PURPOSE The Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study (COMS) established iodine-125 (I-125) plaque brachytherapy for eye preserving treatment of medium-sized choroidal melanomas in the United States. Eye Physics I-125 plaque treatment modeled with Plaque Simulator (PS) software yields similar results to COMS. Herein, we report results from a series of 15 patients treated with ruthenium-106 (Ru-106) p...

Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, has a long history in the treatment of uveal melanomas. In the early 1980s, Dennis Robertson, MD, was one of the first to use iodine-125 plaques, the form of brachytherapy most commonly used for treatment of uveal melanomas in the United States today. The plaques used in the Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study (COMS), a multicenter study initiated in 1985 to...

CONTEXT Colleges of osteopathic medicine (COMs) trying to stimulate research and develop research infrastructures must overcome the challenge of obtaining adequate funding to support growing research interests. The authors examine changes in research funding at COMs during the past 15 years. OBJECTIVES To track 1999-2004 data on COM research funding, COM faculty size, educational backgrounds ...

The development of competence by the dental caries pathogen Streptococcus mutans is mediated primarily through the alternative sigma factor ComX (SigX), which is under the control of multiple regulatory systems and activates the expression of genes involved in DNA uptake and recombination. Here we report that the induction of competence and competence gene expression by XIP (sigX-inducing pepti...

In the interstellar medium (ISM), formation of complex organic molecules (COMs) is largely facilitated by surface reactions. However, in cold dark clouds, thermal desorption COMs inefficient because lack energy to overcome binding energies grain surface. Non-thermal methods are therefore important explanations for gas-phase detection many that primarily formed on grains. Here we present a new n...