Core Exchange: A Professional Development Program for Shared Resource Personnel.

Introduction/objective: Academic institutions often struggle to meet the unique professional development needs of shared resource personnel, who require business skills, project and people management expertise, and an active, collaborative network of shared resource colleagues.

Materials And Methods: We launched the Vanderbilt Core Exchange professional development and networking program in 2020. The program was intentionally designed with core personnel input and supports faculty and staff from more than 80 shared resources across Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Professional Identity Formation of Basic Science Medical Educators: A Qualitative Study of Identity Supports and Threats.

Purpose: Basic science medical educators (BSME) play a vital role in the training of medical students, yet little is known about the factors that shape their professional identities. This multi-institutional qualitative study investigated factors that support and threaten the professional identity formation (PIF) of these medical educators.

Method: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted with a purposive sample of 58 BSME from 7 allopathic medical schools in the U.

Precision Cancer Medicine: Dynamic Learning of Cancer Biology in a Clinically Meaningful Context.

Purpose: Precision medicine is revolutionizing healthcare practices, most notably in oncology. With cancer being the second leading cause of death in the USA, it is important to integrate precision oncology content in undergraduate medical education.

Methods: In 2015, we launched a Integrated Science Course (ISC) for post-clerkship medical students at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM).

Integrating Foundational Sciences in a Clinical Context in the Post-Clerkship Curriculum.

Purpose: To design, implement, and launch courses that integrate foundational science learning and clinical application in a post-clerkship undergraduate medical school curriculum.

Method: In Academic Year (AY) 15-16, as part of a comprehensive curricular revision, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) formally implemented "Integrated Science Courses" (ISCs) that combined rigorous training in the foundational sciences with meaningful clinical experiences. These courses integrated foundational sciences that could be leveraged in the clinical environment, utilized a variety of instructional modalities, and included quantitative and qualitative (competency-based milestones) student assessments.

Detecting somatic point mutations in cancer genome sequencing data: a comparison of mutation callers.

Background: Driven by high throughput next generation sequencing technologies and the pressing need to decipher cancer genomes, computational approaches for detecting somatic single nucleotide variants (sSNVs) have undergone dramatic improvements during the past 2 years. The recently developed tools typically compare a tumor sample directly with a matched normal sample at each variant locus in order to increase the accuracy of sSNV calling. These programs also address the detection of sSNVs at low allele frequencies, allowing for the study of tumor heterogeneity, cancer subclones, and mutation evolution in cancer development.

BRAF(L597) mutations in melanoma are associated with sensitivity to MEK inhibitors.

Unlabelled: Kinase inhibitors are accepted treatment for metastatic melanomas that harbor specific driver mutations in BRAF or KIT, but only 40% to 50% of cases are positive. To uncover other potential targetable mutations, we conducted whole-genome sequencing of a highly aggressive BRAF (V600) and KIT (W557, V559, L576, K642, and D816) wild-type melanoma. Surprisingly, we found a somatic BRAF(L597R) mutation in exon 15.

Routine multiplex mutational profiling of melanomas enables enrollment in genotype-driven therapeutic trials.

Purpose: Knowledge of tumor mutation status is becoming increasingly important for the treatment of cancer, as mutation-specific inhibitors are being developed for clinical use that target only sub-populations of patients with particular tumor genotypes. Melanoma provides a recent example of this paradigm. We report here development, validation, and implementation of an assay designed to simultaneously detect 43 common somatic point mutations in 6 genes (BRAF, NRAS, KIT, GNAQ, GNA11, and CTNNB1) potentially relevant to existing and emerging targeted therapies specifically in melanoma.

Modulators of prostate cancer cell proliferation and viability identified by short-hairpin RNA library screening.

There is significant need to identify novel prostate cancer drug targets because current hormone therapies eventually fail, leading to a drug-resistant and fatal disease termed castration-resistant prostate cancer. To functionally identify genes that, when silenced, decrease prostate cancer cell proliferation or induce cell death in combination with antiandrogens, we employed an RNA interference-based short hairpin RNA barcode screen in LNCaP human prostate cancer cells. We identified and validated four candidate genes (AKT1, PSMC1, STRADA, and TTK) that impaired growth when silenced in androgen receptor positive prostate cancer cells and enhanced the antiproliferative effects of antiandrogens.

RAF265 inhibits the growth of advanced human melanoma tumors.

Purpose: The purpose of this preclinical study was to determine the effectiveness of RAF265, a multikinase inhibitor, for treatment of human metastatic melanoma and to characterize traits associated with drug response.

Experimental Design: Advanced metastatic melanoma tumors from 34 patients were orthotopically implanted to nude mice. Tumors that grew in mice (17 of 34) were evaluated for response to RAF265 (40 mg/kg, every day) over 30 days.