Why older adults make more immediate treatment decisions about cancer than younger adults.

Literature relevant to medical decision making was reviewed, and a model was outlined for testing. Two studies examined whether older adults make more immediate decisions than younger adults about treatments for prostate or breast cancer in authentic scenarios. Findings clearly showed that older adults were more likely to make immediate decisions than younger adults. The research is important because it not only demonstrates the consistency of this age-related effect across disease domains, gender, ethnic groups, and prevalent education levels but begins to investigate a model to explain the effect. Major reasons for the effect focus on treatment knowledge, interest and engagement, and cognitive resources. Treatment knowledge, general cancer knowledge, interest, and cognitive resources relate to different ways of processing treatment information and preferences for immediate versus delayed decision making. Adults with high knowledge of treatments on a reliable test tended to make immediate treatment decisions, which supports the knowledge explanation. Adults with more cognitive resources and more interest tended to delay their treatment decisions. Little support was found for a cohort explanation for the relationship between age and preference for immediate medical decision making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cell-directed assembly of bio/nano interfaces-a new scheme for cell immobilization

When lipid-directed assembly of silicic acid precursors is conducted in the presence of living cells, the cells intervene, surrounding themselves with a fluid, multilayered lipid vesicle that interfaces coherently with an ordered silica mesophase. This bio/nano interface is unique in that its uniform nanostructure prevents excessive drying of water, maintaining cell viability, yet provides accessibility of the cell surface to small molecules. In comparison to existing immobilization schemes, such as encapsulation within sol-gel matrices, we show this interface to form by an active interplay between the living cell and surrounding matrix, which we refer to as cell-directed assembly (CDA). Importantly and perhaps uniquely, CDA creates a localized nanostructured microenvironment within which three-dimensional chemical gradients are established and maintained.     

CALPHAD XXXIII 2004 conference proceedings

The thirty-third annual CALPHAD meeting was held at The Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, on May 30–June 4, 2004. The local organizing committee consisted of Prof. Zbigniew Moser, Prof. Krzysztof Fitzner, Dr. Rafal Kozubski, and Dr. Wojciech Zakulski.

There were 148 delegates and 16 accompanying guests attending the CALPHAD XXXIII, who presented 97 oral lecture and 59 posters. The conference opened with a welcome by Prof. Moser. The scientific topics were presented in the following schemes: Calphad Calculations and Model, Experimental Studies, Calphad Approach to Computational Thermodynamics, Diffusion and Kinetics, Experiment Modelling, Ab Initio—Calphad Calculations and Modeling, Experimental Studies and Soldering Materials, Soldering Materials, Databases, Experiment Modelling, and Applications. Summaries of papers and posters are presented in this paper.     

Development of an electrochemical oxidation method for probing higher order protein structure with mass spectrometry

We report here the novel use of electrochemistry to generate covalent oxidative labels on intact proteins in both non-native and physiologically relevant solutions as a surface mapping probe of higher order protein structure. Two different working electrode types were tested across a range of experimental parameters including voltage, flow rate, and solution electrolyte composition to affect the extent of oxidation on intact proteins, as measured both on-line and off-line with mass spectrometry. Oxidized proteins were collected off-line for proteolytic digestion followed by LC-MS/MS analysis. Peptide MS/MS data were searched with the InsPecT scoring algorithm for 46 oxidative mass shifts previously reported in the literature. Preliminary data showed reasonable agreement between amino acid solvent accessibility and the resulting oxidation status of these residues in aqueous buffer, while more buried residues were found to be oxidized in non-native solution. Our results indicate that electrochemical oxidation using a boron-doped diamond electrode has the potential to become a useful and easily accessible tool for conducting oxidative surface mapping experiments.     

The targeted delivery of multicomponent cargos to cancer cells by nanoporous particle-supported lipid bilayers

Encapsulation of drugs within nanocarriers that selectively target malignant cells promises to mitigate side effects of conventional chemotherapy and to enable delivery of the unique drug combinations needed for personalized medicine. To realize this potential, however, targeted nanocarriers must simultaneously overcome multiple challenges, including specificity, stability and a high capacity for disparate cargos. Here we report porous nanoparticle-supported lipid bilayers (protocells) that synergistically combine properties of liposomes and nanoporous particles. Protocells modified with a targeting peptide that binds to human hepatocellular carcinoma exhibit a 10,000-fold greater affinity for human hepatocellular carcinoma than for hepatocytes, endothelial cells or immune cells. Furthermore, protocells can be loaded with combinations of therapeutic (drugs, small interfering RNA and toxins) and diagnostic (quantum dots) agents and modified to promote endosomal escape and nuclear accumulation of selected cargos. The enormous capacity of the high-surface-area nanoporous core combined with the enhanced targeting efficacy enabled by the fluid supported lipid bilayer enable a single protocell loaded with a drug cocktail to kill a drug-resistant human hepatocellular carcinoma cell, representing a 10(6)-fold improvement over comparable liposomes.     

Convective assembly of 2D lattices of virus-like particles visualized by in-situ grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering

The rapid assembly of icosohedral virus-like particles (VLPs) into highly ordered (domain size > 600 nm), oriented 2D superlattices directly onto a solid substrate using convective coating is demonstrated. In-situ grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) is used to follow the self-assembly process in real time to characterize the mechanism of superlattice formation, with the ultimate goal of tailoring film deposition conditions to optimize long-range order. From water, GISAXS data are consistent with a transport-limited assembly process where convective flow directs assembly of VLPs into a lattice oriented with respect to the water drying line. Addition of a nonvolatile solvent (glycerol) modified this assembly pathway, resulting in non-oriented superlattices with improved long-range order. Modification of electrostatic conditions (solution ionic strength, substrate charge) also alters assembly behavior; however, a comparison of in-situ assembly data between VLPs derived from the bacteriophages MS2 and Qβ show that this assembly process is not fully described by a simple Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek model alone.