Preclinical Medicine Research Articles

Preface: 3rd International Conference on Biotechnology, Life Science and Medical Engineering (BLSME 2024)

This conference proceedings volume contains the written versions of the contributions presented during the 2024 3rd International Conference on Biotechnology, Life Science and Medical Engineering (BLSME 2024), it had been held in Jeju, South Korea during January 13-14, 2024. This conference is the premier forum for the presentation of new advances and research results in the fields of biotechnology, bioengineering, biochemistry, preclinical medicine, clinical medicine, pharmacology, life science, medical engineering, and medicine technology.
 The conference provided a forum for discussion and sharing between lecturers, researchers, academics, practitioners, communities, and specialists, from universities, research institutes, corporations, industries, the government, and the public. The conference has been a great opportunity for participants coming from many countries to present and discuss topics in their respective research areas.
 BLSME 2024 conference included 4 plenary sessions and invited speakers, and oral and poster presentations to allow as many as possible attendances to present their scientific results on the different fields. The manuscripts which have presented were published under the peer-reviewed process.
 We would love to express our gratitude for all the participants, keynote speakers, and guests of honor, for their effective contribution in our conference. Our ongoing thankfulness is presented for our guest editors and speakers. Finally, we would love to express our gratefulness for all our sponsors, partners, and colleagues, we hope to collaborate with them in future activities.
 Chairman of Conference Committee
 Jeju, South Korea

Experiential learning integrating humanities into preclinical medicine.

Medical EducationEarly View REALLY GOOD STUFF Experiential learning integrating humanities into preclinical medicine Chi-Chuan Yeh, Chi-Chuan YehSearch for more papers by this authorKuo-Shyan Lu, Kuo-Shyan LuSearch for more papers by this authorHuey-Ling Chen, Huey-Ling ChenSearch for more papers by this authorYu-Chun Chiu, Corresponding Author Yu-Chun Chiu [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0001-5714-6914 Correspondence Yu-Chun Chiu, Department of Medical Education, National Taiwan University Hospital; Department of Pediatrics, National Taiwan University Children's Hospital; Department and Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Bioethics, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author Chi-Chuan Yeh, Chi-Chuan YehSearch for more papers by this authorKuo-Shyan Lu, Kuo-Shyan LuSearch for more papers by this authorHuey-Ling Chen, Huey-Ling ChenSearch for more papers by this authorYu-Chun Chiu, Corresponding Author Yu-Chun Chiu [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0001-5714-6914 Correspondence Yu-Chun Chiu, Department of Medical Education, National Taiwan University Hospital; Department of Pediatrics, National Taiwan University Children's Hospital; Department and Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Bioethics, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author First published: 04 May 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.15110Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. REFERENCE 1Kolb DA. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice-Hall; 1984. Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue ReferencesRelatedInformation

An investigation of preclinical medical students' preference for summative or formative assessment for physiology learning.

Both summative and formative assessments are known to facilitate student learning and understanding and help students to identify areas of weakness. However, few studies have investigated students' preference for either summative or formative evaluations, particularly in the area of preclinical medicine. The current study addresses this deficit by surveying 137 first-year graduate entry to medicine (GEM) preclinical medical students from 2 consecutive years (2018-2019 and 2019-2020), for their thoughts on the 6 summative (i.e., for a small percentage of marks), proctored and the 5 informal, formative (i.e., no marks available) continuous assessments in physiology that they encountered in semesters 1 and 2, respectively. Our survey revealed that between 75 and 90% of students felt that both evaluation formats were roughly equally useful (i.e., selecting options, "agree" or "strongly agree") both for providing feedback about their understanding of physiology and for identifying deficits in their physiology knowledge. However, although a significantly larger number of students felt that summative evaluations motivated them to study more than the formative evaluations (P = 0.006), overall, more students favored formative over summative assessments. Notably, however, GEM students from nonbiomedical backgrounds were significantly more in favor of summative assessments than those from either biomedical backgrounds (P = 0.003) or the whole GEM survey cohort (P = 0.01). The implications of these findings will be discussed, with suggestions as to how the student views outlined here might be facilitated within an academic program to maximize both student learning as well as their motivation to study and keep up with taught material.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Although several studies have investigated the relative effectiveness of regular summative versus formative assessments as tools to facilitate student learning and understanding, ours is the first to explicitly solicit students' views on, and preferences for, either regular formative or summative assessment in preclinical medicine. We demonstrate that, overall, students preferred formative- to summative-type assessments, due to the immediacy of feedback, but also that summative tests incentivized them to study and keep up with material more.

Preface: 2nd International Conference on Biotechnology, Life Science and Medical Engineering (BLSME 2023)

This conference proceedings volume contains the written versions of the contributions presented during the 2023 2nd International Conference on Biotechnology, Life Science and Medical Engineering (BLSME 2023), it had been held in Jeju, South Korea on March 11-12, 2023. This conference is the premier forum for the presentation of new advances and research results in the fields of biotechnology, bioengineering, biochemistry, preclinical medicine, clinical medicine, pharmacology, life science, medical engineering, and medicine technology.
 The conference provided a forum for discussion and sharing between lecturers, researchers, academics, practitioners, communities, and specialists, from universities, research institutes, corporations, industries, the government, and the public. The conference has been a great opportunity for participants coming from many countries to present and discuss topics in their respective research areas.
 BLSME 2023 conference included 4 plenary sessions and invited speakers, and oral and poster presentations to allow as many as possible attendances to present their scientific results on the different fields. The manuscripts which have presented were published under the peer-reviewed process.
 We would love to express our gratitude for all the participants, keynote speakers, and guests of honor, for their effective contribution in our conference. Our ongoing thankfulness is presented for our guest editors and speakers. Finally, we would love to express our gratefulness for all our sponsors, partners, and colleagues, we hope to collaborate with them in future activities.
 Chairman of Conference Committee
 Jeju, South Korea

Biological Functions and Applications of Exosomes in Drug Research

Review Biological Functions and Applications of Exosomes in Drug Research Mengmeng Fu 1, Jiapeng Li 1, Tungalag Battulga 2, Xiaoxue Li 3, *, and Ming Xu 1, * 1 Department of Clinical Pharmacy, School of Preclinical Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tong jia Lane, Nanjing 210009, China. 2 School of Pharmacy, Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences, Ulaanbaatar-24210, Mongolia. 3 Department of Cardiology, Zhongda Hospital, School of Medicine, Southeast University, Nanjing 210009, China. * Correspondence: lxx84112@163.com(Xiaoxue Li); mingxu@cpu.edu.cn; Tel.: 025-86185653(Ming Xu) Received: 9 October 2022 Accepted: 12 November 2022 Published: 11 January 2023 Abstract: Exosomes have received increasing attention in recent years as an important substance for intercellular communication. Among the plethora of new research is their unique interaction with drugs is even more striking. Exosomes play essential roles in disease treatment either as extracellular vesicles to exert biological functions or as drug carriers to deliver therapeutic agents. We summarized the relationship between exosomes and drugs in the disease progression and treatment. Understanding how exosomes interact with drugs and exert their anti-inflammatory and pro-angiogenic effects, alongside a lipid peroxidation inhibitory result in different manners is essential for disease treatment.

Structure, Function and Pharmacology of SLC7 Family Members and Homologues

Amino acids are essential components of all living cells serving as building blocks of proteins, as energy source, and as precursors of metabolites and signaling molecules. Amino acid transporters are membrane proteins that mediate the transfer of amino acids across the plasma membrane, and between compartments in cells, different cells and organs. The absence, overexpression or malfunction of specific amino acid transporters have been associated with human disease. One of the projects within the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) TransCure was directed at SLC7 family amino acid transporters, with a particular focus on the heteromeric amino acid transporters 4F2hc-LAT1 (SLC3A2-SLC7A5) and 4F2hc-LAT2 (SLC3A2-SLC7A8), and the bacterial homologue AdiC. The project addressed questions of basic research (function and structure), pharmacology (identification of potent inhibitors and activators), and pre-clinical medicine (e.g., physiological role in the placenta) and disease models (e.g., tumor progression) of specific SLC7 family amino acid transporters. This review presents, summarizes and discusses selected main results obtained in this NCCR TransCure project.

Experiences and perspectives on patient-centered education of medical students in Korea.

This study analyzed the current status of and correlations between Korean medical students' experiences and perspectives surrounding patient-centered medical education (PCME). A structured PCME questionnaire composed of three categories, understanding patients within social and cultural contexts, understanding patients' individual health contexts through communication, and placement of patients at the center of medical education, was used. The students were stratified into pre-medical (Pre-med), medical (Med), and policlinic (PK) groups because of curriculum differences by grade. The χ2 test was applied to analyze the association between students' experiences with and perspectives on PCME. A Cramer's V of 0.200 was considered a large effect size for any association between experiences with and perspectives on PCME. Among the respondents, 50.6% answered that they did not know about patient-centered medicine before the survey. With increasing school years went up from Pre-med to PK, fewer students agreed that PCME should be added to pre-clinical medicine curricula (p<0.001), that patients should be in the center throughout medical education (p=0.011), and that patients' personal histories, values, and objectives are important PCME (p=0.001). Students who said they learned PCME for each category were more likely to consider PCME important (Cramer's V was 0.219 and 0.271 for "with," and "for the patients" respectively, p<0.001 for "about/with/for the patients"). Students in all groups chose clinical practice as the best method for PCME (p=0.021). Med group chose the lectures as the most effective tool to learn about the importance of communication (p<0.001). Students who experienced PCME were likely to perceive PCME as important and it showed that experiences of PCME had positive effects on PCME perceptions. Despite students' preferences for clinical practice as the best method for PCME, PK reported that they did not learn PCME, and regarded PCME as less important compared to students at earlier stages of their medical education. Therefore, more intensive and holistic PCME curricula rather than only clinical practice exposure may be necessary.

Outcome of Utilising Virtual Learning Environment in Anatomy Learning: A Perspective of Preclinical Medicine Students in Edo State University

Background: In developing countries, utilising virtual technologies for learning purposes is no longer a novelty in revolutionising anatomy education. Whereas, the outcome in a Nigerian population is vaguely defined. This study is aimed at evaluating the preferred virtual devices and resources used for anatomy learning by preclinical students. Also, to assess the benefits and possible challenges faced with using virtual technology in medical education. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted which deployed a quantitative and qualitative method in data collection. This study population comprises preclinical medicine students studying at Edo State University, Uzairue, Nigeria during the 2020/2021 academic session. A hard copy questionnaire was designed, reviewed by experts and tested for reliability using Cronbach’s α-coefficient test (= 0.775). Data were analysed using IBM SPSS, version 21. The Chi-square test was used to test for association. Qualitative analysis was done using conventional content analysis. Result: 118 students (90%) completed the questionnaire with sex size proportion as female students (55.1%), male students (44.9%). The mean age of respondents was 19.72 years. More students used android phones (43.2%) for virtual study. The virtual learning environment (VLE) which students preferred was anatomy application (46.6%), of which 29.6% choose the TeachMe anatomy application. Others preferred online platforms (27.1%), Anatomage (16.1%) and multimedia technology (10.2%). VLE played a significant role in learning anatomy (χ2 (36, N=118) = 188.712, p <0.01) and of the eight challenges highlighted by students, ‘virtual learning consumes data’ had the highest frequency (30.5%). Some examples of what students suggested should be improved in their VLE are; “increase deployment and usage of Anatomage to different areas of anatomy” (17.8%), “Wi-Fi supporting connectivity should be steady” (10.2%), “More virtual technologies should be made available” (10, 8.5%). Conclusion: Virtual technology was observed to be very beneficial in anatomy education. Virtual learning resources that could be easily installed on android and iPhone were preferred and effectively utilised in learning anatomy.

Abstract 1303: AI driven single cell analysis of drug action in solid tumor material: An entry point to functional precision medicine

Abstract Introduction: The paradigm of precision oncology is the selection of optimal therapy for individual patients. However, disease complexity prevents most cases from having a clear correlation between genetics and response, and programs using driver mutations to stratify patients into treatment arms have shown lackluster results (Middleton et al 2020). In contrast, prior work by us and colleagues demonstrated that functional analysis of drug action on single cells in unmanipulated primary tumor tissues with automated microscopy and advanced image analysis can identify effective therapies for patients with hematological cancers. In a prospective interventional trial (EXALT1 NCT03096821 Snijder et al 2017 N=17, Staber et al 2020 ASH N=56) patients treated with drugs ranked by differential ex vivo response resulted in a 55% ORR and >1.3-fold PFS improvement compared to the prior therapy in 54%. However, the scope has been limited to hematological cancers and solid tumor ascites/effusions.Adapting analysis to tumor biopsies required major advances in wet lab and computation, including robust quantification of 3D confocal images. Here, we present first biological evidence from a newly developed pipeline for the ex vivo treatment and single cell interrogation of singular cell + microaggregate suspensions from ovarian cancer biopsies. Methods and results: Viable tissue from debulking surgery was obtained after consent and dissociated. The resulting cells and microaggregates were treated with >85 small molecules in 7 concentrations in triplicate for 72h, fixed, and stained for cancer surface markers. Cells were imaged with automated confocal microscopy at 20x across multiple 384 well plates, with z-resolution of <17 planes. Images were segmented with a modular analysis pipeline with custom neural networks in a scalable cloud environment, yielding precise characterization (e.g. viability, size, marker intensity) and localization of each cell, elucidating the complexity of biopsies. Single cell data in turn was used to determine the ability of drugs to induce targeted cytotoxicity and modify the immune system/pathways, cell morphology, and the 3D environment. Conclusions: High content single cell phenotypic analysis of solid tumors can enable the study of drug action in primary tissues. Compared to organoids where cells are outgrown, working with primary cells in short term incubation enables analysis of drug activity prior to culture adaptation, and the presence of immune cells enables the study of I/O drugs, in a close-to-patient setting. A challenge to achieve single cell resolution of complex mixtures of aggregate/single and adherent/non-adherent cells was overcome by confocal microscopy and AI driven 3D image analysis. The screening and follow-up data indicates this could support preclinical research, biomarker discovery, and precision medicine. Citation Format: Valentin Aranha, Diogo Tomaz, Irene Gutierrez Perez, Florian Rohrer, Joost Van Ham, Lukas Hefler, Laudia Hadjari, Judith Lafleur, Nikolaus Krall, Robert Sehlke, Bojan Vilagos, Gregory Ian Vladimer. AI driven single cell analysis of drug action in solid tumor material: An entry point to functional precision medicine [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021; 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr 1303.

Analyzing Residents’ Health Information Requirement and Intention for the Library of Medical University and Its Influencing Factors

Objective To investigate the residents’ requirement for health information in a library of medical university and its influencing factors to provide suggestions for health information service and activities to popularize scientific knowledge. Methods Convenience sampling method was used in the study to select some residents in 2 communities of ShaPingba for a face-to-face questionnaire survey. χ 2 test and logistic regression were used to analysis data by SPSS v25.0 software. Results Among the 317 residents, the contents of health information that individuals preferred included 70.7% for disease prevention and health care,81.1% for disease preservation and rehabilitation,37.2% for diagnosis and treatment of disease,6.6% for medical policies and regulations,5.4% for drugs information,5.0% for preclinical medicine. The way of health information that persons preferred contained 16.4% for newspaper and journals reading services,22.1% for book loan services,69.4% for training and lecture services,45.8% for information inquiry service. Multivariate logistic regression results showed that age was a significant factor influencing the status of health information contents. Age and education were significant factors influencing the status of health information ways. Conclusion Residents’ health information requirement is affected mainly by age and education. So it is essential to take the dominated influencing factors into consideration for spreading health information by various ways and channels when libraries prepare health information service and activities to popularize scientific knowledge, especially, more concerns should be put on practicability, maneuverability and accessibility of health information.

ОСОБЛИВОСТІ ПІДГОТОВКИ МАГІСТРІВ У ГАЛУЗІ МЕДИЦИНИ В УНІВЕРСИТЕТАХ КИТАЮ

The article investigates and theoretically summarizes the peculiarities of training doctors at the master's level at the universities of ROC. Higher education in China is characterized by numerous changes due to the accumulation and adaptation of advanced successful experience in training specialists in different countries of the world. In this context, the property of scientists and educators of ROC concerning the organization of professional training of masters in medicine is of particular interest for Ukraine. Scientists are constantly searching for solutions and improving higher medical education in ROC. In the universities of the Republic of China, according to the field of study, the degree of master in medicine can be obtained as a professional degree and scientific degree. As a result, after completing the master's program in professional field, the master may work in positions such as senior physician, senior physician in health care, senior dentist, senior pharmaceutical, and the master in research field may work as the doctor-scientist, who carries out medical research as the main professional activity. The name of medical degrees is also different, for the professional field – clinical medicine, for the research field – preclinical medicine. Clinical medicine includes such areas of master's programs in medicine as health care, dentistry, pharmacological science; preclinical medicine includes clinical medicine, preventive medicine, dentistry, the science of human progress, the history of science and technology, biomedical engineering, social medicine and health management. The article examines the experience of implementing master's programs in medicine at higher educational institutions in China. The competence-based approach, forms and specialization of training in the organization of training and practicing students due to master's programs in medicine in ROC were determined.

Nicholas Wilson-Holt

Nicholas Wilson-Holt (“Nick”) decided from an early age that his future career lay in medicine. He was educated at Aldenham School in Hertfordshire, and as a young boy he supplemented...

Predictors of Physician's Empathy: The Role of Spiritual Well-being, Dispositional Perspectives, and Psychological Well-being.

ObjectivesEmpathy is a core component of an efficient physician-patient relationship. Although students’ preexisting medical views may influence responses to physician-patient relationship, there is little knowledge about the psychological predictive factors of empathic perspective for physician-patient relationship. We aimed to examine whether psychological well-being, dispositional perspective, and spiritual well-being could predict the empathic perspective of medical students regarding the physician-patient relationship.MethodsIn a cross-sectional study, 350 medical students of Babol University of Medical Sciences were recruited at four levels of education including basic sciences, preclinical medicine, clerkship, and internship. The students completed four questionnaires including Jefferson Scale of Empathy - student version, Brief Ryff psychological well-being, Individual Disposition, and Spiritual Well-Being.ResultsThe score of medical student’s perspective to clinical empathy was high (106.1±29.8, range: 20–140), but diminished with further years of education. Female students had higher empathy scores than their male counterparts. Pearson’s correlation coefficient revealed a strong positive significant relationship between student’s perspective to clinical empathy and spiritual well-being (r = 0.56), cognitive empathy (r = 0.51), and psychological well-being (r = 0.43), and tendency to egalitarianism (r = 0.37). The results of stepwise multivariate analysis regression revealed that cognitive empathy (β = 0.300), self-esteem (β = 0.133), and spiritual well-being (β = 0.388) positively predicted student’s perspective to clinical empathy regarding the physician-patient relationship.ConclusionsThe results suggested that promoting empathic care in curricula of medical schools may be more effective if students’ preexisting perspectives, cognitive empathy, self-esteem, spiritual well-being, and tendency to egalitarianism are taken into account.

Class I and II Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor LBH589 Promotes Endocrine Differentiation in Bone Marrow Derived Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Suppresses Uncontrolled Proliferation.

Mesenchymal stem cells are useful tools employed in clinical and preclinical medicine. Their beneficial potential in especially degenerative as well as autoimmune diseases is a constant focus of research. Regarding diabetes mellitus, transplantation of stem cells is seen as a possible therapeutic approach to overcome the loss of endocrine pancreatic cells. It was reported that co-transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells with pancreatic islet cells improves function and survival of the graft. However, these multipotent progenitors may be able to form tumors, especially under immunosuppressed conditions. Histone deacetylase inhibitors might offer the potential to overcome this issue. These small molecules can induce cell differentiation and control proliferation. Their potential to control lineage development of stem cells has been distinctly demonstrated in the treatment of cancer, mainly in hematopoietic neoplasias.In this study, we demonstrate that human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells exhibit low carcinogenic potential in an immunosuppressed condition in vivo. Further, the effect of histone deacetylase inhibitors LBH589, MS-275, and MGCD0103 was examined after normalizing histone deacetylase activities in culture. Interestingly, transcripts of insulin gene enhancer protein and paired-box-gene 6, two markers of pancreatic endocrine differentiation were constitutively expressed in the cell line. The broad spectrum inhibitor of class I and class II histone deacetylases LBH589 upregulated the expression of these transcription factors in a significant way, whereas addition of selective class I histone deacetylase inhibitors MS-275 and MGCD0103 did not result in significant changes in gene expression.In conclusion, we deliver evidence that a combined class I and II histone deacetylase inhibition is able to modulate the transcripts of differentiation markers of mesenchymal stem cells. The treatment holds the capability to facilitate endocrine differentiation in future approaches to replace endocrine cells by stem cell therapy.

Catherine Helen Roberts

Catherine Helen Roberts (“Cathy”) studied preclinical medicine at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, in 1996-99. She gained an MA Hons (Oxon) in physiological sciences before transferring to University College London Medical...

A cross-sectional study into medical students\u2019 perceptions of healthcare regulation and self-reported compliance: a study conducted in the City of Al Ain, United Arab Emirates, 2016

BackgroundAlthough healthcare regulation is commonplace, there is limited evidence of its impact. Making sure that healthcare professionals comply with the regulatory requirements is a prerequisite to achieving effective regulation. Therefore, investigating factors that influence compliance may provide better insights into how regulators can be more effective. This study aimed to find out if medical students’ perceptions of regulation in the United Arab Emirates are associated with self-reported regulatory compliance.MethodsIn the cross-sectional study, we administered a structured questionnaire to students of medicine with different statements concerning their perceptions of healthcare regulation and self-reported compliance. The statements included statement regarding the legitimacy, fairness and regulatory performance, as well as the risk to getting caught and being punished. The association between perceptions and self-reported compliance was analyzed using multiple regression models.ResultsOne hundred and six Year 3 and 4 pre-clinical medicine students (56.4% response rate) completed the survey. Almost 40% of the students rated their level of awareness and understanding of regulation as Good or Very Good., despite their lack of direct contact with the regulatory authorities (less than 10% reported monthly or more frequent contact). Self-reported compliance was high with almost 85% of the students either agreeing or strongly agreeing with the four compliance statements (mean score 4.1 out of 5). The findings suggest that positive perceptions of the regulator’s performance (β 0.27; 95% CI 0.13–0.41), fairness of the regulatory processes (β 0.25; 95% CI 0.11–0.38) and its legitimacy (β 0.23; 95% CI 0.05–0.41), are stronger associated with compliance than the perceived risks of getting caught and being punished (β 0.10; 95% CI -0.04 – 0.23).ConclusionsTo improve compliant behavior, healthcare regulators should pay more attention to their own perceived performance, as well as the perceived fairness and legitimacy of their regulatory processes rather than focusing on more traditional methods of deterrence, such as perceived risk of getting caught and being published.

Professor Neil Pride

![Graphic][1] Professor Neil Blair Pride MD, FRCP, FERS: born Croydon 29 July 1931, died Ealing 12 November 2016 . Neil Pride, Emeritus Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College London,...

Professor Neil B.Pride (1931-2016).

Neil Blair Pride, Emeritus Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College, died in Ealing on November 12th 2016 aged 85 years. He was a world-renowned respiratory physician and physiologist, who made enormous contributions to our understanding of common lung diseases. Professor Neil B. Pride MD, FRCP, FERS Born in Croydon on July 29th 1931, to a general practitioner father, he was educated at Bryanston School, Dorset. He studied preclinical medicine at Christ's College, Cambridge and continued to clinical studies at St Mary's Medical School, London before qualifying as a doctor in 1956. In 1962, after clinical training posts in London and Cambridge, he went to work with Solbert Permutt in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. It was here that he developed his physiological research, and he and Sol published a landmark paper on the determinants of maximal expiratory flow from the lung [1 …

Novel iodinated gold nanoclusters for precise diagnosis of thyroid cancer.

As the most common endocrine malignancy with a high incidence, thyroid cancer lacks a dual-modal imaging method for precise diagnosis. An accurate and multimodal imaging system is pivotal to solve this problem. Herein, dual-modality fluorescence/Computed Tomography (CT) iodinated gold nanoclusters for malignant thyroid cancer visualization have been recently fabricated. In this study, innovative iodinated gold nanoclusters (AuNCs@BSA-I) were synthesized via Bovine serum albumin (BSA) and chloramine-T. AuNCs@BSA-I not only possess an ultra-small size and brilliant biocompatibility but also exhibit excellent fluorescence/CT imaging properties. Particularly with regard to CT imaging properties, AuNCs@BSA-I rival the clinical CT contrast medium. And the fluorescence emission spectrum of AuNCs@BSA-I falls in the near infrared region (NIR). For further translational application in medicine, we established an orthotopic human thyroid cancer patient tissue derived xenograft (PDX) mouse model, highly close to the actual human thyroid cancer. The results unveil that AuNCs@BSA-I exert sensitive and accurate diagnosis characteristics. To be more specific, the AuNCs@BSA-I fluorescent/CT signals in the thyroid tumor represent characteristics of 'slow in fast out', compared to those in the normal thyroid. Moreover, AuNCs@BSA-I could distinguish minimal thyroid cancer, as small as 2 mm3. Therefore, AuNCs@BSA-I appear to be a promising nanoprobe which could be applied to preclinical medicine.

A Numerical Study of Different Types of Collimators for a High-Resolution Preclinical CdTe Pixelated Semiconductor SPECT System

In single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT) with a pixelated semiconductor detector (PSD), not only pinhole collimators but also parallel-hole collimators are often used in preclinical nuclear-medicine imaging systems. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare pinhole and parallel-hole collimators in a PSD. For that purpose, we paired a PID 350 (Ajat Oy Ltd., Finland) CdTe PSD with each of the four collimators most frequently used in preclinical nuclear medicine: (1) a pinhole collimator, and (2) low-energy high-resolution (LEHR), (3) low-energy general-purpose (LEGP), and (4) low-energy high-sensitivity (LEHS) parallel-hole collimators. The sensitivity and spatial resolution of each collimator was evaluated using a point source and a hot-rod phantom. The highest sensitivity was achieved using LEHS, followed by LEGP, LEHR, and pinhole. Also, at a source-to-collimator distance of 2 cm, the spatial resolution was 1.63, 2.05, 2.79, and 3.45 mm using pinhole, LEHR, LEGP, and LEHS, respectively. The reconstructed hot-rod phantom images showed that the pinhole collimator and the LEHR parallel-hole collimator give a fine spatial resolution for preclinical SPECT with PSD. In conclusion, we successfully compared different types of collimators for a preclinical pixelated semiconductor SPECT system.