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The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace is pressuring employees to learn how to harness this technology. The goal of promoting AI literacy is to equip educated citizens with the readiness to apply AI. The aim of this study is to provide evidence to guide the development of an AI Literacy Framework to prepare educated citizens to participate in future society. We report on a 14-h AI literacy course for senior secondary students, emphasising problem-solving competence development and adopting the project-based learning approach. One hundred and twenty-eight students completed the course, and a mixed-methods analysis was conducted to evaluate the results. A post-course test showed that the course had improved the students’ ability to use AI concepts in solving real-life problems. Self-surveys indicated that the students showed a significant improvement in their metacognitive strategies in problem-solving, and had a better understanding of the ethical boundaries and principles that govern the use of AI for problem-solving. A thematic analysis of data drawn from focus group interviews with the students and their self-reflective writings indicated that PBL supported them in reflecting critically on the ethical use of AI and developing their problem-solving competence. Future studies should consider validating the course evaluation instruments among a more extensive and diverse population.

Here, we present a bioengineering approach to emulate the human bone marrow in vitro. Our developmentally inspired method uses self-organization of human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells and vascular endothelial cells cultured in a three-dimensional microphysiological system to create vascularized, perfusable tissue constructs that resemble the hematopoietic vascular niche of the human marrow. The microengineered niche is capable of multilineage hematopoiesis and can generate functionally mature human myeloid cells that can intravasate into perfused blood vessels, providing a means to model the mobilization of innate immune cells from the marrow. We demonstrate the application of this system by presenting a specialized model of ionizing radiation-induced bone marrow injury and a multiorgan model of acute innate immune responses to bacterial lung infection. Furthermore, we introduce an advanced platform that enables large-scale integration and automated experimentation of the engineered hematopoietic tissues for preclinical screening of myelotoxicity due to anti-cancer drugs., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests A.G., J.H.G., T.C., and D.D.H. hold equity in Vivodyne Inc. A.G. and D.D.H. are co-founders, employees, and board directors of Vivodyne Inc. J.H.G., T.C., and P.L.C. are employees of Vivodyne Inc. A.L. is an employee of GSK and holds equity in the company. A patent application describing a technology related to this work is currently under review that includes A.G., G.S.W., and D.D.H. as co-inventors., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Inherited bone marrow failure syndromes (IBMFS) are a group of heterogeneous disorders that account for ∼30% of pediatric cases of bone marrow failure and are often associated with developmental abnormalities and cancer predisposition. This article reports the laboratory validation and clinical utility of a large-scale, custom-designed next-generation sequencing panel, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) IBMFS panel, for the diagnosis of IBMFS in a cohort of pediatric patients. This panel demonstrated excellent analytic accuracy, with 100% sensitivity, ≥99.99% specificity, and 100% reproducibility on validation samples. In 269 patients with suspected IBMFS, this next-generation sequencing panel was used for identifying single-nucleotide variants, small insertions/deletions, and copy number variations in mosaic or nonmosaic status. Sixty-one pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants (54 single-nucleotide variants/insertions/deletions and 7 copy number variations) and 24 hypomorphic variants were identified, resulting in the molecular diagnosis of IBMFS in 21 cases (7.8%) and exclusion of IBMFS with a diagnosis of a blood disorder in 10 cases (3.7%). Secondary findings, including evidence of early hematologic malignancies and other hereditary cancer-predisposition syndromes, were observed in 9 cases (3.3%). The CHOP IBMFS panel was highly sensitive and specific, with a significant increase in the diagnostic yield of IBMFS. These findings suggest that next-generation sequencing-based panel testing should be a part of routine diagnostics in patients with suspected IBMFS., (Copyright © 2024 Association for Molecular Pathology and American Society for Investigative Pathology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Previous literature has reported cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection rate disparities among racial/ethnic groups of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) recipients. Because race and ethnicity categorizations are social constructs unlikely to affect biological systems, it is likely there are covariates on the pathway to CMV detection, known as mediators, that can explain the observed disparity. Recent developments in mediation analysis methods enable the analysis of time-to-event outcomes, allowing an investigation of these disparities to also consider the timing of CMV infection detection relative to HCT. This study aimed to explore whether racial and ethnic CMV infection disparities existed within a population of HCT recipients at our center, and whether clinical covariates explained any observed association. The study cohort included all recipients of allogeneic HCT performed at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia between January 2004 and April 2017 who were CMV PCR-negative pretransplantation, had known donor/recipient CMV serology, and were under blood CMV PCR surveillance. Subjects were followed for 100 days post-HCT. Accelerated failure time models using subject's reported race/ethnicity, dichotomized into non-Hispanic White (NHW) and non-NHW, and exposure and time to CMV detection as outcomes examined whether selected clinical factors-donor/recipient CMV serostatus, recipient age, indication for HCT, hematopoietic cell source, match quality-mediated any identified exposure-outcome association. The analysis included 348 HCTs performed in 335 subjects, with 86 episodes (24.7%) in which CMV was detected via PCR analysis. The accelerated failure time model without mediators estimated that non-NHW subjects had fewer CMV-free survival days (time ratio, .21; 95% confidence interval, .10 to .44). Any hypothesized mediator mediated at most 5% of the total association between race/ethnicity and time to CMV detection. Non-NHW HCT recipients had fewer CMV-free survival days than NHW recipients; none of the clinical factors hypothesized to mediate this association accounted for a significant component of total association. Further research should focus on nonclinical factors influenced by systemic racism to better understand their effect on CMV infection among HCT recipients., (Copyright © 2024 The American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Severe congenital neutropenia (SCN) is caused by germline mutations, most commonly in ELANE , impacting neutrophil maturation and leading to high risk of life-threatening infections. Most patients with ELANE- mutant SCN can achieve safe neutrophil counts with chronic Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF). However, up to 10% of patients have neutropenia refractory to G-CSF and require allogeneic stem cell transplant. Traditional conditioning for these patients includes busulfan and cyclophosphamide which is associated with significant toxicities. We present five patients with SCN without myeloid malignancy transplanted using a reduced toxicity regimen of busulfan, fludarabine and thymoglobulin. 5 pediatric patients with SCN underwent matched sibling donor bone marrow transplant (MSD-BMT) between 2014-2022 on or per CHP14BT057 (NCT02928991), a prospective, single center trial testing elimination of cyclophosphamide from conditioning in pediatric patients with single lineage inherited BMF syndromes. All patients had MSDs and no evidence of MDS. Conditioning consisted of PK-adjusted busulfan, fludarabine, and thymoglobulin, with calcineurin inhibitor and mycophenolate mofetil GVHD prophylaxis. With median follow-up of 48.4 months, overall and event-free survival were 100%. There was no acute GVHD and one instance of chronic limited GVHD. Patients exhibited >95% donor myeloid chimerism at 5 years post-BMT. Two patients experienced CMV reactivation without end-organ disease, and no other viral reactivation or significant infections occurred. MSD-BMT with reduced toxicity myeloablation for SCN provides excellent outcomes while minimizing toxicity. These data suggest that busulfan, fludarabine, and ATG can be considered an efficacious, low-toxicity standard of care regimen for patients with SCN undergoing MSD-BMT., Competing Interests: JO consults for Emendo Biotherapeutics. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Oved, Gibson, Venella, Elgarten, Wray, Warren and Olson.)