The prospects of high-temperature superconductors.

Overcoming cost barriers could make high-temperature superconductors pervasive.

Development and large volume production of extremely high current density YBaCuO superconducting wires for fusion.

The fusion power density produced in a tokamak is proportional to its magnetic field strength to the fourth power. Second-generation high temperature superconductor (2G HTS) wires demonstrate remarkable engineering current density (averaged over the full wire), J, at very high magnetic fields, driving progress in fusion and other applications. The key challenge for HTS wires has been to offer an acceptable combination of high and consistent superconducting performance in high magnetic fields, high volume supply, and low price.

Immunological monitoring for prediction of clinical response to antitumor vaccine therapy.

Immunotherapy has shown promising results in a variety of cancers, including melanoma. However, the responses to therapy are usually heterogeneous, and understanding the factors affecting clinical outcome is still not achieved. Here, we show that immunological monitoring of the vaccine therapy for melanoma patients may help to predict the clinical course of the disease.

[Implications of beta 2-microglobulin in the detection of associated urinary tract diseases in patients with infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis].

The addition of radioimmunoassay of beta 2-microglobulin (beta 2-MG) from the sera of patients with infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis to the complex of clinical, x-ray, ultrasound, cytological and biochemical examinations contributes to early detection of renal dysfunction which is important in phthisiology. Changes in urinary and blood serum values of beta 2-MG may serve as a screening test for different nephropathies.

Summary report on the ISOBM TD-6 workshop: analysis of 20 monoclonal antibodies against Sialyl Lewisa and related antigens. Montreux, Switzerland, September 19-24, 1997.

The ISOBM TD-6 Workshop is the first international workshop on monoclonal antibodies against the Sialyl Lewisa (SLea) antigen. Eight research groups participated in a blind study to characterize the epitope binding, relative affinity and performance in immunoradiometric assays, of a panel of 20 monoclonal antibodies. The antibodies were tested against a diverse panel of neoglycoconjugates, purified antigens and human serum pools from gastrointestinal malignancies.

[The use of various fluorogenic substrates for determining peptide hydrolase activity of the blood serum].

4-methoxy-beta-naphthylamide and 7-amino-4-methyl coumarin, derivatives of Z-Ala-Arg-Arg, Leu- and Gly-Phe-beta-naphthylamides were used as substrates in estimation of peptide hydrolases activity in blood serum of patients with malignant tumors and glomerulonephritis in order to ascertain their efficiency for diagnostic purposes in clinic. Each of the fluorogenic substrates studied was hydrolyzed by various peptide hydrolases from blood serum both under normal and pathological conditions: metallopeptidases, cysteine- and serine-dependent peptide hydrolases. The rate of Z-Ala-Arg-Arg-MNA hydrolysis was decreased in lung, kidney and ileum cancer as well as in glomerulonephritis as compared with normal state.

[Carcinoembryonic antigen in bronchoalveolar lavage fluids in the diagnosis of lung cancer].

A radioimmunoassay was used for a comparative study of CEA concentrations in the blood serum and bronchoalveolar washes-off in patients with lung cancer (27) and nontumorous lung disease (with bronchitis-14, pneumonia-18, tuberculosis-11, disseminated processes of nontumorous etiology.-12) and in persons without lung pathology (7). Diagnostic sensitivity of CEA determination in the washes-off was 89%, in the blood serum 33%; the specificity was 86 and 56.

[Relation between somatotropin and somatostatin secretion in cancer patients].

Radioimmunoassays were employed to determine somatotrophin (STH) and somatostatin (SS) levels in patients with different types of tumors. In all patients with solid tumors and in 19 out of 25 patients with lympoblastoses SS concentration was elevated and ranged from 15 to 70 pg/ml. STH level in all cancer patients, with few exceptions, before and during treatment was within normal varying from 0.

[Functional reserves of the pituitary gland in patients with trophoblastic uterine tumors].

In patients with chorionepithelioma as distinct from the normal postnatal period hypothalamohypophyseal function has been shown to get loose without the parallel elimination of the hormones of the fetoplacental complex from the body, particularly of chorionic gonadotrophin.

[Pituitary gonadotropic function in uterine trophoblastic tumor].

A simultaneous determination of 3 gonadotropic hormones of the hypophysis (follitropin, lutronin and prolactin) using a radioimmunoassay in 33 patients with trophoblastic uterine tumors and 22 women on the 1st-8th day after normal delivery, has shown that there are not only significant differences in the nature of the secretion of hypophyseal gonadotropic hormones in pathology as compared to the normal postnatal period but also differences in different forms of trophoblastic tumors. These differences were characterized by a progressive, according to the severity of disease, independence between trophoblastic tissue function and gonadotropic function of the hypophysis. A marked suppression of follicle-stimulating function of the hypophysis after normal delivery decreased hydatidiform mole and trophoblastic tumors and was not observed in patients with chorioepithelioma of the uterus.