Performance of lateral flow device and galactomannan for the detection of Aspergillus species in bronchoalveolar fluid of patients at risk for invasive pulmonary aspergillosis.

Early diagnosis of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) remains difficult due to the variable performance of the tests used. We compared the performance characteristics of Aspergillus lateral flow device (LFD) in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) vs. BAL-galactomannan (GM), for the diagnosis of IPA.

Canadian DOs: International Expansion of Osteopathic Medical Education North of the Border.

Context: The growth of osteopathic medicine in the United States has led to a vibrant expansion of the profession internationally. Canadian students represent the majority of international applicants and matriculants to US colleges of osteopathic medicine (COMs); however, to our knowledge, no studies have explored this population.

Objective: To gain a better understanding of Canadian students attending US colleges of osteopathic medicine by examining their residency training preference, visa preference, intent to practice in the United States or Canada, receptiveness to incorporating osteopathic manipulative medicine into practice, specialty preference, estimated debt incurred, and effect of debt on specialty choice.

Phylogenetic framework and molecular signatures for the class Chloroflexi and its different clades; proposal for division of the class Chloroflexia class. nov. [corrected] into the suborder Chloroflexineae subord. nov., consisting of the emended family Oscillochloridaceae and the family Chloroflexaceae fam. nov., and the suborder Roseiflexineae subord. nov., containing the family Roseiflexaceae fam. nov.

The phylum "Chloroflexi" contains highly divergent groups of bacteria. To understand the evolutionary relationships among these bacteria, phylogenetic trees were constructed based upon concatenated sequences for 20 conserved proteins and comparative genomic analyses were carried out to identify molecular markers (conserved signature indels or CSIs) that are specific for different clades of Chloroflexi. In phylogenetic trees based upon either concatenated protein sequences or the 16S rRNA gene, species from the class Chloroflexi and the order Chloroflexales formed strongly supported clades.