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Objective To describe the development and pilot testing of a set of admissions instruments based on the McMaster University multiple mini-interview (MMI) and designed to assess desirable, non-cognitive characteristics in order to inform final decisions on candidate selection for entry to medical school. Methods Community and faculty consultation on desirable, non-cognitive characteristics of medical students informed the development of a 10-station interview. Two stations occurred as part of a group problem-based learning scenario and 8 occurred as individual observations. All interviewers were trained. Interviews were offered to 115 candidates on an academic merit list. Interview performance was used to exclude candidates considered unsuitable, but not to re-order the academic merit list. Admissions decisions were examined in terms of individual interview station performance. Results This method proved to be an efficient process by which to interview candidates and to determine suitability. Retained and rejected candidates had significantly different total scores and mean scores for each station. Ten independent observations contributed to each decision, without significant interviewer or logistic burden. Candidates reported high levels of satisfaction with the interview process. Conclusions Admissions interviews can be streamlined and efficient, yet remain informative. A longitudinal study is in progress to evaluate the value of the admissions processes in predicting successful graduation to medical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inbred mice of various strains, 3–4 months of age and 16 months or older, were given primary injections of allogeneic spleen cells to observe the lime of appearance and relative levels of alloantibodies of IgG1 and IgG2 class. In 3–4 month old C3H mice injected with BALB/c spleen cells, IgG2 alloantibodies were present on day 6, before the appearance of alloantibodies of IgG1 class. The IgG2 class alloantibodies then continued to increase in level until day 12. IgG1 class antibodies, which appeared after day 6, also increased during this period. When C3H mice at 16 months of age were similarly injected a difference in response was found in that IgG2 class alloantibodies did not increase in level after the appearance of those of the IgG1 class, but IgG1 class alloantibodies increased until day 12, as in the young mice. At intermediate ages smaller effects in the same directions were observed. Young BALB/c mice injected with C3H spleen cells gave responses similar to those of the young C3H mice. At 16 months, however, the response was not different from that of the young BALB/c mice. At older ages (19–25 months) the response of BALB/c mice was similar to that of the 16-month-old C3H mice described above. CBA mice of various ages which were injected with BALB/c spleen cells showed effects similar to that of the DALB/c mice in that a change of response seen in the older CBA mice, similar to that of the other two strains, did not appear at 16 months of age but did appear later C20–24 months). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent study of the effects on skin allografts of alloantibody-containing globulins of the mouse indicated that such globulins can have a variety of effects on the fate of the grafts, ranging from accelerated rejection to prolonged retention. We have also shown evidence of the presence in such globulins of anti-graft strain antibodies of IgG2 class by complement-dependent reactions of such globulin, and of antibodies of IgG1 class by the finding that the titres of these reactions were elevated on treatment of the globulin with anti-mouse IgG1 serum. Further, it was shown that the increasing titre of these antibodies on treatment with increasing amounts of the anti-IgG1 serum reached a plateau level which is the actual titre of an IgG2 anti-graft strain antibody, such as the suppressive antibody, in these preparations. The difference between the plateau level and the original level of suppressive titre was therefore considered to provide a measure of the competing, IgG1 -class, antibody. The present study has examined the relation, in anti-graft strain ascitic fluid globulin preparations, between this measure of relative content of anti-graft strain antibody of IgG1 class and the effects of these globulins on the fate of skin allografts. Of globulin preparations which had caused various effects on the skin grafts, portions were treated by adding increasing amounts of anti-mouse IgG1, removing the resulting precipitates, and testing the supernatant fluids for suppressive titre, to determine the plateau level of titre attained. All pools which caused accelerated rejection of BALB/c skin grafts showed increases from original to plateau titres in the lowest range, log2 0.1-1.2; all those causing prolonged retention showed such differences in the highest range observed, log2 2.1-3.1. Globulins giving partial effects of accelerated rejection, or negative results, showed corresponding intermediate of ranges the increases in titre produced by the anti-IgG1 serum. For a test of this relation, use was made of an earlier observation of a failure to produce accelerated rejection by later-day globulins of mice which had, at 11-13 days, produced rejecting globulins. The failure to cause accelerated rejection by such later-day globulins was confirmed, and these later globulins also showed consistently greater increases of titre from original to plateau level. Similarly, of mice whose 11-13-day globulin pools had caused no significant difference from normal rejection time, later globulins showed, again, greater differences between original and plateau titres than the 11-13-day globulins, and again a difference in effect on skin graft rejection, in this case a significant prolongation of raft retention, in comparison with the negative results given by the 11-13-day pools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rabbits homozygous for each of an allelic pair of allotypes of γ globulin (A4 and A5) were used as donors and recipients of transferred antigen-incubated lymph node cells, the cells of donors of one allotype being in each case transferred to recipients of the other. When agglutinins to Shigella (the source of the antigen with which the lymph node dells were incubated) appeared in the sera of the recipient animals, the allotype of the agglutinin was determined by adsorbing it to Shigella on a glass slide, then treating the preparations with fluorescein-conjugated rabbit anti-A5-γ-globulin and anti-A4-γ-globulin antisera, respectively. In each case the reactions of the recipients' sera were positive for γ globulin of the donors' allotype but not of their own. Positive reactions were given only by sera above a certain range of agglutinin titre. After sufficient decline of the agglutinin level in the sera of the recipients, these animals were actively immunized with Shigella. The agglutinins that now appeared in these rabbits gave positive reactions with the fluorescent antibody against their own allotype. These data indicated that in moderately X-irradiated rabbits given antigen-incubated rabbit lymph node cells, the antibody that subsequently appears in the recipient's serum has been synthesized by the donor's cells. These experiments also illustrate the use of allotypes as genetic markers in lymph node cell transfer experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]