Designing and Implementing a 5-Year Transfusion Medicine Diploma Program in China

The need for physicians and technical consultants specialized in transfusion medicine is urgent in China, as there are 20 000 hospitals and 500 blood centers in need of staff with this expertise. The progress made in transfusion medicine as a specialty has been relatively slow in China. Current Chinese medical education and service systems have not developed transfusion medicine as a stand-alone medical specialty. Most physicians receive only minimal training in transfusion medicine in medical school. This training is usually integrated into surgical training and addresses the most common technologies. In 2008, a 5-year bachelor's diploma program in transfusion medicine was established as an undergraduate specialty in Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China. This article intends to summarize the 8 years of experience educating undergraduates in the specialty of transfusion medicine.     

Spatial and temporal expression of vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP) in fetal and adult human cerebral cortex

Vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP) is a member of the Ena/VASP protein family and was for the first time identified in human platelets. VASP plays a role for cell adhesion and cell migration because of E/DFPPPPXD/E amino acid sequence in its structure which gives reaction with focal adhesion proteins. In this study we suggest that VASP expression may have important role for neural cell migration, differentiation, axonal growth and angiogenesis during prenatal cerebral cortical development. Our aim is to detect VASP expression by means of immunohistochemistry and Western blot analysis in developing human neocortex and adult brain cortex (n = 12 samples from first, second, and third trimesters and n = 3 adult normal cerebral cortex). Our results suggest that VASP showed different immunostaining patterns between cerebral cortical plates in prenatal and adult human brain samples. We observed that the expression patterns of the VASP protein are clearly identified in fibers, cytoplasm of neural cells and endothelial cells of vessels. We detected that VASP indicates progressive expression from the adult brain to second trimester neocortexes. Therefore, we suggest that VASP may play a crucial role in the regulation of human neonatal cerebral cortical development.     

The aging hematopoietic stem cell niche: Phenotypic and functional changes and mechanisms that contribute to hematopoietic aging

The hematopoietic system has the remarkable ability to provide a lifelong supply of mature cells that make up the entire blood and immune system. However, similar to other adult stem cell niches, the hematopoietic system is vulnerable to the detrimental effects of aging. This is a substantial health concern as the trend for population aging continues to increase. Identifying mechanisms that underlie hematopoietic aging is vital for understanding hematopoietic-related diseases. In this review, we first discuss the cellular hierarchy of the hematopoietic system and the components that make up the surrounding hematopoietic niche. We then provide an overview of the major phenotypes associated with hematopoietic aging and discuss recent research investigating cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic mechanisms of hematopoietic stem cell (HSCs) aging. We end by discussing the exciting new concept of possibly reversing the HSC aging process along with outstanding questions that remain to be answered.