Development of a Remote Online Collaborative Medical School Pathology Curriculum with Clinical Correlations, across Several International Sites, through the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Introduction: Due to the Covid-19 social distancing restrictions, in March 2020, Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar decided to replace students' clinical instruction with novel online electives. Hence, we implemented an innovative online and remote pathology curriculum, anchored on virtual microscopy and Zoom videoconferencing: ideal tools to support online teaching.

Objective: To assess a new curriculum implementation at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar.

Follicular bronchiolitis associated with common variable immunodeficiency.

Common variable immunodeficiency is one of the most frequent immunity alterations. The most common clinical presentation occurs with recurrent respiratory infections, from pneumonia to otitis, and may be associated with other diseases such as bronchiectasis or interstitial lung diseases. We report the case of a 28-year-old patient with frequent respiratory infections and nodular pulmonary infiltrates, who was diagnosed with common variable immunodeficiency and follicular bronchiolitis.

Is assessment of surface CD38 expression worthwhile as a prognostic factor in chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients?

We studied the clinical impact of CD38 expression in 226 chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients (CLL) at disease presentation and during follow up to determine its prognostic significance, progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS), and to verify whether this parameter changed over time. Various patients' characteristics were studied including gender, Rai and Binet stages, immunoglobulin light chain expression, lymphocyte doubling time and CD38 expression. After a median follow up of 53 months (range 6-282), 62% CD38 positive(+) patients required therapy.

TNF alpha acting on TNFR1 promotes breast cancer growth via p42/P44 MAPK, JNK, Akt and NF-kappa B-dependent pathways.

Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) enhances proliferation of chemically-induced mammary tumors and of T47D human cell line through not fully understood pathways. Here, we explored the intracellular signaling pathways triggered by TNF alpha, the participation of TNF alpha receptor (TNFR) 1 and TNFR2 and the molecular mechanism leading to breast cancer growth. We demonstrate that TNFalpha induced proliferation of C4HD murine mammary tumor cells and of T47D cells through the activation of p42/p44 MAPK, JNK, PI3-K/Akt pathways and nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappa B) transcriptional activation.

Increased immature hematopoietic progenitor cells CD34+/CD38dim in myelodysplasia.

Background: Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are clonal disorders affecting hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPC). Despite the relevance of clonal CD34+ cells in developing MDS, only few studies analyze the phenotype of this cell population. The aim of this study was to evaluate phenotypic changes on HPC in MDS that could reflect abnormalities in the differentiation process of stem cells.

Autocrine/paracrine involvement of insulin-like growth factor-I and its receptor in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is characterized by the accumulation of long-lived B lymphocytes blocked in G(0/1) by impaired apoptosis. As insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) is known for its antiapoptotic effects in different cell types, we investigated whether IGF-I and its receptor (IGF-IR) participate in autocrine/paracrine loops affecting the survival of CLL cells. IGF-IR protein and mRNA was present in CLL cells in 44% and 59% of patients respectively.

Inv(4)(p14q27) in a case with de novo acute nonlymphocytic leukemia.

An inversion, inv(4)(p14q27), was found as the sole karyotypic anomaly at diagnosis in the bone marrow cells from a 65-year-old male patient with an M4 acute nonlymphocytic leukemia (ANLL). To our knowledge, the breakpoints observed in this case appear to be different from other inversions of chromosome 4 previously described in ANLL. The patient we described had a poor response to chemotherapy and had a short survival.