famata, C. glabrata, C. guilliermondii, C, kefyr, C. krusei, C. lusitaniae, C. parapsilosis, C. tropicalis), ranged from 97.1-100% and 99.8-100%, respectively. For the other organism targets, sensitivity and specificity were as follows 100% each for Cryptococcus neoformans and C. gattii, 98.6% and 100% for Fusarium spp. and 96.2% and 99.9% for Rhodotorula spp. respectively. In 4 of the 141 clinical samples, the BCID-FP Panel correctly identified an additional Candida species, undetected by standard-of-care methods.Conclusion The BCID-FP Panel offers a faster turnaround time for identification of fungal pathogens in positive blood cultures that may allow for earlier antifungal interventions and, includes C. auris, a highly multi-drug resistant fungus. Copyright © 2020 Zhang et al.There are roughly 48,000 deaths caused by influenza annually and an estimated 200,000 people who have undiagnosed Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). These are examples of acute and chronic illnesses that can be identified by employing a CLIA-waived test. Pharmacies across the country have been incorporating CLIA-waived point-of-care tests (POCT) into disease screening and management programs offered in the pharmacy. The rationale behind these programs will be discussed. Additionally, a summary of clinical data for some of these programs in the infectious diseases arena will be provided. Lastly, we will discuss the future potential for CLIA-waived POCT-based programs in community pharmacies. Copyright © 2020 American Society for Microbiology.The number of onsite clinical microbiology laboratories in hospitals is decreasing, likely related to the business model for laboratory consolidation and labor shortages, and this impacts a variety of clinical practices including banking isolates for clinical or epidemiologic purposes. To determine the impact of these trends, infectious disease (ID) physicians were surveyed regarding their perceptions of offsite services. Clinical microbiology practices for retention of clinical isolates for future use were also determined. Surveys were sent to members of the Infectious Diseases Society of America's (IDSA) Emerging Infections Network (EIN). The EIN is a sentinel network of ID physicians who care for adult and/or pediatric patients in North America and who are members of IDSA. The response rate was 763 (45%) of 1,680 potential respondents. Five hundred forty (81%) respondents reported interacting with the clinical microbiology laboratory.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/liraglutide.html  Eighty-six percent of respondents thought an onsite laboratory very important for timely diagnostic reporting and ongoing communication with the clinical microbiologist. Thirty-five percent practiced in institutions where the core microbiology laboratory has been moved offsite, and an additional 7% (N=38) reported that movement of core laboratory functions offsite was being considered. The respondents reported that only 24% of laboratories banked all isolates with the majority saving isolates for less than 30 days. Based on these results, the trend towards centralized core laboratories negatively impacts the practice of ID physicians, potentially delays effective implementation of prompt and targeted care for patients with serious infections, and similarly adversely impacts infection control epidemiologic investigations. Copyright © 2020 American Society for Microbiology.Quantitative bacterial culture of bronchoalveolar lavage fluids (BALF) is labor intensive, and the delay involved in culture, definitive identification and susceptibility testing often results in prolonged use of broad-spectrum antibiotics. The Unyvero Lower Respiratory Tract (LRT) Panel (Curetis; Holzgerlingen, Germany) allows for the multiplexed rapid detection and identification of 20 potential etiologic agents of pneumonia within 5 hours of collection. In addition, the assay includes detection of gene sequences that confer antimicrobial resistance.We retrospectively compared the performance of the molecular panel to routine quantitative bacterial culture methods on remnant BALF. Of 175 BALF tested, we were able to analyze positive agreement of 181 targets from 129 samples, and 46 samples were negative. The positive percent agreement (PPA) among the microbial targets was 96.5% and the negative percent agreement (NPA) was 99.6%. The targets with PPA less then 100% were Staphylococcus aureus (34/37, 91.9%), Streptococcus pneumoniae (10/11, 90.9%) and Enterobacter cloacae complex (2/4, 50%). For the analyzable resistance targets, concordance with phenotypic susceptibility testing was 79% (14/18). This study found the Unyvero LRT panel largely concordant with culture results; however, no outcome or clinical impact studies were performed. Copyright © 2020 American Society for Microbiology.Cortical projections to thalamus arise from corticothalamic (CT) neurons in layer 6 and pyramidal tract type (PT) neurons in layer 5B. We dissected the excitatory synaptic connections in somatosensory thalamus formed by CT and PT neurons of primary somatosensory (S1) cortex, focusing on mouse forelimb S1. Mice of both sexes were studied. The CT neurons in S1 synaptically excited S1-projecting thalamocortical (TC) neurons in subregions of both the ventral posterior lateral (VPL) and posterior (PO) nuclei, forming a pair of recurrent cortico-thalamo-cortical (C-T-C) loops. The PT neurons in S1 also formed a recurrent loop with S1-projecting TC neurons in the same subregion of PO. The PT neurons in adjacent primary motor (M1) cortex formed a separate recurrent loop with M1-projecting TC neurons in a nearby subregion of PO. Collectively, our results reveal that C-T-C circuits of mouse forelimb S1 are primarily organized as multiple cortical cell-type- and thalamic subnucleus-specific recurrent loops, with both CTted circuits in other areas suggest that C-T-C circuits may generally be organized primarily as recurrent loops. Copyright © 2020 the authors.Microinjections of a glutamate AMPA antagonist (DNQX) in medial shell of nucleus accumbens (NAc) can cause either intense appetitive motivation (i.e., desire) or intense defensive motivation (i.e., dread), depending on site along a flexible rostro-caudal gradient and on environmental ambience. DNQX, by blocking excitatory AMPA glutamate inputs, is hypothesized to produce relative inhibitions of NAc neurons. However, given potential alternative explanations, it is not known whether neuronal inhibition is in fact necessary for NAc DNQX microinjections to generate motivations. Here we provide a direct test of whether local neuronal inhibition in NAc is necessary for DNQX microinjections to produce either desire or dread. We used optogenetic channelrhodopsin (ChR2) excitations at the same local sites in NAc as DNQX microinjections to oppose relative neuronal inhibitions induced by DNQX in female and male rats. We found that same-site ChR2 excitation effectively reversed the ability of NAc DNQX microinjections to generate appetitive motivation, and similarly reversed ability of DNQX microinjections to generate defensive motivation.