Microfluidic system for near-patient extraction and detection of miR-122 microRNA biomarker for drug-induced liver injury diagnostics

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) results in over 100 000 hospital attendances per year in the UK alone and is a leading cause for the post-marketing withdrawal of new drugs, leading to significant financial losses. MicroRNA-122 (miR-122) has been proposed as a sensitive DILI marker although no commercial applications are available yet. Extracellular blood microRNAs (miRNAs) are promising clinical biomarkers but their measurement at point of care remains time-consuming, technically challenging, and expensive. For circulating miRNA to have an impact on healthcare, a key challenge to overcome is the development of rapid and reliable low-cost sample preparation. There is an acknowledged issue with miRNA stability in the presence of hemolysis and platelet activation, and no solution has been demonstrated for fast and robust extraction at the site of blood draw. Here, we report a novel microfluidic platform for the extraction of circulating miR-122 from blood enabled by a vertical approach and gravity-based bubble mixing. The performance of this disposable cartridge was verified by standard quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis on extracted miR-122. The cartridge performed equivalently or better than standard bench extraction kits. The extraction cartridge was combined with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to detect miR-122 as an initial proof-of-concept toward an application in point-of-care detection. This platform enables the standardization of sample preparation and the detection of miRNAs at the point of blood draw and in resource limited settings and could aid the introduction of miRNA-based assays into routine clinical practice.     

La formation des enseignants au Portugal

The author analyses the current situation of teacher education in Portugal. The structure of the education system is described, as is the training of teachers for the compulsory secondary cycle, special education, technical and vocational education and Higher education. The author then goes on to recall the changes which took place during the 70s and the context of discussion and reform of that time.

Changes in the school population have brought about an imbalance between pupil numbers and the availability of properly trained teachers. Untrained teachers have been recruited on a massive scale. Special measures have had to be taken in respect of teacher education, particularly for Secondary level. The article focuses on a recent and innovatory change model originally based on an inservice training model.

Despite current developments, it is the view of the author that a great deal remains to be done.     

English Composition by Workshop

This study was designed to determine the effectiveness of intensive in-class guidance of daily writing practice in freshman English composition courses as opposed to the presently practiced procedures in the course. The study involved 568 themes written by 142 students enrolled in six classes at UWM. Four groups were taught according to a workshop method developed by two instructors in English and an educational psychologist. Two groups were taught according to the procedures outlined in the freshman composition syllabus. An evaluation chart was developed by the three instructors and four complete sets of themes were graded once each by three raters. The hypothesis–there will be a significant difference in the grade achievement on selected freshmen English essays based on differences in instructional procedures between two control and four experimental groups–was supported. Since major variables of initial superiority of any writing group, variation in grading practices, and effect on students of theme assignments per se were not shown to be significant, it was concluded that the instructional procedures affected the grade achievement of the groups involved.