Scalpels Over Sledgehammers: Saving Diagnostic Patents Through Judicial Intervention Rather Than Legislative Override

Diagnostic tests have become indispensable in the rapidly growing field known as “precision medicine.” Precision medicine tailors treatments to individual patients by using these diagnostic tests to identify how a patient may respond to different therapies. Diagnostics are expensive to develop but show promise in optimizing patient treatment and creating healthcare savings. Even as the medical community has heralded precision medicine as the way of the future, the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit have handed down a dizzying array of decisions regarding attempts to patent diagnostics and precision medicine techniques. Subsequently, courts have struggled to apply the test for patent eligibility, leaving the interpretation of patentable subject matter under § 101 of the Patent Act in a state of chaos. This chaos has created concerns that diagnostics may be unpatentable, providing minimal protection or incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in their development. To rectify this confusion, legislators have proposed overhauling the longstanding Patent Act and rewriting the patent-eligibility statute altogether. This Note argues that these legislative attempts are misguided. Though some remedy for the current patent-eligibility test is required, that solution should come from the courts, not the legislature. Courts can use a dynamic and nuanced common law approach to create a standard that can adapt to the continuously evolving technologies and scientific advancements that seek patent protection. A legislative override, on the other hand, could leave the patent statute in as much chaos as before. A judicial refinement of the patent-eligibility test would allow for the patenting of meritorious diagnostics, providing the necessary innovation incentives for their continued development

Changes in Gender Representation in Pharmacy Research Literature

Purpose/Background: Many health disciplines, such as pharmacy, have been historically male dominated. However, female gender representation continues to increase in health care and especially in pharmacy with women representing 57.5% of pharmacists in 2017. Shifts in workforce gender representation have not always translated to research and publication. Limited data exist regarding women’s authorship in pharmacy research literature. The purpose of our analysis was to determine whether the percentage of women as first authors of research articles in the pharmacy literature has increased over the past decade. Materials & Methods: We conducted a retrospective bibliometric analysis. Citations from key pharmacy practice journals from 2007 through 2017 were exported using Web of Science (WoS). We considered citations to be research if they were designated by WoS as “articles,” which is defined as reports of research on original works. Our outcome of interest was the proportion of research articles having feminine names as first authors. The U.S. Social Security Administration and genderize.io were used to determine femininity of names. Citations were excluded from analysis if gender could not be determined. The Cochrane-Armitage trend test was used to determine differences in proportions of women as first authors over time with a p-value \u3c0.05 considered statistically significant. We analyzed citations from journals individually and combined. Results: Our analysis included 9,354 citations from eight pharmacy practice journals. All journals evaluated, except Annals of Pharmacotherapy and Drugs, showed a significant increase in women as first authors from 2007 through 2017 (Table). The greatest change in the proportion of women as first authors was seen in the Journal of the American Pharmacist Association (+20.5%). In our combined analysis of all journals, the proportion of women as first authors significantly increased from 45.1% in 2007 to 55.4% in 2017 (Figure). Across the entire time period of interest, women were first author in slightly more than half (51.5%) of all citations Discussion/Conclusion: Women as first authors of research articles in pharmacy literature has significantly increased over the past decade. While our findings appear to show gender alignment between first authorship in pharmacy research literature and workforce representation, disparities in gender and other characteristics must be continually examined so that inequalities an be identified and addressed

Combining Search, Social Media, and Traditional Data Sources to Improve Influenza Surveillance

We present a machine learning-based methodology capable of providing real-time ("nowcast") and forecast estimates of influenza activity in the US by leveraging data from multiple data sources including: Google searches, Twitter microblogs, nearly real-time hospital visit records, and data from a participatory surveillance system. Our main contribution consists of combining multiple influenza-like illnesses (ILI) activity estimates, generated independently with each data source, into a single prediction of ILI utilizing machine learning ensemble approaches. Our methodology exploits the information in each data source and produces accurate weekly ILI predictions for up to four weeks ahead of the release of CDC's ILI reports. We evaluate the predictive ability of our ensemble approach during the 2013-2014 (retrospective) and 2014-2015 (live) flu seasons for each of the four weekly time horizons. Our ensemble approach demonstrates several advantages: (1) our ensemble method's predictions outperform every prediction using each data source independently, (2) our methodology can produce predictions one week ahead of GFT's real-time estimates with comparable accuracy, and (3) our two and three week forecast estimates have comparable accuracy to real-time predictions using an autoregressive model. Moreover, our results show that considerable insight is gained from incorporating disparate data streams, in the form of social media and crowd sourced data, into influenza predictions in all time horizon

The regulatory function of sphingosine-1-phosphate signaling axis on regulatory T cells in colorectal cancer

In tumors associated with inflammation such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and colorectal cancer (CRC), high numbers of regulatory T cells (Tregs) are associated with both favorable and poor prognoses. The functions of Tregs in CRC remain elusive and have yet to be clearly defined. With new evidence supporting many subsets of Tregs, the research on the development and functions of these cells has begun to come to fruition. The sphingosine 1 phosphate (S1P) pathway was recently reported to regulate the development and function of regulatory T cells. This pathway may shine new light into the pleiotropic nature of these cells in cancer. In this review, we will examine current literature on the many functions of Tregs in CRC and highlight the significance of the S1P signaling pathway in Treg development/function with the implication of novel therapeutic strategies in treatment of CRC patients

Simulating Humans as Integral Parts of Spacecraft Missions

The Collaborative-Virtual Environment Simulation Tool (C-VEST) software was developed for use in a NASA project entitled "3-D Interactive Digital Virtual Human." The project is oriented toward the use of a comprehensive suite of advanced software tools in computational simulations for the purposes of human-centered design of spacecraft missions and of the spacecraft, space suits, and other equipment to be used on the missions. The C-VEST software affords an unprecedented suite of capabilities for three-dimensional virtual-environment simulations with plug-in interfaces for physiological data, haptic interfaces, plug-and-play software, realtime control, and/or playback control. Mathematical models of the mechanics of the human body and of the aforementioned equipment are implemented in software and integrated to simulate forces exerted on and by astronauts as they work. The computational results can then support the iterative processes of design, building, and testing in applied systems engineering and integration. The results of the simulations provide guidance for devising measures to counteract effects of microgravity on the human body and for the rapid development of virtual (that is, simulated) prototypes of advanced space suits, cockpits, and robots to enhance the productivity, comfort, and safety of astronauts. The unique ability to implement human-in-the-loop immersion also makes the C-VEST software potentially valuable for use in commercial and academic settings beyond the original space-mission setting

Natural Language Generation for Nature Conservation : Automating Feedback to help Volunteers identify Bumblebee Species

Publisher PD

Mood-congruent free recall bias in anxiety

The present study evaluated the status of mood-congruent free recall bias in anxious individuals following incidental encoding of target words. In the first experiment, high trait anxiety individuals showed increased recall of threat-related information after an orienting task promoting lexical processing of target words. In a second experiment, both lexical and semantic orienting tasks were performed at study. In this experiment, anxious individuals displayed a mood-congruent recall bias only for target information processed at a lexical level. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed