Redesigning the advanced pharmacy practice experiential education from hospital to home: A COVID-19 scenario

Introduction: During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, suspension of many educational activities occurred to mitigate the risks of infection spread. For pharmacy students in their internship year, many efforts have been made to move their experiential training to a virtual platform without compromising learning outcomes. Objectives: Redesign the advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) to remote learning without compromising the learning outcomes; Develop an appropriate teaching modality/strategy and assessment method for remote APPE; To drive the change in experiential education by providing guidance for other pharmacy schools dealing with similar situations. Restructured APPE: Eighty-seven interns were switched to an online internship with five specialties based on the availability of the preceptors, namely internal medicine, infectious diseases, oncology, total parenteral nutrition, and psychiatry. Experiential education activities such as drug information questions, case presentations, and clinical pharmacy topic discussions took place on virtual platforms. Student assessment was done using adjusted rubrics to suit the online platforms. Student feedback was taken using an online questionnaire and was mostly positive, indicating that they improved their clinical pharmacy knowledge. Conclusion: The authors highlighted the various restructuring modalities and learning methods used for different clinical rotations to achieve the learning outcomes in difficult situations. In future, the authors plan to work with their colleagues in other health colleges to adapt their practices together

Application of CRISPR/Cas9 Technology in Cancer Treatment: A Future Direction

Gene editing, especially with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats associated protein 9 (CRISPR-Cas9), has advanced gene function science. Gene editing’s rapid advancement has increased its medical/clinical value. Due to its great specificity and efficiency, CRISPR/Cas9 can accurately and swiftly screen the whole genome. This simplifies disease-specific gene therapy. To study tumor origins, development, and metastasis, CRISPR/Cas9 can change genomes. In recent years, tumor treatment research has increasingly employed this method. CRISPR/Cas9 can treat cancer by removing genes or correcting mutations. Numerous preliminary tumor treatment studies have been conducted in relevant fields. CRISPR/Cas9 may treat gene-level tumors. CRISPR/Cas9-based personalized and targeted medicines may shape tumor treatment. This review examines CRISPR/Cas9 for tumor therapy research, which will be helpful in providing references for future studies on the pathogenesis of malignancy and its treatment