Comparative effectiveness research in practice: the Drug Effectiveness Review Project experience.

Aim: Assess the effect of the Drug Effectiveness Review Project's comparative effectiveness research findings on prescribing behavior independently and in conjunction with a Medicaid preferred drug list.

Method: We queried prescription drug claims and enrollment information from the 2001-2008 Medicaid Analytic eXtract and Medicaid Statistical Information System for 17 states using a Wilcoxon signed rank test design to evaluate the effects of the Drug Effectiveness Review Project's report release and preferred drug list implementation on ACE inhibitor prescribing behavior at a state level. The primary outcome of interest was the percentage of ACE inhibitor prescriptions that are defined as 'differentiated' based on the content of the Drug Effectiveness Research Program report.

Building academic health centers' capacity to shape and respond to comparative effectiveness research policy.

In recent years, the focus on comparative effectiveness research (CER), the funding available to support it, and the range of possible effects of CER policy on academic health centers (AHCs) have increased substantially. CER has implications for the research, education, and clinical care components of AHCs' missions. The current funding and policy environment have created specific opportunities for AHCs to shape and respond to CER policies across the four dimensions of the CER enterprise: research, human and scientific capital, data infrastructure, and translation and dissemination.

Regulation of surface architecture by symbiotic bacteria mediates host colonization.

Microbes occupy countless ecological niches in nature. Sometimes these environments may be on or within another organism, as is the case in both microbial infections and symbiosis of mammals. Unlike pathogens that establish opportunistic infections, hundreds of human commensal bacterial species establish a lifelong cohabitation with their hosts.