Systematic ocular phenotyping of 8,707 knockout mouse lines identifies genes associated with abnormal corneal phenotypes.

Purpose: Corneal dysmorphologies (CDs) are typically classified as either regressive degenerative corneal dystrophies (CDtrs) or defective growth and differentiation-driven corneal dysplasias (CDyps). Both eye disorders have multifactorial etiologies. While previous work has elucidated many aspects of CDs, such as presenting symptoms, epidemiology, and pathophysiology, the genetic mechanisms remain incompletely understood.

Consolidation in an Era of Population Health and Value-Based Care: Implications For Effectiveness, Costs, and Equity.

Consolidation of health care providers, and vertical integration of physicians with hospitals and/or payers has accelerated over the past 15 years. Although there is potential for consolidation to improve patient care, efficiencies and reduce overhead costs, participants in our conference identified that almost all research on consolidation has shown increased cost without improvement in outcomes or the experience of care. To provide a framework for considering the impact of consolidation, future research and analysis we offer 4 themes: (1) to move forward, we need to look back at historical drivers, value creation, and unintended consequences; (2) not all consolidation is created equally; (3) real-time, continuous evaluation is critical for improvement; and (4) a policy blueprint is desperately needed.

Characterization of Epithelial-Mesenchymal and Neuroendocrine Differentiation States in Pancreatic and Small Cell Ovarian Tumor Cells and Their Modulation by TGF-β1 and BMP-7.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has an extremely poor prognosis, due in part to early invasion and metastasis, which in turn involves epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of the cancer cells. Prompted by the discovery that two PDAC cell lines of the quasi-mesenchymal subtype (PANC-1, MIA PaCa-2) exhibit neuroendocrine differentiation (NED), we asked whether NED is associated with EMT. Using real-time PCR and immunoblotting, we initially verified endogenous expressions of various NED markers, i.