Clinical Diagnosis of Thyroid Cancer

In a survey of 293 patients with carcinoma of the thyroid, a goitre or enlarged lymph nodes in the neck were the commonest symptoms and a mass confined to one lobe the commonest sign. Hardness of the mass was an important diagnostic feature, and at least two-thirds of the tumour could be recognized before operation. It is suggested that the preoperative evaluation of thyroid swellings should be classified as benign, cancer suspected, and cancer probable.     

GAPscreener: An automatic tool for screening human genetic association literature in PubMed using the support vector machine technique

Background  

Synthesis of data from published human genetic association studies is a critical step in the translation of human genome discoveries into health applications. Although genetic association studies account for a substantial proportion of the abstracts in PubMed, identifying them with standard queries is not always accurate or efficient. Further automating the literature-screening process can reduce the burden of a labor-intensive and time-consuming traditional literature search. The Support Vector Machine (SVM), a well-established machine learning technique, has been successful in classifying text, including biomedical literature. The GAPscreener, a free SVM-based software tool, can be used to assist in screening PubMed abstracts for human genetic association studies.     

Knowledge,Attitudes and Practices of Animal Bite Victims Attending an Anti-rabies Health Center in Jimma Town,Ethiopia

BackgroundRabies is an important but preventable cause of death in Ethiopia. We assessed the knowledge, attitudes and practices of animal bite victims attending an anti-rabies health center in Jimma Town, Ethiopia.Conclusions/SignificanceAlthough respondents demonstrated reasonably sound knowledge of rabies and its transmission, attitudes and practices were inconsistent with rabies prevention. Culturally- and gender-sensitive activities that promote proper first aid and healthcare seeking behavior as well as appropriate animal management, particularly in rural areas, are needed to prevent deaths associated with rabies in this setting.     

Stereospecificity in the biosynthesis of papaverine

The stereochemistry of hydrogen removal from C-3 and C-4 in the aromatization of the heterocyclic ring of papaverine has been determined by incorporation experiments with stereospecifically tritiated norreticulines.     

Development of a novel mammalian display system for selection of antibodies against membrane proteins

Reliable, specific polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies are important tools in research and medicine. However, the discovery of antibodies against their targets in their native forms is difficult. Here, we present a novel method for discovery of antibodies against membrane proteins in their native configuration in mammalian cells. The method involves the co-expression of an antibody library in a population of mammalian cells that express the target polypeptide within a natural membrane environment on the cell surface. Cells that secrete a single-chain fragment variable (scFv) that binds to the target membrane protein thereby become self-labeled, enabling enrichment and isolation by magnetic sorting and FRET-based flow sorting. Library sizes of up to 10⁹ variants can be screened, thus allowing campaigns of naïve scFv libraries to be selected against membrane protein antigens in a Chinese hamster ovary cell system. We validate this method by screening a synthetic naïve human scFv library against Chinese hamster ovary cells expressing the oncogenic target epithelial cell adhesion molecule and identify a panel of three novel binders to this membrane protein, one with a dissociation constant (K_D) as low as 0.8 nm. We further demonstrate that the identified antibodies have utility for killing epithelial cell adhesion molecule–positive cells when used as a targeting domain on chimeric antigen receptor T cells. Thus, we provide a new tool for identifying novel antibodies that act against membrane proteins, which could catalyze the discovery of new candidates for antibody-based therapies.