Publications by authors named "S Halper"

Soil-dwelling Actinomycetes are a diverse and ubiquitous component of the global microbiome but largely lack genetic tools comparable to those available in model species such as or , posing a fundamental barrier to their characterization and utilization as hosts for biotechnology. To address this, we have developed a modular plasmid assembly framework, along with a series of genetic control elements for the previously genetically intractable Gram-positive environmental isolate C208, and demonstrate conserved functionality in 11 additional environmental isolates of , , and . This toolkit encompasses five Mycobacteriale origins of replication, five broad-host-range antibiotic resistance markers, transcriptional and translational control elements, fluorescent reporters, a tetracycline-inducible system, and a counter-selectable marker.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The Clinical Treatment Score post-5 years (CTS5) is an easy-to-use tool estimating the late distant recurrence (LDR) risk in patients with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer after 5 years of endocrine therapy (ET). Apart from evaluating the prognostic value and calibration accuracy of CTS5, the aim of this study is to clarify if this score is able to identify patients at higher risk for LDR who will benefit from extended ET.

Methods: Prognostic power, calibration, and predictive value of the CTS5 was tested in patients of the prospective ABCSG-06 and -06a trials (n = 1254 and 860 patients, respectively).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to validate the OncoMasTR Risk Score in predicting the risk of distant recurrence (DR) in postmenopausal women with specific breast cancer characteristics within the ABCSG Trial 8.
  • It involved analyzing 1,200 tissue samples and found that 78.2% of the patients were classified as low risk, with significantly lower DR rates at 10 years for this group compared to those classified as high risk.
  • The OncoMasTR Risk Score proved to be a strong prognostic tool, providing additional valuable information beyond traditional clinical assessments and reinforcing previous validation studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The purpose of this study was to assess the concordance of real-time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) detection of ESR1, PGR, ERBB2, and MKi67 messenger RNA (mRNA) in breast cancer tissues with central immunohistochemistry (IHC) in women treated within the prospective, randomized Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group (ABCSG) Trial 6.

Patients And Methods: We evaluated ESR1, PGR, ERBB2, and MKi67 mRNA expression by Xpert® Breast Cancer STRAT4 (enables cartridge-based RT-qPCR detection of mRNA in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues) and estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), and Ki67 protein expression by IHC [in situ hybridization (ISH) for HER2 IHC 2+] in 1115 surgical formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimens from patients of ABCSG Trial 6. Overall percent agreement (concordance), positive percent agreement (sensitivity), and negative percent agreement (specificity) between STRAT4 and IHC were determined for each marker.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF