief, experiential learning project would be an effective option for teaching this content. Medical students voluntarily enrolled in the study, agreeing to (1) attempt a 2-week "medically prescribed" diet and (2) participate in small group lunch discussions related to their diet experience.

Mentors and Role Models: the Role Female Medical Educators Serve for Female Medical Students.

Unlabelled: Discussion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has moved to the forefront in medical education, and in particular, efforts toward gender equity have emphasized the need for more women faculty and physicians. Gender parity was recently achieved for medical students matriculating into US allopathic schools during the 2017-2018 academic year. However, this documented increase in women attending medical school as students is not matched by an increase in women teaching in the undergraduate medical education (UME) curriculum.

Pharmacogenomics: A Practical Primer for Senior Care Pharmacists.

Pharmacogenomics (PGx), the study of how an individual's genetic makeup affects his or her response to drugs, is a fast-growing field that gives health care providers a valuable tool to help safely and effectively manage medication. However, few providers have experience in applying the results of PGx tests to their practices, and this can lead to disregarding the data or unnecessarily modifying medication regimens. Pharmacists are uniquely positioned to become wellversed in the interpretation of PGx data, critically evaluating the "green-yellow-red" result categories that seemingly signal "go, caution, stop" regarding the use of a particular medication.

Optimized -mediated sorghum transformation protocol and molecular data of transgenic sorghum plants.

-mediated sorghum transformation frequency has been enhanced significantly medium optimization using immature embryos from sorghum variety TX430 as the target tissue. The new transformation protocol includes the addition of elevated copper sulfate and 6-benzylaminopurine in the resting and selection media. Using strain LBA4404, the transformation frequency reached over 10% using either of two different selection marker genes, moPAT or PMI, and any of three different vectors in large-scale transformation experiments.

Completely humanizing prolactin rescues infertility in prolactin knockout mice and leads to human prolactin expression in extrapituitary mouse tissues.

A variety of fundamental differences have evolved in the physiology of the human and rodent prolactin (PRL) systems. The PRL gene in humans and other primates contains an alternative promoter, 5.8 kbp upstream of the pituitary transcription start site, which drives expression of PRL in "extrapituitary" tissues, where PRL is believed to exert local, or paracrine, actions.

Utility of a writing station in the multiple mini-interview.

The multiple mini-interview (MMI) is a reliable and valid method of selecting applicants for admission to health professional schools on the basis of non-cognitive traits. Because the MMI is a series of short interview stations that applicants rotate through in coordinated sequence, it can potentially be resource intensive. However, the MMI design has room for innovation and efficiency.

Multiple mini-interview scores of medical school applicants with and without rural attributes.

Introduction: Students from rural areas are under-represented in medical schools. Concerns have been raised about rural applicants' qualifications relative to those of their urban counterparts, and the impact such potential differences in competitiveness may have on their under-representation. Although studies have reported no differences in Grade Point Average (GPA) and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores between applicants with and without rural attributes, to date no study has assessed if performance on the multiple mini-interview (MMI) varies between the two groups.

Use of Z-scores to rank applicants to professional degree programs.

Criteria for assessing suitability of applicants for professional degree programs such as veterinary medicine are usually treated as distinct components of a composite scoring procedure that determines applicant ranking. Some components are valued more than others, which is reflected in the relative weights assigned to each component. However, the patterns of dispersal of individual components have the potential to alter the assigned relative weights.

Raw and test-thaw semen parameters after cryopreservation among men with newly diagnosed cancer.

Objective: To characterize sperm parameters from thawed semen samples of men with different cancers who cryopreserved semen before oncologic therapy.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Tertiary academic medical center.

Estrogen regulation of the dopamine-activated GIRK channel in pituitary lactotrophs: implications for regulation of prolactin release during the estrous cycle.

Prolactin (PRL), synthesized and secreted from lactotrophs of the anterior pituitary gland, is tonically inhibited by hypothalamic dopamine (DA) throughout the female reproductive (estrous) cycle. Our laboratory has shown that DA hyperpolarizes these cells by activating G protein-coupled inwardly rectifying K(+) (GIRK) channels; however, this response is only observed on proestrus. While the cellular mechanisms that allow for functional expression of this unique DA-signaling pathway are unclear, we hypothesized that activation of the DA-GIRK effector pathway is due to the rise in circulating estrogen (E₂) during the preceding day of diestrus.

A highly toxic cellular prion protein induces a novel, nonapoptotic form of neuronal death.

Several different deletions within the N-terminal tail of the prion protein (PrP) induce massive neuronal death when expressed in transgenic mice. This toxicity is dose-dependently suppressed by coexpression of full-length PrP, suggesting that it results from subversion of a normal physiological activity of cellular PrP. We performed a combined biochemical and morphological analysis of Tg(DeltaCR) mice, which express PrP carrying a 21-aa deletion (residues 105-125) within a highly conserved region of the protein.

Optimal promoter usage for lentiviral vector-mediated transduction of cultured central nervous system cells.

Lentiviral vectors transduce both dividing and non-dividing cells and can support sustained expression of transgenes. These properties make them attractive for the transduction of neurons and other neural cell types in vitro and in vivo. Lentiviral vectors can be targeted to specific cell types by using different promoters in the lentiviral shuttle vector.

A deleted prion protein that is neurotoxic in vivo is localized normally in cultured cells.

The prion protein (PrP) possesses sequence-specific domains that endow the molecule with neuroprotective and neurotoxic activities, and that may contribute to the pathogenesis of prion diseases. To further define critical neurotoxic determinants within PrP, we previously generated Tg(DeltaCR) mice that express a form of PrP harboring a deletion of 21 amino acids within the central domain of the protein [Li et al., EMBO J.

Prion protein lacks robust cytoprotective activity in cultured cells.

Background: The physiological function of the cellular prion protein (PrPC) remains unknown. However, PrPC has been reported to possess a cytoprotective activity that prevents death of neurons and other cells after a toxic stimulus. To explore this effect further, we attempted to reproduce several of the assays in which a protective activity of PrP had been previously demonstrated in mammalian cells.

Non-infectious aggregates of the prion protein react with several PrPSc-directed antibodies.

The key event in the pathogenesis of prion diseases is the conformational conversion of the normal prion protein (PrP) (PrP(C)) into an infectious, aggregated isoform (PrP(Sc)) that has a high content of beta-sheet. Historically, a great deal of effort has been devoted to developing antibodies that specifically recognize PrP(Sc) but not PrP(C), as such antibodies would have enormous diagnostic and experimental value. A mouse monoclonal IgM antibody (designated 15B3) and three PrP motif-grafted monoclonal antibodies (referred to as IgG 19-33, 89-112, and 136-158) have been previously reported to react specifically with infectious PrP(Sc) but not PrP(C).

The cellular prion protein (PrP(C)): its physiological function and role in disease.

Prion diseases are caused by conversion of a normal cell-surface glycoprotein (PrP(C)) into a conformationally altered isoform (PrP(Sc)) that is infectious in the absence of nucleic acid. Although a great deal has been learned about PrP(Sc) and its role in prion propagation, much less is known about the physiological function of PrP(C). In this review, we will summarize some of the major proposed functions for PrP(C), including protection against apoptotic and oxidative stress, cellular uptake or binding of copper ions, transmembrane signaling, formation and maintenance of synapses, and adhesion to the extracellular matrix.

Neonatal lethality in transgenic mice expressing prion protein with a deletion of residues 105-125.

To identify sequence domains important for the neurotoxic and neuroprotective activities of the prion protein (PrP), we have engineered transgenic mice that express a form of murine PrP deleted for a conserved block of 21 amino acids (residues 105-125) in the unstructured, N-terminal tail of the protein. These mice spontaneously developed a severe neurodegenerative illness that was lethal within 1 week of birth in the absence of endogenous PrP. This phenotype was reversed in a dose-dependent fashion by coexpression of wild-type PrP, with five-fold overexpression delaying death beyond 1 year.

Histone deacetylase-dependent establishment and maintenance of broad low-level histone acetylation within a tissue-specific chromatin domain.

The murine beta-globin locus in adult erythroid cells is characterized by a broad pattern of erythroid-specific histone acetylation. The embryonic beta-globin genes Ey and betaH1 are located in a approximately 30 kb central subdomain characterized by low-level histone acetylation, while the fetal/adult genes betamajor and betaminor and the upstream locus control region reside in hyperacetylated chromatin. Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors induce H4 acetylation at the Ey promoter [Forsberg, E.