Why the biomedical Sciences need Philosophy: theoretical and practical Reasons illustrated with examples from the BioThera Institute of Philosophy

Background: Numerous sequencing techniques have been progressed since the 1960s with the rapid development of molecular biology studies focusing on DNA and RNA. Methods: a great number of articles, book chapters, websites are reviewed, and the studies covering NGS history, technology and applications to cancer therapy are included in the present article. Results: High throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies offer many advantages over classical Sanger sequencing with decreasing cost per base and increasing sequencing efficiency. NGS technologies are combined with bioinformatics software to sequence genomes to be used in diagnostics, transcriptomics, epidemiologic and clinical trials in biomedical sciences. The NGS technology has also been successfully used in drug discovery for the treatment of different cancer types. Conclusion: This review focuses on current and potential applications of NGS in various stages of drug discovery process, from target identification through to personalized medicine.

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A Cohort study to compare Admission criteria and Academic performance among preclinical students at The Copperbelt University School of Medicine: complete enumeration (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.16938 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Andrew Mwila

Keyword(s):

Academic Performance ◽

Cohort Study ◽

Clinical Medicine ◽

Average Score ◽

First Year ◽

Admission Criteria ◽

Biomedical Sciences ◽

Dental Surgery ◽

School Of Medicine ◽

Better Than

BACKGROUND The Copperbelt University is the second public University in Zambia. The School of Medicine has four major programs namely; Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, Bachelor of Dental Surgery, Bachelor of Clinical Medicine and Bachelor of Biomedical sciences. The Copperbelt University School of Medicine runs a five-year training program for both the BDS and the MBCHB programs. Students are admitted into the Medical school after successfully completing their first year at the Main campus in the School of Natural Sciences with an average of 4 B grades or higher (B grade is a mark of 65 to 74%). OBJECTIVE The study was done to determine the association between admission criteria and academic performance among preclinical students. Hence, the study compares the academic performance among preclinical students admitted into the Bachelor of Dental Surgery and Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery at the Copperbelt University School of Medicine. METHODS This is a retrospective cohort study conducted at Michael Chilufya Sata School of medicine Campus. A pilot study was conducted with 30 BDS and 30 MBCHB students and the obtained information helped determine the sample size. SPSS was used to analyze the data. The study period lasted approximately 7 weeks at a cost of K1621. RESULTS In 2014, there was an improvement in average performance between 2nd and 3rd year for each program. An average score of 15.4 (SD 4.2) was obtained in 3rd year compared to 12.8 (SD 4.9) in 2nd year (p<0.001). Meanwhile, 3rd MB ChB mean score was 12.6 (SD 3.7) compared to 10.7 (SD 3.6) in 2nd years (p<0.05). However, in 2016, both programs, 3rd year mean scores were lower than 2nd year (MB ChB 2nd year mean score was 12.0 (SD 4.3) compared to 3rd year with a mean score of 9.5 (SD 4.5), p<0.001; BDS 2nd year mean score was 10.6 (SD 4.0) compared to 3rd year mean score of 8.2 (SD 3.4), p<0.01. On average MB ChB students performed better than BDS students in all the years (p<0.05), except in 2016 when the results were comparable. CONCLUSIONS Results from the study shows that entry criteria has a correlation to academic performance as students admitted with higher grades perform much better than those with lower grades.

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