Don't be afraid to set up your fish facility.

Most young researchers leaving the safe haven of postdoctoral life for the unchartered territory of a PI position are confronted with a multitude of new tasks. For those using fish as their favorite model system, this often includes the daunting task of setting up and running a fish facility. New PIs are expected to know everything about this, and are even asked in job interviews about the precise details of the facility they anticipate using. Consulting other laboratories, talking to experienced facility managers, and sifting through books and web material will certainly help but can be enormously time consuming and at times frustrating. You will likely receive conflicting advice or encounter information that is overcomplicated and out of date. In this report, we summarize our collective experience of five different fish facilities, and outline what we consider to be the essential steps for setting up and running a successful facility. We also include valuable tips and tricks such as an optimized protocol for brine shrimp hatching. Our aim is to help researchers spend less time worrying about the technical aspects of their facility so that they can focus on their main job--research.

Scale to predict survival after surgery for recurrent glioblastoma multiforme.

PURPOSE: Despite initial treatment with surgical resection, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) virtually always recurs. Surgery is sometimes recommended to treat recurrence. In this study, we sought to devise a preoperative scale that predicts survival after surgery for recurrent glioblastoma multiforme. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The preoperative clinical and radiographic data of 34 patients who underwent re-operation of recurrent GBM tumors were analyzed using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression modeling. The factors associated with decreased postoperative survival (P < .05) were used to devise a prognostic scale which was validated with a separate cohort of 109 patients. RESULTS: The factors associated with poor postoperative survival were: tumor involvement of prespecified eloquent/critical brain regions (P = .021), Karnofsky performance status (KPS) < or = 80 (P = .030), and tumor volume > or = 50 cm(3) (P = .048). An additive scale (range, 0 to 3 points) comprised of these three variables distinguishes patients with good (0 points), intermediate (1 to 2 points), and poor (3 points) postoperative survival (median survival, 10.8, 4.5, and 1.0 months, respectively; P < .001). The scale identified three statistically distinct groups within the validation cohort as well (median survival, 9.2, 6.3, and 1.9 months, respectively; P < .001). CONCLUSION: We devised and validated a preoperative scale that identifies patients likely to have poor, intermediate, and good relative outcomes after surgical resection of a recurrent GBM tumor. Application of this simple scale may be useful in counseling patients regarding their treatment options and in designing clinical trials.