Process Improvement for Interinstitutional Research Contracting.

Introduction: Sponsored research increasingly requires multiinstitutional collaboration. However, research contracting procedures have become more complicated and time consuming. The perinatal research units of two colocated healthcare systems sought to improve their research contracting processes.

Use and attitudes of obstetricians toward 3 high-risk interventions in MFMU Network hospitals.

Objective: We sought to evaluate the frequency of, and factors associated with, the use of 3 evidence-based interventions: antenatal corticosteroids for fetal lung maturity, progesterone for prevention of recurrent preterm birth, and magnesium sulfate for fetal neuroprotection.

Study Design: A self-administered survey was conducted from January through May 2011 among obstetricians from 21 hospitals that included 30 questions regarding their knowledge, attitudes, and practice of the 3 evidence-based interventions and the 14-item short version of the Team Climate for Innovation survey. Frequency of use of each intervention was ascertained from an obstetrical cohort of women between January 2010 and February 2011.

Mutational analysis of evolutionarily conserved ACTH residues.

alpha-Melanocyte stimulating hormone (MSH) and adrenocorticotropin (ACTH)1-24, the minimal ACTH sequence required for full activity, differ only by the 10 C-terminal amino acids of ACTH1-24. Interestingly, these ten C-terminal residues have been highly conserved throughout vertebrate evolution. To understand the functional constraints of these 10 amino acids we analyzed the effects of mutating these residues on steroidogenic activity in vivo and in vitro.

Altered glucose homeostasis in proopiomelanocortin-null mouse mutants lacking central and peripheral melanocortin.

Prolonged obesity frequently leads to insulin resistance and, eventually, to diabetes. This relationship reflects the integration of fat stores and carbohydrate metabolism and the coordination of central nervous system functions, e.g.

Use of blood culture as a nonlethal method for isolating bacteria from fish.

Simple nonlethal blood culture methodology, an alternative to euthanasia for diagnosing systemic bacterial infections in fish, is described. Blood was extracted from the caudal vein of 20 individuals of five fish species, incubated in brain-heart infusion broth, and then plated onto enriched blood agar. Nine of these fish were subsequently euthanized and necropsied for confirmatory tissue cultures.

Alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone is a peripheral, integrative regulator of glucose and fat metabolism.

Melanocortins are known to affect feeding and probably insulin activity through the central nervous system. It was also recently shown that peripheral alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (alpha-MSH) administration can reduce weight gain in both genetic and diet-induced obese mice. As obesity is often associated with disregulation of glucose and insulin, we investigated the nature of glucose homeostasis in the obese pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) knockout mouse.