Foreign-Medical-School Graduates object to the VISA Qualifiying Examination

To the editor; The Visa Qualifying Examination is a two-day test composed of approximately 950 multiple-choice questions conerneing the basic and clinical sciences....

Establiment d’un laboratori d’habilitats clíniques a la facultat de medicina de la Universitat de Barcelona

Per tal de millorar l'aprenentatge, actualment deficitari de les habilitats clíniques i dels procediments pràctics, la facultat va decidir implementar un laboratori d’habilitats. La Facultat de Medicina ha fet una important inversió per tal d’adequar un espai físic i adquirir diferents materials. En paral·lel es van identificar quines habilitats havien de ser ensenyats en el laboratori d’acord amb les dèficits observats prèviament. Es va dissenyar un curs optatiu sobre habilitats clíniques pels nostres estudiants de medicina i es van seleccionar i entrenar els diferents professors. El curs s’ha desenvolupat durant els tres últims anys. S'ha investigat el grau d’acceptació d’aquesta eina pels estudiants i professors utilitzant diferents tipus d’enquestes. Més de 300 estudiants de medicina per any han estat formats en el laboratori en diferents activitats, participant 20 professors i havent-se oferit diferents tallers sobre habilitats clíniques i procediments pràctics. Pels estudiants el laboratori es una excel·lent eina per incrementar la seva competència individual en habilitats clíniques i que es necessari estendre-la a tots els estudiants. Pels professors, el laboratori es una eina molt útil per millorar l’ensenyament clínic L'experiència ha estat molt positiva i molt útil en el procés de canvi curricular que es desenvolupa actualment a la nostra facultat. La nostra experiència pot servir de model per altres facultats de medicina de l’estat.

Experimental and computational study on the synthesis and characterization of self-assembling meso/macroporous materials in highly concentrated emulsions

Report for the scientific sojourn carried out at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center-Harvard Medical School, Estats Units, from 2010 to 2011. The project aims to study the aggregation behavior of amphiphilic molecules in the continuous phase of highly concentrated emulsions, which can be used as templates for the synthesis of meso/macroporous materials. At this stage of the project, we have investigated the self-assembly of diblock and triblock surfactants under the effect of a confined geometry being surrounded by the droplets of the dispersed phase. These droplets limit the growth of the aggregates, deeply modify their orientation and hence alter their spatial arrangement as compared to the self-assembly taking place far enough from any boundary surface, that is in the bulk. By performing Monte Carlo simulations, we have showed that the interface between the dispersed and continuous phases as well as its shape has a significant impact on the structural order of the resulting aggregates and hence on the potential applications of highly concentrated emulsions as reaction media, drug delivery systems, or templates for meso/macroporous materials. Due to the combined effect of symmetry breaking and morphological frustration, very intriguing structures, such as square columnar liquid crystals, twisted X-shaped aggregates, and helical phases of cylindrical aggregates, never observed in the bulk for the same model surfactant, have been found. The presence of other more conventional structures, such as micelles and cubic and hexagonal liquid crystals, formed at low and high amphiphilic concentrations, respectively, further enhance the interest on this already rich aggregation behavior.

The histone deactylase SIRT6 is a novel tumor suppressor that regulates cancer metabolism.

Report for the scientific sojourn carried out at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, from 2010 to 2012. Reprogramming of cellular metabolism is a key process during tumorigenesis. This metabolic adaptation is required in order to sustain the energetic and anabolic demands of highly proliferative cancer cells. Despite known for decades (Warburg effect), the precise molecular mechanisms regulating this switch remained unexplored. We have identify SIRT6 as a novel tumor suppressor that regulates aerobic glycolysis in cancer cells. Importantly, loss of this sirtuin in non-transformed cells leads to tumor formation without activation of known oncogenes, indicating that SIRT6 functions as a first-hit tumor suppressor. Furthermore, transformed SIRT6-deficient cells display increased glycolysis and tumor growth in vivo, suggesting that SIRT6 plays a role in both establishment and maintenance of cancer. We provide data demonstrating that the glycolytic switch towards aerobic glycolysis is the main driving force for tumorigenesis in SIRT6-deficient cells, since inhibition of glycolysis in these cells abrogates their tumorigenic potential. By using a conditional SIRT6-targeted allele, we show that deletion of SIRT6 in vivo increases the number, size and aggressiveness of tumors, thereby confirming a role of SIRT6 as a tumor suppressor in vivo. In addition, we describe a new role for SIRT6 as a regulator of ribosome biogenesis by co-repressing MYC transcriptional activity. Therefore, by repressing glycolysis and ribosomal gene expression, SIRT6 inhibits tumor establishment and progression. Further validating these data, SIRT6 is selectively downregulated in several human cancers, and expression levels of SIRT6 predict both prognosis and tumor-free survival rates, highlighting SIRT6 as a critical modulator of cancer metabolism. Our results provide a potential Achilles’ hill to tackle cancer metabolism.