Sculpting a teaching and learning curriculum to better meet the career needs of postgraduate year 1 and 2 pharmacy residents.

PURPOSE: To describe implementation of the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy (OUCOP) teaching and learning curriculum (TLC) for postgraduate year 1 (PGY1) and postgraduate year 2 (PGY2) residents, including the required components, evaluation structure, residency graduate outcomes and perceptions captured by a survey following program completion, generalizability to other institutions, and opportunities for future directions. SUMMARY: As part of their residency training, pharmacy residents are required to develop and refine teaching, precepting, and presentation skills. To meet the required and elective competency areas, goals, and objectives on teaching, precepting, and presentation skills, many American Society of Health-System Pharmacists-accredited residency programs have utilized TLC programs. OUCOP offers 2 distinct TLC programs for PGY1 and PGY2 residents, respectively. CONCLUSION: The OUCOP TLC program provided residents with opportunities for development of teaching and presentation skills in a variety of settings. The majority of residency graduates currently practice as a clinical specialist, and the majority lecture, precept, and deliver continuing education presentations. Graduates felt that the mentorship and diversity of teaching activities were the most beneficial qualities of the program. In addition, the majority noted that mentorship in lecture preparation was helpful in creating presentations after graduation. On the basis of the feedback from the survey, several changes have been made to better prepare residents for their postgraduate careers. TLC programs should conduct ongoing assessments to continue to foster the development of precepting and teaching skills for residents' future careers.

Azithromycin for Eradication of Ureaplasma and Prevention of Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia in Preterm Neonates in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Azithromycin has been explored as a treatment option for eradication of Ureaplasma and prevention of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in preterm neonates. However, there is debate about the need for eradication of Ureaplasma and whether azithromycin is safe and efficacious for this indication. This literature review provides an overview of the evidence for use of azithromycin for eradication of Ureaplasma and prevention of BPD, including dosing and duration of azithromycin used in these studies. The literature search included articles published in the English language in Medline and PubMed from 1946 to January 2022. Relevant citations within identified articles were also reviewed. A total of 9 studies representing 388 neonates were included. The percentage of neonates that tested positive for Ureaplasma in these studies ranged from 18.6% to 57.1%. Azithromycin was initiated at <3 days of life in 8 studies (88.9%). Dosing was variable and ranged from 5 to 20 mg/kg/dose administered once daily, and the duration of treatment ranged from 1 to 35 days. Most studies used intravenous azithromycin. Overall, azithromycin was more efficacious than placebo at Ureaplasma eradication; however, most of these studies did not find a difference in the incidence of BPD between patients receiving azithromycin versus placebo. No adverse effects, specifically pyloric stenosis or QT interval prolongation, were noted in these studies.

PAF53 is essential in mammalian cells: CRISPR/Cas9 fails to eliminate PAF53 expression.

When mammalian cells are nutrient and/or growth factor deprived, exposed to inhibitors of protein synthesis, stressed by heat shock or grown to confluence, rDNA transcription is essentially shut off. Various mechanisms are available to accomplish this downshift in ribosome biogenesis. Muramatsu's laboratory (Hanada et al., 1996) first demonstrated that mammalian PAF53 was essential for specific rDNA transcription and that PAF53 levels were regulated in response to growth factors. While S. cerevisae A49, the homologue of vertebrate PAF53, is not essential for viability (Liljelund et al., 1992), deletion of yA49 results in colonies that grow at 6% of the wild type rate at 25°C. Experiments described by Wang et al. (2015) identified PAF53 as a gene "essential for optimal proliferation". However, they did not discriminate genes essential for viability. Hence, in order to resolve this question, we designed a series of experiments to determine if PAF53 was essential for cell survival. We set out to delete the gene product from mammalian cells using CRISPR/CAS9 technology. Human 293 cells were transfected with lentiCRISPR v2 carrying genes for various sgRNA that targeted PAF53. In some experiments, the cells were cotransfected in parallel with plasmids encoding FLAG-tagged mouse PAF53. After treating the transfected cells with puromycin (to select for the lentiCRISPR backbone), cells were cloned and analyzed by western blots for PAF53 expression. Genomic DNA was amplified across the "CRISPRd" exon, cloned and sequenced to identify mutated PAF53 genes. We obtained cell lines in which the endogenous PAF53 gene was "knocked out" only when we rescued with FLAG-PAF53. DNA sequencing demonstrated that in the absence of ectopic PAF53 expression, cells demonstrated unique means of surviving; including recombination or the utilization of alternative reading frames. We never observed a clone in which one PAF53 gene is expressed, unless there was also ectopic expression In the absence of ectopic gene expression, the gene products of both endogenous genes were expressed, irrespective of whether they were partially mutant proteins or not.