Już jesteśmy szkołą ćwiczeń!

Celem publikacji jest prezentacja tych działań szkół, bibliotek pedagogicznych i szkoły wyższej,które prezentują elementy działań szkoły ćwiczeń opisanych w Modelu szkoły ćwiczeń.Zgodnie z koncepcją szkoła ćwiczeń to zespół zaplanowanych działań szkół i placówek orazinstytucji służących wspieraniu procesu uczenia się nauczycieli i studentów. Szkoła ćwiczeń toplacówka, gdzie przyszli nauczyciele będą doświadczać praktycznej weryfikacji teorii, z którąspotykają się podczas studiów, a obecni nauczyciele będą doskonalić swój warsztat pracy.To tutaj student zmierzy się – pod kierunkiem swojego opiekuna – z praktyką pedagogiczną:zarówno w zakresie dydaktyki, jak i wychowania. To tutaj nauczyciele będą rozwijać warsztatpracy i dzielić się swoimi pomysłami z innymi nauczycielami

Detection of circulating breast cancer cells in peripheral blood by a two-marker reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction assay.

The aim of this study was to use a two-marker assay for the detection of breast cancer cells circulating in patients' blood. We have applied a PCR-based methodology to follow up the possibility of the development of metastatic disease in stage I and II patients who had undergone curative surgery. Since the number of circulating cancer cells in peripheral blood is very low, the technique for their detection needs to be not only highly sensitive, but also very specific. The reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique may improve the sensitivity of breast cancer cell detection up to only a few cells per one million. The principle of the RT-PCR assay is to amplify a messenger RNA characteristic for breast epithelial cells in a blood sample. Since we do not expect such cells to be circulating in peripheral blood of healthy subjects, detection of the characteristic mRNA should indicate the presence of circulating breast cancer cells. We analyzed the usefulness of three mRNA markers: cytokeratin 19 (CK19), mammaglobin (hMAM) and β subunit of human chorionic gonadotropin (β-hCG) for this test. Blood samples (112) were obtained from 55 patients, in stages I and II, with or without metastasis to regional lymph nodes (N0 or N1). We found that a two-marker assay increases the sensitivity of detection of breast cancer cells in comparison with a single-marker one. Combination of two tumor-specific mRNA markers, hMAM/CK19 or β-hCG/CK19, allowed the detection of circulating breast cancer cells in 65% of N1 patients and 38% of N0 patients. By comparison, the combination hMAM/β-hCG allowed the detection of circulating breast cancer cells in the blood of 68% of N1 patients and 46% of N0 patients. Addition of the third marker did not significantly increase the detection sensitivity

Non-CYP2D6 variants selected by a GWAS improve the prediction of impaired tamoxifen metabolism in patients with breast cancer

A certain minimum plasma concentration of (Z)-endoxifen is presumably required for breast cancer patients to benefit from tamoxifen therapy. In this study, we searched for DNA variants that could aid in the prediction of risk for insufficient (Z)-endoxifen exposure. A metabolic ratio (MR) corresponding to the (Z)-endoxifen efficacy threshold level was adopted as a cutoff value for a genome-wide association study comprised of 287 breast cancer patients. Multivariate regression was used to preselect variables exhibiting an independent impact on the MR and develop models to predict below-threshold MR values. In total, 15 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were significantly associated with below-threshold MR values. The strongest association was with rs8138080 (WBP2NL). Two alternative models for MR prediction were developed. The predictive accuracy of Model 1, including rs7245, rs6950784, rs1320308, and the CYP2D6 genotype, was considerably higher than that of the CYP2D6 genotype alone (AUC 0.879 vs 0.758). Model 2, which was developed using the same three SNPs as for Model 1 plus rs8138080, appeared as an interesting alternative to the full CYP2D6 genotype testing. In conclusion, the four novel SNPs, tested alone or in combination with the CYP2D6 genotype, improved the prediction of impaired tamoxifen-to-endoxifen metabolism, potentially allowing for treatment optimization