ObjectivesIn March 2020, the WHO declared SARS-CoV-2 a pandemic. Hospitals across the world faced staff, bed and supply shortages, with some European hospitals calling on medical students to fill the staffing gaps. This study aimed to document the impact of volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ professional development, resilience and future perceived career choices.DesignThis is a retrospective, qualitative study of student reflections, using purposive sampling.The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) University of Medicine and Health Sciences recruited 26 medical student volunteers to assist in pronation and supination of ventilated patients affected by SARS-CoV-2. These students were invited to complete an anonymous survey based on their experiences as volunteers. Thematic analysis was performed on these written reflections.ResultsThe results showed that volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic developed key skills from RCSI’s medical curriculum, significantly fostered medical students’ resilience and guided their career choices. Major areas of development included communication, teamwork, compassion and altruism, which are not easily developed through the formal curriculum. A further area that was highlighted was the importance of evidence-based health in a pandemic. Finally, our respondents were early stage medical students with limited clinical exposure. Some found the experience difficult to cope with and therefore supports should be established for students volunteering in such a crisis.ConclusionThese results suggest that clinical exposure is an important driver in developing students’ resilience and that volunteering during a pandemic has multiple benefits to students’ professional development and professional identity formation.

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γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, plays a significant role in aging and in neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We investigated the relationship between GABA levels in the dorsomedial/dorsoanterolateral prefrontal cortex (DM/DA-PFC) and memory in high-AD risk participants. Thirty-eight participants (14 Cognitively Normal (CN), 11 with Subjective Cognitive Decline, and 13 Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)) underwent magnetic resonance spectroscopy at 3 Tesla. SCD and MCI participants were grouped together to form a single high-AD risk group (N = 24) for the purposes of statistical analyses. Partial correlations of GABA+/Cr level with verbal memory assessed on California Verbal Learning Test-II and non-verbal memory assessed on Brief Visuospatial Memory Test and Rey-Osterrieth test were examined separately within the high-AD risk and CN groups. GABA+/Cr levels were positively correlated with long- delayed verbal memory (r = 0.69, P = 0.009) and immediate non-verbal memory (r = 0.97, P = 0.03) in high-AD risk, but not in CN participants. These results remained significant after controlling for depression. These preliminary findings, which require replication due to the limited sample sizes, are the first report of an association between GABA+/Cr levels within the DM/DA-PFC and memory performance in high-AD risk individuals.

The majority of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) succumb to their disease or its complications, especially among the elderly. Natural killer (NK) cells have been shown to have anti-leukemic activity in AML patients; however, primary NK cells armed with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) targeting antigens associated with AML as an "off-the-shelf" product for disease control have not been explored. We developed frozen, "off-the-shelf" allogeneic human NK cells engineered with a CAR recognizing FLT3 and secreting soluble IL-15 (FLT3 CAR_sIL15 NK) to improve in vivo NK cell persistence and T cell activation. FLT3 CAR_sIL15 NK cells had higher cytotoxicity and IFN- secretion against FLT3+ AML cell lines when compared to activated NK cells lacking a FLT3 CAR or soluble IL-15. Frozen and thawed allogeneic FLT3 CAR_sIL15 NK cells prolonged survival of both the MOLM-13 AML model as well as an orthotopic AML patient-derived xenograft model when compared to control NK cells. FLT3 CAR_sIL15 NK cells showed no cytotoxicity against normal blood mononuclear cells or hematopoietic stem cells. Collectively, our data suggest that FLT3 is an AML-associated antigen that can be targeted by frozen, allogeneic, "off-the-shelf" FLT3 CAR_sIL15 NK cells that may provide a novel approach for the treatment of AML.

Pachypodium contains potent toxicity capable of inhibiting sensitive and cardenolide-adapted Na /K -ATPases. Given the monarch's sensitivity to Pachypodium, we suggest that these plants contain novel cardiac glycosides or other compounds that facilitate toxicity by binding to Na /K -ATPases.