Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C Dunbar.
Client/server architecture has become the darling of I/S professionals. The intelligence is spread among several processors, creating enormous flexibility. But are C/S systems easier, cheaper and faster than the good old mainframe? Not quite yet.
The seven-year itch may have struck the founder of one of the most comprehensive information systems databases for healthcare in the country. The database itself has undergone substantive changes, and, what is more, Sheldon Dorenfest is looking for partners.
Moloney Murine Leukemia Virus (MoMuLV) causes T cell neoplasms in rodents but is not known to be a pathogen in primates. The core protein and enzyme genes of the MoMuLV genome together with an amphotropic envelope gene are utilized to engineer the cell lines that generate retroviral vectors for use in current human gene therapy applications. We developed a producer clone that generates a very high concentration of retroviral vector particles to optimize conditions for gene insertion into pluripotent hematopoietic stem cells. This producer cell line also generates a much lower concentration of replication-competent virus that arose through recombination. Stem cells from rhesus monkeys were purified by immunoselection with an anti-CD34 antibody, incubated in vitro for 80-86 h in the presence of retroviral vector particles with accompanying replication-competent virus and used to reconstitute recipients whose bone marrow had been ablated by total body irradiation. The retroviral vector genome was detected in circulating cells of five of eight transplant recipients of CD34+ cells and in the circulating cells of two recipients of infected, unfractionated bone marrow mononuclear cells. Three recipients of CD34+ cells had a productive infection with replication-competent virus. Six or seven mo after transplantation, each of these animals developed a rapidly progressive T cell neoplasm involving the thymus, lymph nodes, liver, spleen, and bone marrow. Lymphoma cells contained 10-50 copies of the replication-competent virus, but lacked the retroviral vector genome. We conclude that replication-competent viruses arising from producer cells making retroviral vectors can be pathogenic in primates, which underscores the importance of carefully screening retroviral producer clones used in human trials to exclude contamination with replication-competent virus.
Health and Human Services wants to trim the administrative fat from the country's $666 billion healthcare bill. The Hartford Foundation is letting bids for a system that allows individual communities to share healthcare data for a variety of purposes. Both efforts draw significantly on electronic media claims.
A survey of nurse executives shows that the ability to track medications and prepare patient-care plans are the two most important features for a nursing system. Nursing staffs are fairly resistant to new system installations, and a surprising number of nurse executives say they are not involved in the system-selection process.
Chief information officers across the country are hopping mad. They're getting first-string pay but being cut from the game when it comes to strategic planning. Comments and figures culled from a recent Computers in Healthcare survey demonstrate that CIOs must become members of the executive decision making team.
Europe and America clasp hands across the water on healthcare information standards at meeting of CEN Technical Committee 251.
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A name change from "facilities management" to "outsourcing" could spur new interest in a concept once shunned by most of the healthcare information systems industry. Big-name contracts are legitimizing such arrangements, opening fresh avenues for organizations requiring flexible I/S services.
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Two technology centers for healthcare information systems are now in business--the Hospital of the Future for Andersen Consulting in Dallas and the Healthcare Information Technology Center for Coopers & Lybrand in Parsippany, N.J. Although they are very different in size, style and approach, both centers allow prospective buyers to "see" and "touch" new technologies that enable disparate systems to communicate and share information.
During the purchase and installation process for new healthcare information systems, the inept, self-serving and sometimes short-sighted behavior of healthcare institutions, consultants and vendors surfaces time after time. The Center for Healthcare Information Management (CHIM) Business Conduct Committee has been engaged in frank discussions of the purchasing boondoggle. A panel of committee members and others now call for reform and point to better-educated buyers as the most effective and practical solution.
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The Institute of Medicine's (IOM) exhaustive study on the computerized patient record is finally complete. One of the study's first recommendations is to establish an institute for the computer-based patient record to get the ball rolling. Computers in Healthcare Editor Carolyn Dunbar asks a key leader of the IOM study, Richard Dick, Ph.D., why the ball is now rolling and picking up speed rapidly toward a true electronic medical record.
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Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
We used a bacterial neutral protease to disperse KHT solid tumors into single cell suspensions suitable for routine cell kinetic analysis by flow cytometry and for clonogenic cell survival. Neutral protease disaggregation under conditions which would be suitable for routine tumor dispersal was compared with a trypsin/DNase procedure. Cell yield, clonogenic cell survival, DNA distributions of untreated and drug-perturbed tumors, rates of radioactive precursor incorporation during the cell cycle, and preferential cell cycle phase-specific cell loss were investigated. Tumors dispersed with neutral protease yielded approximately four times more cells than those dispersed with trypsin/DNase and approximately a 1.5-fold higher plating efficiency in a semisolid agar system. Quantitative analysis of DNA distributions obtained from untreated and cytosine-arabinoside-perturbed tumors produced similar results with both dispersal procedures. The rates of incorporation of tritiated thymidine during the cell cycle were also similar with neutral protease and trypsin/DNase dispersal. Preferential phase-specific cell loss was not observed with either technique. We find that neutral protease provides good single cell suspensions of the KHT tumor for cell survival measurements and for cell kinetic analysis of drug-induced perturbations by flow cytometry. In addition, the high cell yields facilitate electronic cell sorting where large numbers of cells are often required.