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The techniques and qualities of drug sensitivity testing (DST) for anticancer treatment have grown rapidly in the past two decades worldwide. Much of DST progress came from advanced systems of technical versatility (faster, highly-throughput, highly-sensitive, and smaller in tumor quantity). As the earliest drug selective system, biomedical knowledge and technical advances for DST are mutually supported. More importantly, many pharmacological controversies are resolved by these technical advances. With this technical stride, the clinical landscape of DST entered into a new phase (>500 samples per testing and extremely low quantity of tumor cells). As a forerunner of the drug selection system, DST awaits a new version that can adapt to complicated therapeutic situations and diverse tumor categories in the clinic. By upholding this goal of pathogenic and therapeutic diversity, DST could eventually cure more cancer patients by establishing high-quality drug selection systems. To smoothen DST development, there is a need to increase the understanding of cancer biology, pathology and pharmacology (cancer heterogeneity, plasticity, metastasis and drug resistance) with well-informative parameters before chemotherapy. In this article, medicinal and technical insights into DST are especially highlighted.

Cancer treatments become more effective now. One cause of these therapeutic promotions is based on drug selective paradigms in the clinic. A small range of drug selective paradigms (pharmacogenomics, precision-oncology, biomarkers and drug sensitivity testing) have been widely used worldwide. To accelerate the performance of these drug selective strategies, improved understanding of different mechanisms may be useful. Among these four classes of selective systems, drug sensitivity testing (DST) plays a unique role in clinical trials. Biomedical advances of knowledge and technology in current drug selective systems are increasingly importance. In the past two decades, knowledge gap between pathology and therapeutics is gradually filling, especially among different predictive mechanisms. The different drug selective systems are competitive, progress and advantageous in different clinical situations. To face with this diversity of drug selective strategies, guiding principle and technical feasibility need to emphasize. As a powerful platform, DST have some unique characters—high-quality quantification and comparison of responses among anticancer drug of interests. The smooth progress of DST platform depends on increasingly understanding of cancer biology, pathology and pharmacology—including medical knowledge (cancer heterogeneity, plasticity, stem cells and metastasis) and technical versatility (micro-fluidity and apoptotic evaluation). The medical and technical insights into various and uniqueness of DST are especially highlighted in this article.

The article entitled “Human Suicide, Modern Diagnosis Assistance and Magic Bullet Discovery”, by Da-Yong Lu, Peng- Peng Zhu, Hong-Ying Wu, Nagendra Sastry Yarla, Bin Xu, Jian Ding, Ajit Varki and Ting-Ren Lu, has been retracted on the request of one co-authors, Dr. Ajit Varki and Dr. Nagendra Sastry Yarla available at: Cent Nerv Syst Agents Med Chem 2019; 19(1): 15-23. http://www.eurekaselect.com/169003/article. The Corresponding Author Dr. Da-Yong Lu has included the names of the co-authors, Dr. Ajit Varki and Dr. Nagendra Sastry Yarla without their consent and the manuscript has been published in the journal, Central Nervous System Agents in Medicinal Chemistry (CNSAMC). Kindly see Bentham Science Policy on Article retraction at the link given below: (https://benthamscience.com/journals/central-nervous-system-agents-in-medicinal-chemistry/author-guidelines/) Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Copyright Letter or the Terms and Conditions. As such, this article represents a severe abuse of the scientific publishing sys- tem. Bentham Science Publishers takes a very strong view on this matter and apologizes to the readers of the journal for any inconvenience this may cause.

The article entitled “Aberrant Sialylation in Cancer Pathology and Metastasis, a Putative Drug Target Candidate”, by Lu D.Y., Lu T.R., Xu B., Varki A., Huang M., Zhu H., Shen Y., Yarla N.S., has been retracted on the request of one of the coauthors Dr. Ajit Varki available at: Anticancer Agents Med Chem. 2018; 18(14): 1952-1961. http://www.eurekaselect.com/165282. The Corresponding Author Dr. Da-Yong Lu has included the name of the co-author Dr. Ajit Varki and Dr. Nagendra Yarla without their consent and the manuscript has been published in the journal Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry (ACAMC). Kindly see Bentham Science Policy on Article retraction at the link given below: https://benthamscience.com/journals/anti-cancer-agents-in-medicinal-chemistry/editorial-policies/). Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Copyright Letter or the Terms and Conditions. As such this article represents a severe abuse of the scientific publishing system. Bentham Science Publishers takes a very strong view on this matter and apologizes to the readers of the journal for any inconvenience this may cause.

Background and Aims: AIDS (acquired immune deficient syndrome), a deadly human infectious disease is caused by HIV (human immunodeficiency viruses) infection. Patient’s mortality was eventually reduced to one-fourth by combined chemotherapy (usually 3 chemical drugs simultaneously) than earlier HIV/AIDS treatments (single drug or vaccine) in the clinic. Results: Combined treatments against HIV/AIDS are still incurable for all patients despite a high rate of patient’s survival. Basic viral pathological study and advancing drug development systems for curable medications are indispensable nowadays and in the future. Conclusion: Up to date, therapeutic trinity (combined therapy) against HIV/AIDS is generally among chemical drugs. In this article, several forms of other therapeutic attempts for effectively curing efforts against HIV/AIDS are proposed-including the development of next generation therapeutic HIV vaccines and schedules, new categories of bio-therapy, different pathways of immune-modulation, herbal medicines in general (allopathic, Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicines), high quality of physical exercises, and especially therapeutic combinations guided by latest medical discovery and principles (new forms of therapeutic trinity against HIV-induced pathogenesis and human mortality).

Background and Aims: AIDS (acquired immune deficient syndrome), a deadly human infectious disease is caused by HIV (human immunodeficiency viruses) infection. Patient’s mortality was eventually reduced to one-fourth by combined chemotherapy (usually 3 chemical drugs simultaneously) than earlier HIV/AIDS treatments (single drug or vaccine) in the clinic. Results: Combined treatments against HIV/AIDS are still incurable for all patients despite a high rate of patient’s survival. Basic viral pathological study and advancing drug development systems for curable medications are indispensable nowadays and in the future. Conclusion: Up to date, therapeutic trinity (combined therapy) against HIV/AIDS is generally among chemical drugs. In this article, several forms of other therapeutic attempts for effectively curing efforts against HIV/AIDS are proposed-including the development of next generation therapeutic HIV vaccines and schedules, new categories of bio-therapy, different pathways of immune-modulation, herbal medicines in general (allopathic, Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicines), high quality of physical exercises, and especially therapeutic combinations guided by latest medical discovery and principles (new forms of therapeutic trinity against HIV-induced pathogenesis and human mortality).

The prediction of gas emissions arising from underground coal mining has been the subject of extensive research for several decades, however calculation techniques remain empirically based and are hence limited to the origin of calculation in both application and resolution. Quantification and management of risk associated with sudden gas release during mining (outbursts) and accumulation of noxious or combustible gases within the mining environment is reliant on such predictions, and unexplained variation correctly requires conservative management practices in response to risk. Over 2500 gas core samples from two southern Sydney basin mines producing metallurgical coal from the Bulli seam have been analysed in various geospatial context including relationships to hydrological features and geological structures. The results suggest variability and limitations associated with the present traditional approaches to gas emission prediction and design of gas management practices may be addressed using predictions derived from improved spatial datasets, and analysis techniques incorporating fundamental physical and energy related principles.

Background: Last two to three decades, this world witnesses a rapid progress of biomarkers and bioinformatics technologies. Cancer bioinformatics is one of such important omics branches for experimental/clinical studies and applications. Methods: Same as other biological techniques or systems, bioinformatics techniques will be widely used. But they are presently not omni-potent. Despite great popularity and improvements, cancer bioinformatics has its own limitations and shortcomings at this stage of technical advancements. Results: This article will offer a panorama of bioinformatics in cancer researches and clinical therapeutic applications-possible advantages and limitations relating to cancer therapeutics. A lot of beneficial capabilities and outcomes have been described. As a result, a successful new era for cancer bioinformatics is waiting for us if we can adhere on scientific studies of cancer bioinformatics in malignant- origin mining, medical verifications and clinical diagnostic applications. Conclusion: Cancer bioinformatics gave a great significance in disease diagnosis and therapeutic predictions. Many creative ideas and future perspectives are highlighted.

Rock bolting has firmly used as the coal mine roof reinforcement in underground coal mine. The bolting effect of fully grouted rebar bolt is closely related to the bolt surface profile. This paper provides an experimental study to confirm that bolt rib internal length has great influence on bolting effect. Pull-out tests were conducted using rebar bolt with different rib spacings of 12, 24, 36 and 48mm representatively from steel tube and from concrete. Results show that peak load increases 25.3% for bolt with large rib spacing. For pull out using concrete block, the increment of peak load between large and small rib spacing is not significant, but the bolt with large rib spacing has great absorption of deformational energy than small rib spacing bolt. This study provides experimental evidence towards optimum design of rock bolt for understand coal mining industry.

Background: New anticancer drug discovery, development and manufacture entered the bottleneck stage. Many limitations of both technology and animal models slow down the anticancer drug developments Objective: To ease economic burdens for drug developers and general patient populations. Methods: Key factors affecting anticancer drug developments and possible roadmaps for updating drug screening routines worldwide are suggested. Results: Drug development chains must be updated and better drug development paradigms must be established. Conclusions: This world welcomes global participations in anticancer drug developments and utilities.

Many clinical cancer therapies are less effective by using one anticancer drug only due to refractory properties of cancer pathogenesis and drug resistance property in advanced cancer patients. A general consensus among clinicians is that anticancer drug cocktail might better control cancer progresses and metastasis than single drug therapeutics in clinical trials. Despite great popularity, the anticancer drug combination dogma has not been established. The complexity of drug combination dogma discovery is more than we can expect now. This article speculates possible routes we can undertake in this matter. The background knowledge of drug combination therapy presently practiced and possible future landscapes and drawbacks of cancer drug combinative therapies are highlighted.

Aim: The modality of anticancer drug combinations needs to be renovated from empirical into technical-supportive systems. Methods: To challenge past therapeutic routines, the new landscape may be established. Among the different areas of anticancer drug combination study, research in the fields of medical study is the most important one-including disciplinary of therapeutics in different cancer stages, modern genetic/ molecular diagnostics, cancer bioinformatics, traditional Chinese medicine, mathematical data analysis, therapeutic toxicity monitor, personalized cancer medicine and so on. Discussion: This article addresses these types of cancer therapeutic management systems for clinical anticancer drug combination utilities. Conclusion: Future cancer drug combinational studies and clinical optimums must be implemented.

Suicide events and episodes are serious human psychiatric disorders affected by a great number of different environmental/economic factors, early trauma/abuse, human bad living habits, human genomic properties and drug intervention decisions. In order to improve antidepressant therapeutics in clinics, the relationships between efficacy and toxicities of antidepressants have to be considered fundamentally. Since the occurrences and risks of suicidal events or episodes come from interplay between insiders (chemical/genomic/bioinformatics factors) and outsiders (economic/social/ previous trauma conditions and so on), new perspectives and scientific studies must be implemented for revealing these interrelated factors step-by-step and updating therapeutics in human beings. New paradigms and clinical strategies –joint-expert groups and clinical practices (a psychiatrist with other field specialists) should be established for individual patients in future. Thus can some improvements in clinical trials be achieved in a long run?

HIV/AIDS was once a highly deadly infective disease that killed the global people of a million annually two decades ago. While we are enjoying the HIV therapeutic advances (mostly important from HAART invention), one obvious drawback is still unresolved—unable to clearance all HIV from infected human bodies. As a result, a series of different therapeutic attempts have been proposed based on present knowledge of different features of HIV-induced pathogenesis and human mortalities. Facing this shortcoming, innovative designs and update of HIV vaccines and other types of HIV therapeutic inventions can be a final solution for completely HIV clearance and infection managements in human beings. Owing to these scientific and medical significances, several experimental and clinical attempts have to be made. Among these attempts, part of them (updating HIV vaccine developments and clinical routines) are quite promising and noteworthy. In this article, we offer the general information of this attempt and discuss it separately, especially on the respects of HIV vaccine strategic innovations.

Background: More than 90% of cancer deaths are caused by cancer metastasis. Cancer metastatic therapy is a top priority topic. Objective: New therapeutics against cancer metastasis is to be discovered. Methods: In the past pathogenesis study, a therapeutic dilemma has been discovered from literatures of epithelial-mesenchymal cell interchange in late-staged cancer patients—opposite tumor pathogenesis routes between primary and metastatic tumors. Results: Possible options for overcoming this dilemma are enlisted from different therapeutic attempts (such as novel drug target (cancer biomarkers) discovery, antimetastatic drug developments, biotherapies, drug combinations, cancer therapeutics according to metastatic cascades, different types of personalized medicine paradigms and so on). Conclusions: These therapeutic options might change the landscape of cancer treatments and managements in clinics forever.

After long defeats-almost no marked breakthrough in HIV vaccination campaign has been observed during the past two decades, and we still have not lost our faiths for the development of highly effective and low risk HIV vaccines. Many effective vaccines have been discovered and will certainly enter into the markets within the next 5 to 10 years. In order to promote HIV vaccine developments and clinical HIV therapeutic improvements, this perspective addresses the good and bad sides of currently available HIV vaccines, discusses many subjects of medical significance and finally provides up-to-date information in the field of HIV studies, in particular regarding vaccine developments and HIV pathogenesis.

Antidepressants generally relief human depressive symptoms and help depressed people. Nevertheless, some undesired clinical events, such as suicide have been emerging more recently. In order to improve and promote antidepressant utilizations in clinics, new researches are focusing on reevaluation of the relationship between efficacy and toxicities of antidepressants in China and US. These researches speed up quickly. Many creative ideas and discoveries have been made, including predictions of the efficacies and toxicities of antidepressants under the same evaluating systems (pharmacogenetics and bioinformatics), genome-wide associate study (GWAS) of the relationship between individual genetic factors and therapeutic outcomes of different types of antidepressants and socio-environmental factors. Hopefully, therapeutic efficacies and outcomes by different types of antidepressant treatments for patients can be improved in clinical trials in the near future.

Clinical cancer treatment and therapy have been gradually improved by experimental and clinical advancements worldwide, especially after the advent of different types of individualized cancer therapy (ICT) and new generations of anticancer drugs. Despite the long history of anticancer drug sensitivity testing (DST), its therapeutic benefits to clinical cancer patients are compromised and controversial. DST techniques are diversified and improved a great deal, but they have not been developed into an overwhelming means to cure all cancer patients in clinics. The retrospection and panorama of historic and evolutionary developments of DST including clinical relevance, advantageous, technical cautions, limitations or even shortcomings of varied models and methodologies at present stage are addressed. Possible future directions and novel ideas are also discussed and highlighted.

The presence of seam gas in the form of methane or carbon dioxide presents a hazard to underground coal mining operations. In-seam drilling has been undertaken for the past three decades for gas drainage to reduce the risk of gas outburst and lower the concentrations of seam gas in the underground ventilation. The drilling practices have reflected the standards of the times and have evolved with the development of technology and equipment and the needs to provide a safe mining environment underground. Early practice was to adapt equipment from other fields, with rotary drilling being the only form of drilling available. This form of drainage allowed various levels of gas drainage coverage but with changing emphasis, research and development within the coal industry has created specific equipment, technology and practices to accurately place in-seam boreholes to provide efficient and effective gas drainage. Research into gas content determination established a standard for the process and safe levels for mining operations to continue. Surveying technology improved from the wire-line, single-shot Eastman survey instruments which was time-dependent on borehole depth to electronic instruments located in the drill string which transmitted accurate survey data to the drilling crew without time delays. This allowed improved directional control and increased drilling rates. Directional drilling technology has now been established as the industry standard to provide effective gas drainage drilling. Exploration was identified as an additional benefit with directional drilling as it has the ability to provide exploration data from long boreholes. The ability of the technology to provide safe and reliable means to investigate the need for inrush protection and water drainage ahead of mining has been established. Directional drilling technology has now been introduced to the Chinese coal industry for gas drainage through a practice of auditing, design, supply, training and ongoing support. Experienced drilling crews can offer site specific gas drainage drilling services utilising the latest equipment and technology.

More than 90 of cancer deaths are caused by cancer metastasis. Since cancer metastasis is the main cause of human deaths, so in this article more attention will be paid to it than ever before. Presently, clinical cancer chemotherapies have been targeting on primary tumors rather than on metastatic processes. Since the antimetastatic drugs are different from antiproliferative drugs and underinvestigated, cancer patients’ survival has been improved on a small scale now. To change this stalemate, this problem is reiterated by an analysis of the relationship between pathology, pharmacology and clinical therapy of neoplasm metastasis and it is suggested to improve the outcome of chemotherapy of cancer patients from different possible ways; e.g. to make more efforts to manufacture new types of antimetastatic drugs and optimize use of these drugs in clinics.

Adverse side effects or toxicities of a drug were previously regarded as a manifestation of drugs own characterizations, such as the chemical structure and property of a drug. More recently, increasing experimental or clinical data and modern ideas suggest that humans genetic factors also play indispensable roles in resulting neural side effects of a drug, especially in antidepressant-induced suicide and antibiotics-induced hearing loss. However, there are many questions and technological obstacles (including high costs and limited samples) in these kinds of researches and this makes genetic study of drug toxicities in its initial stage. In this review, we in depth address and analysis of this matter from some new perspectives and propose some new initiatives to improve this type of researches in future. It is also highly needed to expedite the translation of these pharmacogenetic concepts from bench to bedside.

Bisdioxopiperazine (Biz) compounds, including ICRF-154 and razoxane (ICRF-159, Raz), are anticancer agents developed in the UK specifically targeting tumor metastases. Further three bisdioxopiperazine derivatives, bimolane (Bim), probimane (Pro) and MST- 16, have been synthesized at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PR China after 1980. Since metastases, the prevailing deadliest pathologic feature of cancer in clinics, have been the main obstacle in cancer therapy, antimetastatic effects and mechanisms of Biz compounds are interesting and significant topics of all time for researchers undergoing the investigations of metastases biology, treatments and patho-physiology. This review addresses and highlights the different inhibitions against metastases in vivo and molecular mechanisms in vitro of Biz compounds especially relating to the inhibitions of tumor metastasis including pathways of inhibitions against angiogenesis, topoisomerase II, calmodulin, sialic acid, fibrinogen, cell-movement and so on. We argue hererin that the systematic exploration of antimetastatic activity and mechanisms of Biz compounds seems to be a shortcut for a final solution of cancer therapy in the future.

Bisdioxopiperazine compounds, including ICRF-154 and razoxane (ICRF-159, Raz), are anticancer agents developed in the UK specifically targeting tumor metastases. Further two bisdioxopiperazine derivatives, probimane (Pro) and MST-16, have been synthesized at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PR China after 1980. Anticancer activities and mechanisms of Pro and MST-16 compared with Raz, especially for antiproliferative and antimetastatic effects in vivo and in vitro, have been systematically evaluated in this lab as well as by other authors in China. Novel molecular mechanisms especially relating to the inhibition of tumor metastasis between probimane and razoxane have been especially explored and explained, including pathways of inhibitions against calmodulin, sialic acid, lipoperoxidation, fibrinogen, cell-movement and the cell-cycle arrest. The distributions and excretions of 14[C]-Pro in mice have been carefully monitored long before for explaining the relationship of pharmacological data between in vitro and in vivo evaluations. Pro is more soluble in water and more strongly active against tumors than Raz. In our point of view, Pro seems to inherit and retain most of the targets and pathways of other bisdioxopiperazine compounds currently in use and is cytotoxically more potent than the rest of bisdioxopiperazine compounds. Therefore, there is a great potential and significance for further investigations.

The effect of Ta seed layers and Ta cap layers on the effective magnetic thickness of ultrathin permalloy (Ni₈₁Fe₁₉) was experimentally investigated for magnetic random access memory applications. The films were deposited by magnetron sputtering. For a Ta/Ni₈₁Fe₁₉/Ta fundamental structure, the Ta seed and Ta cap layers resulted in a loss of moment equivalent to a magnetically dead layer of thickness 1.6±0.2 nm. In order to find the mechanism, the composition and chemical states at the interface regions of Ta/Ni₈₁Fe₁₉ and Ni₈₁Fe₁₉/Ta were studied using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and the peak decomposition technique. The results show that there are thermodynamically favourable reactions at the Ta/Ni₈₁Fe₁₉ and Ni₈₁Fe₁₉/Ta interfaces: 2Ta + Ni = NiTa₂.