TLC Year in Review

With contributions by Matthew Schehl, Shona Dunn, Ali Rodgers, Betsy Wallace, Miriam Bergue Alves, Michael Guerrero, Aileen B. Houston, Cheryldee Huddleston, Leo Blanken and Cecilia Panella, and a forward by Scott Bischoff, Dennis Lester, and Tom Rosko

Daring to dream : the future of Australian health care

John Deeble reached three score years and ten in July 2001. At the start of this year we thought it would be most fitting if the health policy community in Australia were to celebrate his professional life and contributions to Australian health care by writing short chapters for a book in his honour. John we believe dared to dream and to work to create a better health care system in Australia. We felt that this volume ought to reflect that capacity to dream. We thus asked contributors to think positively of how Australian health care might develop over the next decade. They could do so on the whole institution or some sector such as general practice. They could look at particular disease programs or issues of social justice or better financing systems. We chose not to ‘prescribe’ areas. We asked contributors not to write about John’s work nor specifically to pay tribute to his work. We are grateful to all our authors for their contributions and to Linda Browning of Black Swan Press for her generous assistance

Pregnancy-specific glycoprotein expression in normal gastrointestinal tract and in tumors detected with novel monoclonal antibodies

Pregnancy-specific glycoproteins (PSGs) are immunoglobulin superfamily members related to the carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule (CEACAM) family and are encoded by 10 genes in the human. They are secreted at high levels by placental syncytiotrophoblast into maternal blood during pregnancy, and are implicated in immunoregulation, thromboregulation, and angiogenesis. To determine whether PSGs are expressed in tumors, we characterized 16 novel monoclonal antibodies to human PSG1 and used 2 that do not cross-react with CEACAMs to study PSG expression in tumors and in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract using tissue arrays and immunohistochemistry. Staining was frequently observed in primary squamous cell carcinomas and colonic adenocarcinomas and was correlated with the degree of tumor differentiation, being largely absent from metastatic samples. Staining was also observed in normal oesophageal and colonic epithelium. PSG expression in the human and mouse GI tract was confirmed using quantitative RT-PCR. However, mRNA expression was several orders of magnitude lower in the GI tract compared to placenta. Our results identify a non-placental site of PSG expression in the gut and associated tumors, with implications for determining whether PSGs have a role in tumor progression, and utility as tumor biomarkers