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Over the past 20 years, the Korean government has developed child welfare laws to respond to an increasing number of child maltreatment cases and create a centralized child welfare delivery system. However, the system remains fragmented and under‐developed due to a lack of understanding of child maltreatment and limited government support. Further, few studies have comprehensively reviewed the system. This study examines the Korean child welfare system, identifies challenges for child welfare policies and services, and discusses the implications for future policy; the results can be used to improve the safety, permanency, and well‐being of children and families in Korea. The analysis shows that the government has prioritized family preservation over removal from families, even in substantiated cases of abuse. However, ensuring the safety of children in Korea will require not only working to preserve families but also developing and implementing better options for in‐home services and out‐of‐home placement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glioblastoma is the most frequent and aggressive brain tumour in humans with median survival from 12 to 15 months after the diagnosis. This is mostly due to therapy resistant glioblastoma stem cells in addition to intertumour heterogeneity that is due to infiltration of a plethora of host cells. Besides endothelial cells, mesenchymal stem cells and their differentiated progenies, immune cells of various differentiation states, including monocytes, comprise resident, brain tumour microenvironment. There are compelling evidence for CCL5/CCR5 in the invasive and metastatic behaviour of many cancer types. CCR5, a G-protein coupled receptor, known to function as an essential co-receptor for HIV entry, is now known to participate in driving tumour heterogeneity, the formation of cancer stem cells and the promotion of cancer invasion and metastasis. Clinical trials have recently opened targeting CCR5 using a humanized monoclonal antibody (leronlimab) for metastatic triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) or a small molecule inhibitor (maraviroc) for metastatic colon cancer. There are important CCL5 and CCR5 structure and signalling mechanisms in glioblastoma. In addition, the CCL5/CCR5 axis directs infiltration and interactions with monocytes/macrophages and mesenchymal stem cells, comprising glioblastoma stem cell niches.

Glioblastoma is a highly aggressive central nervous system neoplasm characterized by extensive infiltration of malignant cells into brain parenchyma, thus preventing complete tumor eradication. Cysteine cathepsins B, S, L and K are involved in cancer progression and are overexpressed in glioblastoma. We report here for the first time that cathepsin X mRNA and protein are also abundantly present in malignant glioma.

Detection of circulating lung cancer cells with cancer-stem like characteristics would represent an improved tool for disease prognosis. However, current antibodies based methods have some disadvantages and therefore cell SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) was used to develop DNA aptamers, recognizing cell surface markers of non-small lung carcinoma (NSLC) cells.

In recent times, public policy-making in Korea has increasingly led to serious social conflicts. Competing and conflicting interests become publicly exposed in various, usually angry, ways such as wild picketing and disruptive demonstrations. In any society, public policy-making is usually associated with social conflicts, but the level and magnitude of social conflicts and, as a result, disarray in the policy-making process in Korea, have been unprecedented. This article argues that the Korean government's inattention to public discourse and policy-making strategies is largely responsible for the difficulties it has experienced in recent years. Korean society still lacks an effective decision-making system that could allow effective communication between policy stakeholders and coordinate their legitimate demands. By utilizing a public discourse perspective, this article provides detailed analyses of policy-making difficulties in Korea and proposes alternative ways to reach a social consensus for conflict-ridden social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attractive approach in the study of human cancers is the use of transparent zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos, which enable the visualization of cancer progression in a living animal.