Part-time and job-share careers among pharmacy practice faculty members.

Part-time and job-share policies may allow pharmacy practice faculty members to achieve work/life balance while pursuing their professional goals. Precedent for alternative work schedules within the health professions community can be found throughout the literature; however, little is known about part-time roles in academic pharmacy. The design and implementation of 3 different alternative faculty appointments are described and department chair and faculty perspectives are shared. Teaching, service, and scholarship responsibilities, as well as outcomes before and after changes in appointment, are described. Advantages and disadvantages, including advice for other colleges of pharmacy, are presented. Alternate appointments may be a key factor in retaining highly qualified faculty members who continue to bring their expertise to teaching, precepting, and scholarship within a college or school of pharmacy.

Pharmacy practice department chairs' perspectives on part-time faculty members.

OBJECTIVE: To identify the benefits and consequences of having part-time faculty members in departments of pharmacy practice from the department chair's perspective. METHODS: A stratified purposive sample of 12 pharmacy practice department chairs was selected. Eleven telephone interviews were conducted. Two investigators independently read interview notes and categorized and enumerated responses to determine major themes using content analysis. The investigators jointly reviewed the data and came to consensus on major themes. RESULTS: Benefits of allowing full-time faculty members to reduce their position to part-time included faculty retention and improved individual faculty work/life balance. Consequences of allowing part-time faculty positions included the challenges of managing individual and departmental workloads, the risk of marginalizing part-time faculty members, and the challenges of promotion and tenure issues. All requests to switch to part-time status were faculty-driven and most were approved. CONCLUSIONS: There are a variety of benefits and consequences of having part-time faculty in pharmacy practice departments from the chair's perspective. Clear faculty and departmental expectations of part-time faculty members need to be established to ensure optimal success of this working arrangement.

Use of adjunct faculty members in classroom teaching in departments of pharmacy practice.

OBJECTIVE: To determine trends among departments of pharmacy practice regarding use of adjunct faculty members for classroom-based teaching and to assess departmental support provided to these faculty members. METHODS: Chairs of pharmacy practice departments in US colleges and school of pharmacy were contacted by e-mail and asked to complete an 11-item electronic survey instrument. RESULTS: Chair respondents reported an average of 5.7 adjunct faculty members hired to teach required courses and 1.8 adjunct faculty members hired to teach elective courses. Compensation averaged $108 per lecture hour and $1,257 per 1-credit-hour course. Twenty-five percent of the respondents expected to hire more adjunct faculty members to teach required courses in the upcoming year due to curricular changes, faculty hiring freezes, and the shortage of full-time faculty members. Only 7% of respondents reported that they provided a teaching mentor and 14% offered no support to their adjunct faculty members. CONCLUSIONS: Departments of pharmacy practice commonly use adjunct faculty members to teach required and elective courses. Given the pharmacy faculty shortage, this trend is expected to increase and may be an area for future faculty development.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of combination therapy for smoking cessation.

OBJECTIVES: To review published clinical trials on combination therapy for smoking cessation and determine the role of this regimen for treating tobacco dependence. DATA SOURCES: Search terms included in this systematic review were nicotine replacement patch, nicotine replacement therapy, nicotine replacement gum, nicotine replacement inhaler, nicotine replacement nasal spray, nicotine replacement lozenge, bupropion SR (for sustained release), combination therapy, smoking cessation, and varenicline. Trials conducted from 1994 through October 10, 2007, were identified using EBM Reviews: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Medline. STUDY SELECTION: Clinical trials of various regimens for smoking cessation were included based on a large sample size (n > or = 200); use of first-line smoking cessation therapies; double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled design; and study duration of 1 year or more. The primary objective of the included clinical trials was to assess the efficacy of combination therapy. Studies that involved medications other than first-line therapies, adolescents, and post hoc analyses and that were not written in English were excluded. DATA SYNTHESIS: Five clinical trials meeting the inclusion criteria were reviewed. All of the studies included the use of the nicotine replacement patch along with one other agent. A total of 2,204 patients were treated. Combination therapy was significantly better than monotherapy at all pooled comparisons (P < 0.05). The aggregated relative risk of abstinence comparing combination with single treatment groups was 1.42 (95% CI 1.21-1.67), 1.54 (1.19-2.00), and 1.58 (1.25-1.99) at 3, 6, and 12 months, respectively. Adverse effects with combination nicotine replacement therapy were minimal and similar to placebo or monotherapy. CONCLUSION: Current literature indicates that combination therapy is statistically better than monotherapy in smoking cessation treatment as assessed by 3-, 6-, and 12-month abstinence rates. Adverse effects and adherence to combination therapy are similar to monotherapy and placebo.

Autosomal dominant myoclonus-dystonia and Tourette syndrome in a family without linkage to the SGCE gene.

UNLABELLED: The objective of this study was to report clinical details and results of genetic testing for mutations in the epsilon-sarcoglycan (SGCE) gene, the Slit and Trk-like 1 (SLITRK1) gene and for linkage to the DYT15, DYT1, and DRD2 gene loci in a family with autosomal dominant myoclonus-dystonia (M-D) and Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS). Fourteen family members, from three generations, underwent a detailed clinical assessment and donated DNA samples. The SGCE and the SLITRK1 gene were sequenced and investigated by gene dosage analysis in selected family members. Linkage to the SGCE, DYT15, DYT1, DRD2, and SLITRK1 loci was also tested. RESULTS: We included three healthy and 11 affected family members with M-D (n = 3), dystonia alone (n = 2), GTS (n = 1), tics (n = 1) or a combination of these with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) (M-D + OCD: n = 2; dystonia+OCD: n = 1; M-D + GTS + OCD: n = 1). There was no linkage to the SGCE, DYT15, DYT1 or DRD2 loci. No changes were found in the SLITRK1 gene. The presence of both M-D and GTS in one family, in which all known M-D loci and a recently discovered GTS locus were excluded, suggests a novel susceptibility gene for both M-D and GTS.

Role of ethnicity on the association of MAPT H1 haplotypes and subhaplotypes in Parkinson's disease.

An association of the H1 haplotype and subhaplotypes in the microtubule-associated protein Tau (MAPT) gene with Parkinson's disease (PD) has been reported. To further evaluate their role in PD, we genotyped a sample set of 765 cases and controls consisting of two large European subgroups of German (n=418) and Serbian (n=347) origin for the MAPT haplotypes H1 and H2. The H1/H1 carriers were tested for three additional MAPT polymorphisms. In the Serbian sample, there was significant evidence (P=0.0108) of an association of the H1/H1 genotype and PD. Surprisingly, in the German sample, we did not find significant differences in genotype or haplotype frequencies between patients and controls. These results suggest that the role of H1 haplotypes in the etiology of PD may be ethnically dependent.

Specific inhibitor of FGF receptor signaling: FGF-2-mediated effects on proliferation, differentiation, and MAPK activation are inhibited by PD173074 in oligodendrocyte-lineage cells.

Multiple studies have shown that migration, proliferation, and differentiation of oligodendrocyte (OL) lineage cells are influenced by fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) signaling through its receptors (FGFR) FGFR-1, FGFR-2, and FGFR-3. We report the effectiveness and specificity of a unique inhibitor, PD173074, for inhibiting FGF receptor signaling in OL-lineage cells. Three FGF-mediated responses of OL progenitors and two of differentiated OLs were examined by immunofluorescence microscopy and immunoblotting. PD173074 effectively antagonized the effect of FGF-2 on proliferation and differentiation of OL progenitors in culture. One dose of PD173074 at nanomolar concentrations was sufficient to inhibit ongoing FGF-2 mediated proliferation for prolonged periods, in a non-toxic, dose-dependent manner. In contrast, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-induced proliferation was unaffected by PD173074. Similarly, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation, a downstream event after activation of either FGFR or PDGFR, was also blocked by PD173074 in OL progenitors stimulated with FGF-2 but not PDGF. A general tyrosine kinase inhibitor (PD166285), however, antagonized both FGF-2- and PDGF-mediated responses. PD173074 also completely antagonized two phenotypic alterations of differentiated OLs, specifically downregulation of myelin proteins, and their re-entry into the cell cycle. We conclude that PD173704 is an effective and specific inhibitor for multiple FGF-2-mediated responses of both OL progenitors and differentiated OLs. This inhibitor provides a direct approach for identifying the importance of FGF signaling, comparable in effect to a knockout of all FGF receptors and all FGF ligands, while leaving other pathways unaffected. Thus, PD173704 is an excellent tool for investigating the role of FGF signaling in vivo in the context of combinatorial interactions of other signals.

Syndecan-3 and perlecan are differentially expressed by progenitors and mature oligodendrocytes and accumulate in the extracellular matrix.

Oligodendrocyte progenitors originate in the subventricular zone, proliferate, migrate to their final destinations, differentiate, and interact with axons to produce multilamellar myelin sheaths. These processes are regulated by a variety of environmental signals, including growth factors, the extracellular matrix, and adhesion molecules. Heparan sulfate proteoglycans are premier candidates as participants in this regulation by virtue of their structural diversity and their capacity to function as coreceptors for both growth factors and extracellular matrix molecules. Consistently with this, we have previously shown that oligodendrocyte progenitors are unable to proliferate in response to fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) in the absence of sulfated heparan sulfate proteoglycan. Here we show that members of three families of heparan sulfate proteoglycans, syndecan, perlecan, and glypican, are developmentally and posttranscriptionally regulated during oligodendrocyte-lineage progression: Syndecan-3 is synthesized by oligodendrocyte progenitors (but not terminally differentiated oligodendrocytes) and is up-regulated by FGF-2; perlecan synthesis increases as oligodendrocytes undergo terminal differentiation; glypican-1 is expressed by both progenitors and differentiated oligodendrocytes. Astrocytes express glypican-1 and perlecan but not syndecan-3. All three of these heparan sulfate proteoglycans are shed from the cell surface and bind to specific substrates. The developmentally regulated expression of these heparan sulfate proteoglycans is indicative of their participation in events involving growth factor receptors and the extracellular matrix that may regulate oligodendrocyte progenitor proliferation, migration, and adhesion phenomena.