Using gaming to prepare health professional students to practice systems thinking.

Background: Healthcare professionals face numerous challenges regarding the delivery of care. Creating solutions to these challenges is imperative to improve the quality and safety of care to positively impact patient outcomes. However, health professional students rarely receive formal training regarding systems thinking during didactic components of their professional training.

SIKs Regulate HDAC7 Stabilization and Cytokine Recall in Late-Stage T Cell Effector Differentiation.

Understanding the mechanisms underlying the acquisition and maintenance of effector function during T cell differentiation is important to unraveling how these processes can be dysregulated in the context of disease and manipulated for therapeutic intervention. In this study, we report the identification of a previously unappreciated regulator of murine T cell differentiation through the evaluation of a previously unreported activity of the kinase inhibitor, BioE-1197. Specifically, we demonstrate that liver kinase B1 (LKB1)-mediated activation of salt-inducible kinases epigenetically regulates cytokine recall potential in effector CD8+ and Th1 cells.

Improving the Management of Adults With Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: An Initiative to Reduce Unnecessary Computed Tomographic Scans in the Emergency Department.

The overuse of computed tomographic (CT) scans for patients who present to the emergency department (ED) after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) has been well-documented. The Canadian Computed Tomography Head Rule (CCHR) is a validated tool to guide ED providers in determining the need for emergent CT of mTBI patients. The purpose of this project was to reduce radiation exposure and ED length of stay by using the CCHR to decrease unnecessary CT scans in adults with TBI.

GOT1 regulates CD8 effector and memory T cell generation.

T cell activation, proliferation, function, and differentiation are tightly linked to proper metabolic reprogramming and regulation. By using [U-C]glucose tracing, we reveal a critical role for GOT1 in promoting CD8 T cell effector differentiation and function. Mechanistically, GOT1 enhances proliferation by maintaining intracellular redox balance and serine-mediated purine nucleotide biosynthesis.