Five go marking an exam question: the use of Adaptive Comparative Judgement to manage subjective bias

Adaptive Comparative Judgement (ACJ) is an alternative to conventional marking in which the assessor (judge) merely compares two answers and chooses a winner. (Scripts are typically uploaded to the CompareAssess interface as pdf files and are presented side-by-side.) Repeated comparisons and application of the sorting algorithm leads to scripts sorted in order of merit. Boundaries are determined by separate review of scripts. A small pilot of ACJ in the fourth year of the Manchester Pharmacy programme is described. Twelve judges used ACJ to mark 64 scripts previously marked conventionally. 50 students peer-marked their own mock examination question using ACJ. Peer-marking was successful with students learning from the process, and delivering both marks and feedback within two weeks. There was very good consistency among the students acting as judges, and accuracy (as defined by Pollitt, 2012) of 0.94. Staff were similarly consistent, but the agreement with marks obtained by conventional marking was disappointing. While some discrepancies could be attributed to conventional marking failing under the stress of marking during teaching term, the worst discrepancies appeared to originate from inadequate judging criteria. We conclude that ACJ is a very promising method, especially for peer assessment, but that judging criteria require very careful consideration

Exploring the Impact of Patient and Public Involvement in a Cancer Research Setting

An enduring theme in the literature exploring patient and public involvement (PPI) in research has been the focus on evaluating impact, defined usually in terms of participants’ practical contribution to enhancing research processes. By contrast, there has been less emphasis on the perspectives and experiences of those involved in PPI. Drawing on qualitative data with people involved in the National Cancer Research Network in the United Kingdom, we report on what motivated participants to get involved and their experiences of involvement in this setting. We highlight how those involved in PPI often espoused the notion of the “good citizen,” with PPI in research being a natural extension of their wider civic interests. However, our findings also highlight how PPI was an important resource, utilized by participants to make sense of living with chronic illness. We suggest that PPI in research also offers spaces for the reconfiguration of self and identity

An evaluation of peer-to-peer feedback using adaptive comparative judgement

Adaptive Comparative Judgement is an alternative to conventional marking in which the assessor (or judge) merely compares two answers and chooses a winner. Repeated judgements and the use of a suitable sorting algorithm allow marked to be derived from a rank order of scripts. Feedback can be added to each script as it is judged. We have evaluated the use of adaptive comparative judgement for peer assessment and feedback using a case study in the third year of a Pharmacy programme. The exercise consisted of five parts each of 100 words. Each student conducted 10 judgements and left feedback, which was of overall very high quality. The assessment, however, was less successful. Students’ judgements were not very consistent with one another, nor with staff assessment. This contrasts with a previous exercise, in which the student assessment was of high reliability but the feedback was less good. This exercise was successful in promoting mutual support among students through the giving and receiving of feedback. We conclude, however, that for optimum use of adaptive comparative judgement for peer assessment, a hierarchical marking scheme is required, but students should be encouraged to give feedback on all aspects of the assessment

Quantitative Assessment of the Impact of Crohn\u27s Disease on Protein Abundance of Human Intestinal Drug-Metabolising Enzymes and Transporters

Crohn\u27s disease affects the mucosal layer of the intestine, predominantly ileum and colon segments, with the potential to affect the expression of intestinal enzymes and transporters, and consequently, oral drug bioavailability. We carried out a quantitative proteomic analysis of inflamed and non-inflamed ileum and colon tissues from Crohn\u27s disease patients and healthy donors. Homogenates from samples in each group were pooled and protein abundance determined by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS). In inflamed Crohn\u27s ileum, CYP3A4, CYP20A1, CYP51A1, ADH1B, ALPI, FOM1, SULT1A2, SULT1B1 and ABCB7 showed ≥10-fold reduction in abundance compared with healthy baseline. By contrast, only MGST1 showed ≥10 fold reduction in inflamed colon. Ileal UGT1A1, MGST1, MGST2, and MAOA levels increased by ≥2 fold in Crohn\u27s patients, while only ALPI showed ≥2 fold increase in the colon. Counter-intuitively, non-inflamed ileum had a higher magnitude of fold change than inflamed tissue when compared with healthy tissue. Marked but non-uniform alterations were observed in the expression of various enzymes and transporters in ileum and colon compared with healthy samples. Modelling will allow improved understanding of the variable effects of Crohn\u27s disease on bioavailability of orally administered drugs

Navigating Collaborative Teaching Waters: Professors Go Back and Pre-Service Teachers Move Forward to Embody the Promise of Story

A group of English education professors and secondary English education collaboratively planned a 3-week class for future high school freshmen in an academic summer camp held on our campus. Reflections of lessons learned from a variety of perspectives are shared

Quantitative Proteomics of Hepatic Drug-Metabolizing Enzymes and Transporters in Patients With Colorectal Cancer Metastasis

The impact of liver cancer metastasis on protein abundance of 22 drug-metabolizing enzymes (DMEs) and 25 transporters was investigated using liquid chromatography-tandem accurate mass spectrometry targeted proteomics. Microsomes were prepared from liver tissue taken from 15 healthy individuals and 18 patients with cancer (2 primary and 16 metastatic). Patient samples included tumors and matching histologically normal tissue. The levels of cytochrome P450 (CYPs 2B6, 2D6, 2E1, 3A4, and 3A5) and uridine 5′-diphospho-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs 1A1, 1A6, 1A9, 2B15, 2B4, and 2B7) were lower in histologically normal tissue from patients relative to healthy controls (up to 6.6-fold) and decreased further in tumors (up to 21-fold for CYPs and 58-fold for UGTs). BSEP and MRPs were also suppressed in histologically normal (up to 3.1-fold) and tumorous tissue (up to 6.3-fold) relative to healthy individuals. Abundance of OCT3, OAT2, OAT7, and OATPs followed similar trends (up to 2.9-fold lower in histologically normal tissue and up to 16-fold lower in tumors). Abundance of NTCP and OCT1 was also lower (up to 9-fold). Interestingly, monocarboxylate transporter MCT1 was more abundant (3.3-fold) in tumors, the only protein target to show this pattern. These perturbations could be attributed to inflammation. Interindividual variability was substantially higher in patients with cancer. Proteomics-informed physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models of 50 drugs with different attributes and hepatic extraction ratios (Simcyp) showed substantially lower drug clearance with cancer-specific parameters compared with default parameters. In conclusion, this study provides values for decreased abundance of DMEs and transporters in liver cancer, which enables using population-specific abundance for these patients in PBPK modeling

Proteomics of Colorectal Cancer Liver Metastasis: a Quantitative Focus on Drug Elimination and Pharmacodynamics Effects

AIMS: This study aims to quantify drug‐metabolising enzymes, transporters, receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) and protein markers (involved in pathways affected in cancer) in pooled healthy, histologically normal and matched cancerous liver microsomes from colorectal cancer liver metastasis (CRLM) patients. METHODS: Microsomal fractionation was performed and pooled microsomes were prepared. Global and accurate mass and retention time liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry proteomics were used to quantify proteins. A QconCAT (KinCAT) for the quantification of RTKs was designed and applied for the first time. Physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) simulations were performed to assess the contribution of altered abundance of drug‐metabolising enzymes and transporters to changes in pharmacokinetics. RESULTS: Most CYPs and UGTs were downregulated in histologically normal relative to healthy samples, and were further reduced in cancer samples (up to 54‐fold). The transporters, MRP2/3, OAT2/7 and OATP2B1/1B3/1B1 were downregulated in CRLM. Application of abundance data in PBPK models for substrates with different attributes indicated substantially lower (up to 13‐fold) drug clearance when using cancer‐specific instead of default parameters in cancer population. Liver function markers were downregulated, while inflammation proteins were upregulated (by up to 76‐fold) in cancer samples. Various pharmacodynamics markers (e.g. RTKs) were altered in CRLM. Using global proteomics, we examined proteins in pathways relevant to cancer (such as metastasis and desmoplasia), including caveolins and collagen chains, and confirmed general over‐expression of such pathways. CONCLUSION: This study highlights impaired drug metabolism, perturbed drug transport and altered abundance of cancer markers in CRLM, demonstrating the importance of population‐specific abundance data in PBPK models for cancer

Computational Studies on Selected Macrolides Active against Escherichia coli Combined with the NMR Study of Tylosin A in Deuterated Chloroform

Abstract: Although many antibiotics are active against Gram-positive bacteria, fewer also show activity against Gram-negative bacteria. Here, we present a combination of in silico (electron ion-interaction potential, molecular docking, ADMET), NMR, and microbiological investigations of selected macrolides (14-membered, 15-membered, and 16-membered), aiming to discover the pattern of design for macrolides active against Gram-negative bacteria. Although the conforma-tional studies of 14-membered and 15-membered macrolides are abundant in the literature, 16-membered macrolides, and their most prominent representative tylosin A, have received rela-tively little research attention. We therefore report the complete 1H and 13C NMR assignment of tylosin A in deuterated chloroform, as well as its 3D solution structure determined through mo-lecular modelling (conformational search) and 2D ROESY NMR. Additionally, due to the degra-dation of tylosin A in deuterated chloroform, other species were also detected in 1D and 2D NMR spectra. We additionally studied the anti-bacterial activity of tylosin A and B against se-lected Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria