John Ashkenas

University of Toronto | U of T

Purpose: To describe application of the Quicksol™ solvent-free approach to solubilize ivermectin (IVM). Methods: Lyophilized IVM complexed with hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) was resolubilized in aqueous polysorbate-80, generating Soluvec™. Lyophilizate was examined by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calori...

Obesity is a chronic disease in which the abnormal or excessive accumulation of body fat leads to impaired health and increased risk of mortality and chronic health complications. Prevalence of obesity is rising rapidly in South and Southeast Asia, with potentially serious consequences for local economies, healthcare systems, and quality of life. O...

Background : Use of alemtuzumab in relapsing multiple sclerosis (RMS) is limited by safety concerns, notably risk of rare, serious vascular events. Along with other vital sign (VS) changes, acute increase in systolic blood pressure (SBP) is monitored as a marker of vascular risk. Peri-infusion prophylaxis is used to manage clinical risk by moderati...

Patient preferences for psoriasis treatment may affect treatment adherence and disease control; changing topical formulation may improve adherence and patient acceptance of treatment. This study explored dermatologists' reasons for transitioning psoriasis patients from an ointment or gel (Dovobet®) formulation to an aerosol foam (Enstilar®) formula...

Objectives To describe treatment choices made at the time of enrollment in CAPTURE, a Canadian patient registry for women with symptomatic uterine fibroids (UFs), and to define demographic and clinical characteristics that independently predict these choices. Methods Women arranging appointments for UF care were eligible to enrol. At the time of t...

En 2014, le Groupe de consensus canadien sur la sécheresse oculaire a publié un document intitulé Dépistage, diagnostic et prise en charge de la sécher-esse oculaire : guide pratique à l’intention des optométristes canadiens. Ce guide pratique ne traitait pas des répercussions de la sécheresse oculaire chez les personnes en voie de subir une interv...

Background: Patients with psoriasis of all severities employ topical treatment, either alone or in combination. Promoting Patient Engagement at the Leading Edge of Topical Psoriasis Treatment (PROPEL) surveyed Canadian dermatologists and their patients about their attitudes toward topical care. Objectives: To identify gaps between patients and d...

We read with interest the November 2017 article of Hong et al., reporting the experience of psoriasis patients in the PSO‐INSIGHTFUL study, who used fixed‐dose combination calcipotriol 50 μg/g and betamethasone dipropionate 0.5 mg/g (Cal/BMD) gel and aerosol foam formulations, each for 1 week. Our group of Canadian dermatologists has recently explo...

In 2014, the Canadian Dry Eye Disease Consensus Panel published Guidelines for screening, diagnosis and management of dry eye diseases (DED). These did not address the implications of DED for individuals who are being considered for or have recently undergone ocular surgery. DED is common in certain surgical cohorts, and the perisurgical setting po...

Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), including basal and squamous cell carcinoma, represents the most common malignancy. The aim of this document is to provide guidance to Canadian health care practitioners on NMSC management. After conducting a literature review, the group developed recommendations for prevention, management, and treatment of basal ce...

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common malignancy. Growth of BCCs leads to local destruction of neighbouring healthy skin and underlying tissue and can result in significant functional and cosmetic morbidity. To provide guidance to Canadian health care practitioners regarding management of BCCs. Literature searches and development of graded...

Actinic keratosis (AK) and cheilitis (AC) are lesions that develop on photodamaged skin and may progress to form invasive squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs). To provide guidance to Canadian health care practitioners regarding management of AKs and ACs. Literature searches and development of graded recommendations were carried out as discussed in the a...

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the second-most common form of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC). To provide guidance to Canadian health care practitioners regarding management of SCCs. Literature searches and development of graded recommendations were carried out as discussed in the accompanying introduction (chapter 1 of the NMSC guidelines). SCCs...

Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), including basal and squamous cell carcinoma (BCC and SCC), represents the most common malignancy. To provide guidance to Canadian health care practitioners regarding primary prevention of NMSC. Structured literature searches were conducted, using search terms including prevention, sunscreen, and sun prevention facto...

Patients over age 60 comprise the majority of those diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), but treatment approaches in this population are variable, with many uncertainties and controversies. Our group conducted a literature review to summarize the latest information and to develop a consensus document with practical treatment recommendations...

In Canada, lenalidomide combined with dexamethasone (Len/Dex) is approved for use in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM). Our expert panel sought to provide an up-to-date practical guide on the use of lenalidomide in the managing RRMM within the Canadian clinical setting, including management of common adverse events (AEs). The panel con...

This chapter presents evidence from several experimental systems for the involvement of integrins, both in the induction and in the cellular recognition of changes in extracellular matrix (ECM) composition. Direct evidence for an interplay between integrin function and ECM integrity has come from experiments showing that integrin–ECM contacts can r...

Although the range of therapeutic options has expanded dramatically in recent years, topical agents remain ubiquitous and indispensable tools for treating psoriasis at all levels of severity. The 2009 Canadian psoriasis guidelines considered evidence supporting various monotherapies and combination regimens. Here we review all approved topical agen...

Contrary to longstanding recommendations on type 2 diabetes (T2D) management, the de facto standard of care in Canada includes lag times of many years prior to introducing effective glycemic control. Even patients transitioned to insulin may continue to experience poor glycemic control, with attendant diabetic complications, suggesting poor adheren...

New clinical treatment guidelines for plaque psoriasis, written by a panel of 16 Canadian dermatologists, were recently published online. These Canadian Guidelines for the Management of Plaque Psoriasis are evidence based and free of any influence from corporate sponsors and have been endorsed by the Canadian Dermatology Association (CDA). The Guid...

Reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) is prone to false positives when contaminating DNA molecules are present at the start of a reaction. Contaminants that derive from earlier work using a given primer pair (carryover PCR products) are of particular concern when those primers are used routinely, as in clinical diagnostics or environmental monitoring....

Although the interests of the investigator and the subjects are generally compatible, it is clear that they will not always be wholly coincident. Obligate carrier or affected individuals who have not participated directly in the study raise particularly thorny issues about publication of pedigrees, because their consent is, by definition, lacking....

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Guidelines for submitting commentsPolicy: Comments that contribute to the discussion of the article will be posted within approximately three business days. We do not accept anonymous comments. Please include your email address; the address will not be displayed in the posted comment. Cell Press Editors will screen the comments to ensure that they...

Guidelines for submitting commentsPolicy: Comments that contribute to the discussion of the article will be posted within approximately three business days. We do not accept anonymous comments. Please include your email address; the address will not be displayed in the posted comment. Cell Press Editors will screen the comments to ensure that they...

The commonly cited figure of 10{sup 5} genes in the human genome represents a tremendous underestimate of our capacity to generate distinct gene products with unique functions. Our cells possess an impressive collection of tools for altering the products of a single gene to create a variety of proteins. The different gene products may have related...

Epithelia are polarized structures, asymmetric by definition because they represent the boundary between what is topologically inside and what is outside an organism. Epithelial cells provide a physical barrier with the outside world and regulate bidirectional chemical exchange, as in absorption of nutrients or oxygen and secretion of wastes or oth...

1996 may be marked as a transitional year in the study of Williams syndrome (WS), when the causes of this complex condition and a practical way to investigate began to come into focus. WS presents a remarkable collection of symptoms that affect blood vessels, growth, intelligence, and behavior. WS commonly leads to infantile hypercalcemia, retardat...

An intact basement membrane is essential for the proper function, differentiation and morphology of many epithelial cells. The disruption or remodeling of the basement membrane occurs during normal development as well as in the disease state. Stromelysin-1 (SL-1), a member of the matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) family, was one of the first proteinas...

An intact basement membrane is essential for the proper function, differentiation and morphology of many epithelial cells. The disruption or remodeling of the basement membrane occurs during normal development as well as in the disease state. To examine the importance of basement membrane during development in vivo, we altered the matrix metallopro...

Two genetically distinct classes of low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor-deficient Chinese hamster ovary cell mutants, ldlB and ldlC, exhibit nearly identical pleiotropic defects in multiple medial and trans Golgi-associated processes (Kingsley, D., K. F. Kozarsky, M. Segal, and M. Krieger. 1986. J. Cell Biol. 102:1576-1585). In these mutants, th...

Macrophage scavenger receptors have been implicated in various macrophage-associated processes, including atherosclerosis and clearance of bacterial endotoxin. They bind to a wide variety of polyanionic ligands and display complex binding characteristics. cDNAs from the murine macrophage-like cell line P388D1 encoding the full-length type I and typ...

Macrophage scavenger receptors have been implicated in the development of atherosclerosis and other macrophage-associated functions, including host defense. The mechanism by which these receptors bind a wide array of polyanions, such as acetylated low density lipoprotein (Ac-LDL), with high affinity has not yet been elucidated; however, it has been...

Scavenger receptors have been implicated in the development of atherosclerosis and other macrophage-associated functions. The bovine type I and type II scavenger receptors are multidomain transmembrane proteins that differ only by the presence in the type I receptor of an additional, extracellular cysteine-rich C-terminal domain. The isolation of t...

Duplex perception—the simultaneous perception of a speech syllable and of a nonspeech “chirp“—occurs when a single formant transition and the remainder (the “base“) of a synthetic syllable are presented to different ears. Two experiments were conducted to test whether the speech percept derives from the dichotic fusion of the transition with the ba...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Biology, 1993. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 185-200).