Docentprofessionalisering leidt tot betere leeropbrengsten

Rubens, W., De Volder, M., Bours, J., Dam, T., & De Groot, M. (2012). Docentprofessionalisering leidt tot betere leeropbrengsten. OnderwijsInnovatie, 14(2), 32-34 (juni 2012).Professionalisering heeft positieve gevolgen voor het handelingsrepertoire van docenten en voor de leeropbrengsten van leerlingen. Intern georganiseerde leergangen blijken ook meer effect te hebben op het docentfunctioneren dan andere, voornamelijk vakinhoudelijke, scholing. Dit blijkt uit onderzoek naar de effecten van het professionaliseringsbeleid van het Koning Willem I College in ‘s Hertogenbosch. Dit onderzoek illustreert daarmee het strategisch belang van docentprofessionalisering

Similar Efficiency of DNA-Liposome Complexes and Retrovirus-Producing Cells for Hsv-Tk Suicide Gene Therapy of Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Several experimental approaches have been tested for suicide gene delivery into tumor cells, including viral and non-viral vectors. In this study, we compared the efficiency of Herpes Simplex Virus type 1 thymidine kinase gene (HSV-tk) delivery by retrovirus-producing cells and DNA/liposome complexes for the treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis induced in syngeneic rats by DHD/K12 colorectal adenocarcinoma cells. After in vitro determination of the best transduction conditions, rats were treated with multiple intraperitoneal injections of plasmid DNA containing one or two copies of CMV-driven HSV-tk gene (pCMV-TK and p(CMV-TK)2, respectively) associated with LipofectAMINE, each injection being followed by a Ganciclovir (GCV) course. Animals treated by DNA/liposome complexes and GCV or with retrovirus-producing cells and GCV showed a similar increase of survival as compared to the control group. After DNA/ liposome injections, expression of the tk transgene was detected in tumor nodes (epiploon) and also in liver, lung, spleen, bowels and brain. The expression was not homogeneous throughout the different organs and most likely reflected the transfection of only a limited number of cells

Antitumoral Vaccination with Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor or Interleukin-12-Expressing Dhd/K12 Colon Adenocarcinoma Cells

Immunomodulating gene therapy for the treatment of malignant diseases is under extensive investigation. In this study, we induced an antitumoral immune response with murine interleukin-12 (mIL-12) and murine granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)-secreting tumor cells in a model of peritoneal carcinomatosis. Intraperitoneal injection of DHD/K12 tumoral cells engineered to produce IL-12 or GM-CSF did not generate any tumors, whereas untransduced DHD/K12 cells gave rise to peritoneal carcinomatosis. IL-12-expressing DHD/K12 cells also protected against tumors derived from coinjected parental cells. To test whether cytokine-producing cells could elicit a memory antitumoral immune response, animals received a challenge with parental DHD/K12 cells 35 days after the injection of proliferating or irradiated DHD/K12 engineered cells. Under our experimental conditions, irradiated tumor cells did not generate any antitumoral immunity. In contrast, tumor development was delayed and survival increased in the animals vaccinated with cytokine-secreting proliferating cells. A specific cytotoxic T-lymphocyte response against DHD/K12 parental cells was observed after vaccination with GM-CSF-expressing cells. Our results demonstrated that intraperitoneal vaccination with IL-12- or GM-CSF-expressing adenocarcinoma cells induced a systemic immune antitumoral response that may be useful as an adjuvant therapy after surgical resection of colorectal cancer