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Analysis Of Cathepsin And Furin Proteolytic Enzymes Involved In Viral Fusion Protein Activation In Cells Of The Bat Reservoir Host, Farah El Najjar, Levi Lampe, Michelle L. Baker, Lin-Fa Wang, Rebecca Ellis Dutch

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Bats of different species play a major role in the emergence and transmission of highly pathogenic viruses including Ebola virus, SARS-like coronavirus and the henipaviruses. These viruses require proteolytic activation of surface envelope glycoproteins needed for entry, and cellular cathepsins have been shown to be involved in proteolysis of glycoproteins from these distinct virus families. Very little is currently known about the available proteases in bats. To determine whether the utilization of cathepsins by bat-borne viruses is related to the nature of proteases in their natural hosts, we examined proteolytic processing of several viral fusion proteins in cells derived from …

West Nile Virus, Sarene Smith, Preston Still

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

West Nile is a virus which means that West Nile is not a living organism and the only goal the virus has is to reproduce. The virus does this by taking over a host cell, attaching itself to the host cell and takes the cellular machinery needed to replicate itself. Once the virus is done and leaves, the host cell can also be used to infect other cells; therefore spreading the virus throughout the organism. (Campbell, Marfin, Lanciotti & Gubler, 2002).

Chagas Disease: “The Kiss Of Death”, Jessica Rogers, Stacy Castro

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

Chagas disease is a vector transmitted disease also known as American trypanosomiasis. Chagas disease is classified as a protist or protozoa, which is a simplified version of ‘animal-like single celled organism that is like a multicellular organism’. This is because of the trypanosoma cruzi which is the protist itself (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2012). This disease’s life cycle is complicated. The trypanosoma cruzi changes forms in its life cycle as it travels from hosts. The disease is first transmitted by the vector as it takes a blood meal. This is where the disease then takes over the cells near …

What Is Dysentery?, Rory Malek, Zach Hutchens

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

Dysentery is a disease that affects the digestive system and has many grotesque symptoms, such as diarrhea and vomiting. Dysentery is considered more of a set of symptoms instead of an actual organism, but it is almost always caused by a bacterium.

Yellow Fever, Harrison Gibbs, Emma Ward

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

Yellow Fever is a disease that is most common in Africa and South America that causes severe discomfort and has a high mortality rate, of the estimated over 200,000 cases of Yellow Fever, 30,000 cases end in death. Since it is so dangerous, it is important to know how to prevent and treat it if someone ever wanted to travel to either of those places. The disease is relatively easy to avoid, all someone really need to do is avoid mosquitoes either by wearing protective clothing or by avoiding high density mosquito areas. If one were get Yellow Fever, they …

H1n1 Influenza Virus, Kail Consford, Drew Patel

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

On April 17, 2009, two patients in the United States were found with Swine-Origin Influenza A (H1N1) virus. This virus was spread to Mexico, Canada, and many other countries. From April 15 through May 5, a total of 642 confirmed cases of H1N1 infection were identified in 41 states. The ages of the patients were from 3 months to 81 years, and 60% of the patients were 18 or younger. Most of these patients recently came from either Mexico or even from school outbreaks. The most common symptoms were fever, cough, and a sore throat. The H1N1 was determined to …

Lyme Disease, Marin Olson Beal

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

When asked to think of headlining diseases, many would choose bubonic plague, smallpox, Ebola, or leprosy. However, Lyme disease makes up for more confirmed diagnostic cases in the United States than all the aforementioned diseases combined. In 2014 alone, in the United States, 119 diagnostic cases were confirmed of bubonic plague, smallpox, Ebola, and leprosy altogether, while there were over 25,000 confirmed cases of Lyme disease (CDC, 2015). More information is needed to understand Lyme disease and how to treat it, before any more lives are lost.

Smallpox Infectious Disease, Miranda Allbee, Brandon Smith

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

Smallpox is a disease similar to chicken pox, but not exactly the same. Smallpox is caused by a virus called Variola and is a member of the genus orthopoxvirus. The virus is a large brick shaped DNA virus. Smallpox spreads by direct, face to face contact with an infected person or by contact with infected body fluids or contaminated objects such as clothing. Smallpox is rarely spread through airborne transmission and is not known to be transmitted by animals or insects. The incubation period lasts from 7 to 17 days, during which infected individuals often show no symptoms and are …

Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, Reuben Ninan

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

The Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is a tick-borne infectious viral disease in the family Bunyaviridae. The disease was first characterized in the Crimea in 1944 and given the name Crimean hemorrhagic fever. CCHF was then later recognized in 1969 as the cause of illness in the Congo, thus resulting in the current name of the disease. CCHF causes severe viral hemorrhagic fever outbreaks (CDC, 2014).

The Bubonic Plague, Matthew Morin, Ashton Westbrook

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

The bubonic plague is a very serious infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The plague is a zoonotic disease, which means it is usually transmitted to humans by animals. It is commonly transmitted through the bites of infected fleas or coming in direct contact with infected animal tissue (Schoenstadt, 2006). The bacterium can be found in fleas or small rodents such as chipmunks, squirrels, rats, or prairie dogs. The symptoms, including fever, chills, headache, and hemorrhages under the skin causing discoloration, are very harsh and unpleasant. This disease is infectious and extremely severe, and it is deadly if …

Typhoid Fever, Christian Nicholas

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

Typhoid fever is a waterborne disease. There are a reported 16 million illnesses and 600,000 deaths annually (Crump, 2010). Most cases occur in developing countries; however, citizens of developed countries who visit developing ones are at risk of catching this disease (CDC, 2013). The disease is caused by Salmonella typhi, which infects the lymph nodes, necessary for immune response. Basic symptoms include a prolonged fever, interruptions in proper bowel function (constipation and diarrhea), severe cough, and in some cases, rose-colored spots on the patient. Salmonella typhi is a gram-negative bacteria that can only be carried by humans. There is also …

African Trypanosomiasis (Sleeping Sickness), Pedro Garcia, Austin Burton

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

No abstract provided.

Dengue Fever, Ashley Hernandez, Chris Harkness

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

In recent years, the transmission of dengue fever has increased surprisingly fast and has become a major international public health concern. As of today this disease has mainly affected large countries and has become a leading cause of hospitalization and death among children in the certain areas. The amount of people that have got this infection has dramatically increase in recent decades. Over 40% of the world’s population are currently at risk of getting Dengue Fever. There is now an estimate of 50-100 million people that catch this disease every year (World Health Organization, 2002).

A Look Into Tuberculosis, Adrian Vega, Brennan Heath

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

Tuberculosis is a Mycobacterium which is a genus classified in the phylum Actinobacteria. This genus is known to cause diseases in mammals. Tuberculosis' scientific name is Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Robert Koch discovered pathogenic bacterial species discovered in 1882 by. M. tuberculosis has a waxy coating on the cell's surface which makes it unable to be Gram stained.(Brennan, 2003). Gram staining is a method to differentiate bacterial species into two groups. This bacterium is Gram-negative because the waxy coating will not absorb the stain. When M. tuberculosis is in the lungs it is engulfed by macrophages trying to eradicate the disease, but …

Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever (Ebolavirus), Katie Mckee, Maria Hernandez

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

Without treatment, the Ebola Virus (also known as hemorrhagic fever) has up to a 90% fatality rate. Understanding this disease could help save a person’s life, especially if that person has recently traveled to Africa.

Cholera Research Poster, James Sowards, Mac Duffield

Infectious Diseases Project 2015

Cholera kills 142,000 on average a year, each of these lives being equally important. In Haiti a huge outbreak of cholera occurred. So many people died it made the population unable to recover from such an epidemic. Cholera might not be as important to people that do not live near the area affected but it has changed the lives of many people around the world (WebMD LLC, 1994-2015).

Taphonomic Considerations For The Analysis Of Parasites From Archaeological Contexts, Johnica J. Morrow, Dario Piombino-Mascali, Karl J. Reinhard

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Faculty Publications

Discusses the role of taphonomy in archaeaoparasitology investigations. Enumerates various factors involved in preservation techniques. Gives cases from Lithuania, Belgium, and Italy. Concludes that considering the taphonomic factors associated with archaeological materials is a vital component in the interpretation of archaeoparasitological data.

Directed Evolution Of A Yeast-Displayed Hiv-1 Sosip Gp140 Spike Protein Toward Improved Expression And Affinity For Conformational Antibodies, Sebastian K. Grimm, Michael B. Battles, Margaret E. Ackerman

Dartmouth Scholarship

Design of an envelope-based immunogen capable of inducing a broadly neutralizing anti- body response is thought to be key to the development of a protective HIV-1 vaccine. How- ever, the broad diversity of viral variants and a limited ability to produce native envelope have hampered such design efforts. Here we describe adaptation of the yeast display sys- tem and use of a combinatorial protein engineering approach to permit directed evolution of HIV envelope variants. Because the intrinsic instability and complexity of this trimeric glyco- protein has greatly impeded the development of immunogens that properly represent the structure of native envelope, …

Mathematics' Vaughan Leads Honorees For Service Awards Recognition, Natalie Wade

Browse All News

No abstract provided.

Cultivating The Uncultured: Growing The Recalcitrant Cluster-2 Frankia Strains, Maher Gtari, Faten Ghodhbane-Gtari, Imen Nouioui, Amir Ktari, Karima Hezbri, Wajdi Mimouni, Imed Sbissi, Amani Ayari, Takashi Yamanaka, Philippe Normand, Louis S. Tisa, Abdellatif Boudabous

New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station Publications

The repeated failures reported in cultivating some microbial lineages are a major challenge in microbial ecology and probably linked, in the case of Frankia microsymbionts to atypical patterns of auxotrophy. Comparative genomics of the so far uncultured cluster-2 Candidatus Frankia datiscae Dg1, with cultivated Frankiae has revealed genome reduction, but no obvious physiological impairments. A direct physiological assay on nodule tissues from Coriaria myrtifolia infected with a closely-related strain permitted the identification of a requirement for alkaline conditions. A high pH growth medium permitted the recovery of a slow-growing actinobacterium. The strain obtained, called BMG5.1, has short hyphae, produced diazovesicles …

Binding Of Cxcl8/Il-8 To Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Modulates The Innate Immune Response, Agnieszka Krupa, Marek Fol, Bozena R. Dziadek, Ewa Kepka, Dominika Wojciechowska, Anna Brzostek, Agnieszka Torzewska, Jaroslaw Dziadek, Robert P. Baughman, David Griffith, Anna K. Kurdowska

Cellular and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Interleukin-8 (IL-8) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of several human respiratory diseases, including tuberculosis (TB). Importantly and in direct relevance to the objectives of this report quite a few findings suggest that the presence of IL-8 may be beneficial for the host. IL-8 may aid with mounting an adequate response during infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb); however, the underlying mechanism remains largely unknown. The major goal of our study was to investigate the contribution of IL-8 to the inflammatory processes that are typically elicited in patients with TB. We have shown for the first time that IL-8 can …

Under-Reporting Of Dietary Energy Intake In Five Populations Of The African Diaspora, Lindsay Orcholski, Amy Luke, Jacob Plange-Rhule, Pascal Bovet, Terrence E. Forrester, Estelle V. Lambert, Lara R. Dugas, Elizabeth Kettmann, Ramon A. Durazo-Arvizu, Richard S. Cooper, Dale A. Schoeller

Faculty Publications

Studies on the role of diet in the development of chronic diseases often rely on self-report surveys of dietary intake. Unfortunately, many validity studies have demonstrated that self-reported dietary intake is subject to systematic under-reporting, although the vast majority of such studies have been conducted in industrialised countries. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether or not systematic reporting error exists among the individuals of African ancestry (n 324) in five countries distributed across the Human Development Index (HDI) scale, a UN statistic devised to rank countries on non-income factors plus economic indicators. Using two 24 h …

The Parasite Ichthyophonus Sp. In Pacific Herring From The Coastal Ne Pacific, P K. Hershberger, J L. Gregg, L M. Hart, S Moffitt, R Brenner, K Stick, E Coonradt, E O. Otis, J J. Vollenweider, K A. Garver, J Lovy, T R. Meyers

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

The protistan parasite Ichthyophonus occurred in populations of Pacific herring Clupea pallasii Valenciennes throughout coastal areas of the NE Pacific, ranging from Puget Sound, WA north to the Gulf of Alaska, AK. Infection prevalence in local Pacific herring stocks varied seasonally and annually, and a general pattern of increasing prevalence with host size and/or age persisted throughout the NE Pacific. An exception to this zoographic pattern occurred among a group of juvenile, age 1+ year Pacific herring from Cordova Harbor, AK in June 2010, which demonstrated an unusually high infection prevalence of 35%. Reasons for this anomaly were hypothesized to …

Genetic Studies Of Body Mass Index Yield New Insights For Obesity Biology, A. E. Locke, B. Kahali, S. I. Berndt, A. E. Justice, T. H. Pers, F. R. Day, C. Powell, S. Vedantam, M. L. Buchkovich, J. Yang, D. C. Croteau-Chonka, T. Esko, T. Fall, T. Ferreira, S. Gustafsson, Z. Kutalik, J. Luan, R. Mägi, J. C. Randall, T. W. Winkler, A. R. Wood, T. Workalemahu, J. D. Faul, J. A. Smith, J. H. Zhao, W. Zhao, J. Chen, R. Fehrmann, K. Hedman, J. Karjalainen, E. M. Schmidt, D. Absher, N. Amin

Faculty Publications

Obesity is heritable and predisposes to many diseases. To understand the genetic basis of obesity better, here we conduct a genome-wide association study and Metabochip meta-analysis of body mass index (BMI), a measure commonly used to define obesity and assess adiposity, in up to 339,224 individuals. This analysis identifies 97 BMI-associated loci (P < 5 × 10-8), 56 of which are novel. Five loci demonstrate clear evidence of several independent association signals, and many loci have significant effects on other metabolic phenotypes. The 97 loci account for ∼2.7% of BMI variation, and genome-wide estimates suggest that common variation accounts for >20 % of BMI variation. Pathway analyses provide strong support for a role of the central nervous system in obesity susceptibility and implicate new genes and pathways, including those related to synaptic function, glutamate signalling, insulin secretion/action, energy metabolism, lipid biology and adipogenesis.

Wsu Board Of Trustees Meeting Minutes, February 12-13, 2015

Board of Trustees Minutes

Minutes from the Wright State University Board of Trustees Meeting held on February 12-13, 2015.

The Public Health Service, Jennifer Jenson

National Health Policy Forum

This document provides an overview of the Public Health Service (PHS) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including a brief history and discussion of the agencies and offices that constitute the PHS today. Information on the mission, key programs, and budgets of PHS agencies and offices is also included.

Food As A Key Resource For Security And Stability: Implications Of Changes In The Global Food System 1950-2000, Bryan L. Mcdonald

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

Food security remains an urgent problem affecting the national security and interests of states, as well as the human security of people and communities around the world. This article examines the changing landscape of food security threats and vulnerabilities by examining three sets of concerns that are converging to amplify, disrupt, and transform food relations: nutrition, food safety, and global environmental change. Ensuring food security will require utilization of a range of capabilities from the state, private, and non-state sectors to confront world food problems and build a sustainable and resilient world food network.

Law, Ethics, And Public Health In The Vaccination Debates: Politics Of The Measles Outbreak, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The measles outbreak of early 2015 is symptomatic of a larger societal problem–the growing number of parents who decide against vaccinating their children. This failure is causing the resurgence of childhood diseases once eliminated from the United States.

This article explores the legal and ethical landscape of vaccine exemptions. While all states require childhood vaccinations, they differ significantly in the types of religious and/or philosophical exemptions permitted, the rigor of the application process, and available review mechanisms. States with relaxed exemption policies disproportionately experience more outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease.

Vaccine exemptions are an illustration of the “tragedy of the commons,” …

Systems-Based Analysis Of The Sarcocystis Neurona Genome Identifies Pathways That Contribute To A Heteroxenous Life Cycle, Tomasz Blazejewski, Nirvana Nursimulu, Viviana Pszenny, Sriveny Dangoudoubiyam, Sivaranjani Namasivayam, Melissa A. Chiasson, Kyle Chessman, Michelle Tonkin, Lakshmipuram S. Swapna, Stacy S. Hung, Joshua Bridgers, Stacy M. Ricklefs, Martin J. Boulanger, Jitender P. Dubey, Stephen F. Porcella, Jessica C. Kissinger, Daniel K. Howe, Michael E. Grigg, John Parkinson

Veterinary Science Faculty Publications

Sarcocystis neurona is a member of the coccidia, a clade of single-celled parasites of medical and veterinary importance including Eimeria, Sarcocystis, Neospora, and Toxoplasma. Unlike Eimeria, a single-host enteric pathogen, Sarcocystis, Neospora, and Toxoplasma are two-host parasites that infect and produce infectious tissue cysts in a wide range of intermediate hosts. As a genus, Sarcocystis is one of the most successful protozoan parasites; all vertebrates, including birds, reptiles, fish, and mammals are hosts to at least one Sarcocystis species. Here we sequenced Sarcocystis neurona, the causal agent of fatal equine protozoal myeloencephalitis. The …

Diagnosis Of Strongylus Vulgaris, Martin K. Nielsen, Ulla Anderson, Daniel K. Howe

Veterinary Science Faculty Patents

Embodiments of the presently-disclosed subject matter provide an isolated polypeptide comprising the sequence of SEQ ID NO: 1, fragments thereof, and/or epitopes thereof. Embodiments of the presently-disclosed subject matter also provide methods for diagnosing a Strongylus vulgaris infection in a subject that comprises providing a biological sample from the subject and contacting the sample with the present isolated polypeptide, fragment thereof, and/or epitope thereof. In some embodiments theStrongylus vulgaris infection can be detected during a prepatent period. In further embodiments the subject is a horse.