Physician values and clinical decisions

Linking values-based and evidence-based medicine in an education strategy promotes better practice; Ed Peile discusses the importance of this for decision processes, highlighting the influence of well designed education strategies. 

Linking evidence and values in education

A Continuing Medical Education intervention, aimed at strengthening links between evidence-based and values-based medicine in healthcare personnel, improves high-order values such as openness to change, which are essential for improving medical care.

Media for osteogenic differentiation

Lower concentrations of dexamethasone and higher concentrations of L-ascorbic acid 2-phosphate should be used for the in vitro osteogenic differentiation of human adipose stem cells.

Genetically influenced NMR signals in plasma

Ratios of NMR signal intensities at different chemical shift positions associate with genetic loci at a genome-wide significance level, providing biomarkers in plasma useful for clinical studies.

Reducing toxicity in SMA therapy

Combined therapy of sodium vanadate with L-ascorbic acid delays disease progression and enhances motor performance in mice, as well as reducing toxicity, indicating an improved strategy for treating of late onset spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)

A new canine bocavirus

A new species of bocavirus has been identified in the liver of a dog with haemorrhagic gastoenteritis and is highly genetically distinct from the two known canine bocaviruses.

Improving arthroplasty outcomes

Fares Haddad and colleagues review peri-operative interventions for improved patient outcomes after total knee and hip replacements, which aim to improve patient quality of life and lessen the economic burden by reducing length of hospital stay.

Genomic insights into Geospiza

204 years after Charles Darwin’s birth, sequencing of the genome of the Darwin’s Finch Geospiza magnirostris reveals over 13,000 predicted genes, of which two under positive selection may have contributed to beak morphology evolution, which so interested Darwin.

Using molecular networks to assess molecular similarity

A dynamic molecular network has been developed that represents the first experimental approach towards predicting bioactivity based on an assessment of molecular similarity

Modeling infection transmission

Gerardo Chowell and Cécile Viboud comment on a novel method that identifies risk of influenza transmission and allows early detection of infection in schools, but caution that this promising method needs testing on outbreaks in different settings.