Genetic circuits to engineer tissues with alternative functions.

Persistent and complex problems arising with respect to human physiology and pathology have led to intense investigation into therapies and tools that permit more targeted outcomes and biomimetic responses to pathological conditions. A primary goal in mammalian synthetic biology is to build genetic circuits that exert fine control over cell behavior for next-generation biomedical applications. In pursuit of this, synthetic biologists have engineered cells endowed with genetic circuits with sensor that are capable of reacting to a variety of stimuli and responding with targeted behavior. Here, we highlight how synthetic biology approaches are being used to program cells with novel functions for therapeutic applications, and how they can be used in stem cells to improve differentiation outcomes. These approaches open the possibilities for engineering synthetic tissues for employing personalized medicine and to develop next-generation biomedical therapies.

Surface laser scanning to routinely produce casts for patient immobilization during radiotherapy.

Immobilization casts are used to reduce patient movement during the radiotherapy of head and neck and brain malignancies. Polyethylene-based casts are produced by first taking a Plaster of Paris 'negative' impression of the patient. A 'positive' mould is then made, which is used to vacuum form an immobilization cast. Taking the 'negative' cast can be messy, stressful for patients and labour intensive. Recently, lightweight hand-held laser surface scanners have become available. These allow an accurate 3-D representation of objects to be generated non-invasively. This technology has now been applied to the production of casts for radiotherapy. Each patient's face and head is digitized using the Polhemus FastSCAN (Polhemus, Colchester, VT, USA) scanner. The electronic data are transferred to a computer numerical controlled mill, where a positive impression is machined. The feasibility of the process was examined, the labour required and radiation therapists' satisfaction with aspects of the produced masks assessed. The scanner-based method of mask production was found to be simple, accurate and non-invasive. There was a reduction in radiation therapist labour required. Masks produced with the scanner-based method were reported to result in improved mask fitting, daily reproducibility, patient immobilization and patient comfort.

Perceptions and use of performance measures by hospital pharmacy directors.

The extent to which hospital pharmacy directors use and value specific pharmacy department performance measures was studied. Questionnaires were mailed to pharmacy directors at 834 randomly selected hospitals. The questionnaires contained a list of seven data collection methods and 32 financial, 25 productivity, and 9 quality assurance measures obtained from a review of the literature. Respondents were asked to indicate familiarity, perception of usefulness, and current use of each method or measure. Perception of usefulness was measured on a five-point scale (1 = not useful, 5 = very useful). Respondents were also asked if the measures were requested by hospital administration or an external consultant. The overall response rate was 24.1%. Less than 30% of the respondents indicated that they used any of the data collection methods; however, the mean value for perceived usefulness was higher than 3 for almost all of the methods. Only five of the financial measures, two of the productivity measures, and two of the quality assurance measures were being used by more than 50% of the respondents. The value for mean perceived usefulness was higher than 3 for all but two of the measures. Most of the measures showed significantly higher frequency of use when they were requested by hospital administrators than when they were not. Requests by external consultants showed less effect on the use of the measures. The use of performance measures was low, but hospital pharmacy directors were familiar with many of these measures and perceived them to be useful.