Relationship of occupational therapy inpatient rehabilitation interventions and patient characteristics to outcomes following spinal cord injury: the SCIRehab project.

Background/objective: Describe associations of occupational therapy (OT) interventions delivered during inpatient spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation and patient characteristics with outcomes at the time of discharge and 1-year post-injury.

Methods: Occupational therapists at six inpatient rehabilitation centers documented detailed information about treatment provided. Least squares regression modeling was used to predict outcomes at discharge and 1-year injury anniversary for a 75% subset; models were validated with the remaining 25%.

A novel highly potent therapeutic antibody neutralizes multiple human chemokines and mimics viral immune modulation.

Chemokines play a key role in leukocyte recruitment during inflammation and are implicated in the pathogenesis of a number of autoimmune diseases. As such, inhibiting chemokine signaling has been of keen interest for the development of therapeutic agents. This endeavor, however, has been hampered due to complexities in the chemokine system.

The SCIRehab project: treatment time spent in SCI rehabilitation. Occupational therapy treatment time during inpatient spinal cord injury rehabilitation.

Background: Occupational therapy (OT) is a critical component of the rehabilitation process after spinal cord injury (SCI), the constitution of which has not been studied or documented in full detail previously.

Objective: To describe the type and distribution of SCI rehabilitation OT activities, including the amount of time spent on evaluation and treatment, and to discuss predictors (patient and injury characteristics) of the amount of time dedicated to OT treatment activities.

Methods: Six inpatient rehabilitation centers enrolled 600 patients with traumatic SCI in the first year of the SCIRehab.

SCIRehab Project series: the occupational therapy taxonomy.

Background/objective: Lack of a classification system for occupational therapy (OT) rehabilitation interventions for traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation in the United States makes conducting outcomes research difficult. This article describes an OT SCI rehabilitation taxonomy (system to categorize and classify treatments).

Methods: OT clinicians and researchers from 6 SCI rehabilitation centers developed a taxonomy to describe details of each OT session.

Characterization of a proapoptotic antiganglioside GM2 monoclonal antibody and evaluation of its therapeutic effect on melanoma and small cell lung carcinoma xenografts.

Monoclonal antibodies have begun to show great clinical promise for the treatment of cancer. Antibodies that can directly affect a tumor cell's growth and/or survival are of particular interest for immunotherapy. Previously, we described monoclonal antibody DMF10.

A novel method for increasing the expression level of recombinant proteins.

Expression of recombinant proteins is an important step towards elucidating the functions of many genes discovered through genomic sequencing projects. It is also critical for validating gene targets and for developing effective therapies for many diseases. Here we describe a novel method to express recombinant proteins that are extremely difficult to produce otherwise.

Designing HER2 vaccines.

HER2/neu is a compelling cancer vaccine candidate because it is overexpressed on some cancer cells relative to normal tissues, it is known to be immunogenic in both animal models and in humans, and it is already known to be targetable by the antibody component of the immune system in the form of monoclonal antibody therapy with trastuzumab. Vaccines offer the theoretical advantage of being able to elicit T-cell responses in addition to antibody responses. HER2 vaccines have been shown to provide benefit in animal models and to be immunogenic in humans.