Medical Microbiology Commons^™

Maternal Obesity Blunts Antimicrobial Responses In Fetal Monocytes, Suhas Sureshchandra, Brianna M. Doratt, Norma Mendza, Oleg Varlamov, Monica Rincon, Nicole E. Marshall, Ilhem Messaoudi

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

Maternal pre-pregnancy (pregravid) obesity is associated with adverse outcomes for both mother and offspring. Amongst the complications for the offspring is increased susceptibility and severity of neonatal infections necessitating admission to the intensive care unit, notably bacterial sepsis and enterocolitis. Previous studies have reported aberrant responses to LPS and polyclonal stimulation by umbilical cord blood monocytes that were mediated by alterations in the epigenome. In this study, we show that pregravid obesity dysregulates umbilical cord blood monocyte responses to bacterial and viral pathogens. Specifically, interferon-stimulated gene expression and inflammatory responses to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and E. coli were significantly …

Sars-Cov-2 Infection And Seroconversion Rates In Healthcare Providers Prior To Covid-19 Vaccine Rollout, Sanghyuk S. Shin, Miriam Bender, Delphine C. Malherbe, Hannah Vasquez, Brianna M. Doratt, Ilhem Messaoudi

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

Objective: A 6-month longitudinal surveillance study of asymptomatic healthcare providers (HCP) was carried out at a large urban academic medical center in the United States to assess whether their job occupation with higher exposure risks to SARS-CoV-2 would equate with higher risk of contracting COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic before COVID-19 vaccines were available.

Methods: A longitudinal cohort study design was used to collect and analyze immunological and virological monitoring data and self-report survey assessments of personal protective equipment (PPE) availability, adherence to infection control guidelines, and time spent on COVID-19 wards.

Results: Among 289 eligible participants, SARS-CoV-2 …

Single-Dose Vsv-Based Vaccine Protects Cynomolgus Macaques From Disease After Taï Forest Virus Infection, Paige Fletcher, Kyle L. O'Donnell, Brianna M. Doratt, Delphine C. Malherbe, Chad S. Clancy, Joseph F. Rhoderick, Friederike Feldmann, Patrick W. Hanley, Thomas G. Ksiazek, Thomas W. Geisbert, Ilhem Messaoudi, Andrea Marzi

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

Taï Forest virus (TAFV) is a lesser-known ebolavirus that causes lethal infections in chimpanzees and is responsible for a single human case. Limited research has been done on this human pathogen; however, with the recent emergence of filoviruses in West Africa, further investigation and countermeasure development against this virus is warranted. We developed a vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-based vaccine expressing the TAFV glycoprotein as the viral antigen and assessed it for protective efficacy in nonhuman primates (NHPs). Following a single high-dose vaccination, NHPs developed antigen-specific binding and neutralizing antibodies as well as modest T cell responses. Importantly, all vaccinated NHPs …

Transcriptional Profiling Of Immune Responses In Nhps After Low-Dose, Vsv-Based Vaccination Against Marburg Virus, Cecilia A. Prator, Brianna M. Doratt, Kyle L. O'Donnell, Justin Lack, Amanda N. Pinski, Stacy M. Ricklefs, Craig A. Martens, Ilhem Messaoudi, Andrea Marzi

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

Infection with Marburg virus (MARV), the causative agent of Marburg virus disease (MVD), results in haemorrhagic disease and high case fatality rates (>40%) in humans. Despite its public health relevance, there are no licensed vaccines or therapeutics to prevent or treat MVD. A vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-based vaccine expressing the MARV glycoprotein (VSV-MARV) is currently in clinical development. Previously, a single 10 million PFU dose of VSV-MARV administered 1–5 weeks before lethal MARV challenge conferred uniform protection in nonhuman primates (NHPs), demonstrating fast-acting potential. Additionally, our group recently demonstrated that even a low dose VSV-MARV (1000 PFU) protected NHPs …

Comparing The Microbiomes Of Dental Plaques In 19th Century Ancestral Remains, Ananya Udyaver

UROP Posters

During the construction of VCU’s Hermes A. Kontos Medical Sciences Building in April 1994, nineteenth century ancestral remains were found in an abandoned well on the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) campus. This well, now known as the East Marshall Street Well (EMSW), is thought to have been used as a disposal location for cadaver dissection for surgical and other medical waste in the past. VCU is now seeking to use DNA sequencing technology to match and assemble bones from each individual for a proper burial, uncover the cultural and historical context in which these people lived, and bring a …

Risk Factors Associated With Severe Clostridioides Difficile Infection In Patients With Cancer, Denise Marie A Francisco, Liangliang Zhang, Ying Jiang, Adilene Olvera, Javier Adachi, Eduardo Yepez Guevara, Samuel L Aitken, Kevin W Garey, Christine B Peterson, Kim-Anh Do, Ryan Dillon, Engels N Obi, Robert Jenq, Pablo C Okhuysen

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: Antibiotic use is a risk factor for Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). Few studies have correlated use of prior antibiotic classes with CDI, microbiome composition, and disease severity in patients with cancer. We hypothesized that previous antibiotic exposure and fecal microbiome composition at time of presentation are risk factors for severe CDI in patients with cancer.

METHODS: This non-interventional, prospective, cohort study examined 200 patients with cancer who had their first episode or first recurrence of CDI. C. difficile was identified using nucleic acid amplification testing. Univariate analysis was used to determine significant risk factors for severe CDI. Fecal microbiome …

Sparse Tree-Based Clustering Of Microbiome Data To Characterize Microbiome Heterogeneity In Pancreatic Cancer, Yushu Shi, Liangliang Zhang, Kim-Anh Do, Robert Jenq, Christine B Peterson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

There is a keen interest in characterizing variation in the microbiome across cancer patients, given increasing evidence of its important role in determining treatment outcomes. Here our goal is to discover subgroups of patients with similar microbiome profiles. We propose a novel unsupervised clustering approach in the Bayesian framework that innovates over existing model-based clustering approaches, such as the Dirichlet multinomial mixture model, in three key respects: we incorporate feature selection, learn the appropriate number of clusters from the data, and integrate information on the tree structure relating the observed features. We compare the performance of our proposed method to …

Evolutionary Aspects Of Infections: Inflammation And Sickness Behaviors, Robert Dantzer

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Sickness behavior was conceptualized initially as the behavioral counterpart of the fever response to infectious pathogens. It helps to raise body temperature to its higher setpoint and to maintain it at this new level and it has the additional benefit of enabling a weakened organism to protect itself from other dangers. The discovery of the behavioral effects of proinflammatory cytokines produced by activated immune cells provided a cellular and molecular basis to this phenomenon. The administration of cytokines or cytokine inducers like lipopolysaccharide to healthy rodents allowed to reveal the similarities and differences between inflammation-induced sickness behavior and the fever …

Covidanno, Covid-19 Annotation In Human, Yuzhou Feng, Mengyuan Yang, Zhiwei Fan, Weiling Zhao, Pora Kim, Xiaobo Zhou

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the etiologic agent of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19), has caused a global health crisis. Despite ongoing efforts to treat patients, there is no universal prevention or cure available. One of the feasible approaches will be identifying the key genes from SARS-CoV-2-infected cells. SARS-CoV-2-infected in vitro model, allows easy control of the experimental conditions, obtaining reproducible results, and monitoring of infection progression. Currently, accumulating RNA-seq data from SARS-CoV-2 in vitro models urgently needs systematic translation and interpretation. To fill this gap, we built COVIDanno, COVID-19 annotation in humans, available at http://biomedbdc.wchscu.cn/COVIDanno/. The aim …

Loss Of Ubiquitin-Specific Peptidase 18 Destabilizes 14-3-3Ζ Protein And Represses Lung Cancer Metastasis, Zibo Chen, Lin Zheng, Yulong Chen, Xiuxia Liu, Masanori Kawakami, Lisa Maria Mustachio, Jason Roszik, Katherine V Ferry-Galow, Ralph E Parchment, Xin Liu, Thorkell Andresson, Gerard Duncan, Jonathan M Kurie, Jaime Rodriguez-Canales, Xi Liu, Ethan Dmitrovsky

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Cancer metastasis is a major cause of cancer-related mortality. Strategies to reduce metastases are needed especially in lung cancer, the most common cause of cancer mortality. We previously reported increased ubiquitin-specific peptidase 18 (USP18) expression in lung and other cancers. Engineered reduction of USP18 expression repressed lung cancer growth and promoted apoptosis. This deubiquitinase (DUB) stabilized targeted proteins by removing the complex interferon-stimulated gene 15 (ISG15). This study explores if the loss of USP18 reduced lung cancer metastasis. USP18 knock-down in lung cancer cells was independently achieved using small hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). USP18 knock-down reduced …

Clinical Significance Of Glycolytic Metabolic Activity In Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Joann Jung, Sowon Park, Yeonwoo Jang, Sung-Hwan Lee, Yun Seong Jeong, Sun Young Yim, Ju-Seog Lee

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

High metabolic activity is a hallmark of cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the molecular features of HCC with high metabolic activity contributing to clinical outcomes and the therapeutic implications of these characteristics are poorly understood. We aimed to define the features of HCC with high metabolic activity and uncover its association with response to current therapies. By integrating gene expression data from mouse liver tissues and tumor tissues from HCC patients (n = 1038), we uncovered three metabolically distinct HCC subtypes that differ in clinical outcomes and underlying molecular biology. The high metabolic subtype is characterized by poor …

Characterization Of Bcma Expression In Circulating Rare Single Cells Of Patients With Plasma Cell Neoplasms, Libere J Ndacayisaba, Kate E Rappard, Stephanie N Shishido, Sonia M Setayesh, Guilin Tang, Pei Lin, Nicholas Matsumoto, Ching-Ju Hsu, Rafael Nevarez, Carmen Ruiz Velasco, Amin Naghdloo, Eric Yang, Kevin Kelly, James Hicks, Jeremy Mason, Robert Z Orlowski, Elisabet E Manasanch, Peter Kuhn

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA), a key regulator of B-cell proliferation and survival, is highly expressed in almost all cases of plasma cell neoplasms and B-lymphoproliferative malignancies. BCMA is a robust biomarker of plasma cells and a therapeutic target with substantial clinical significance. However, the expression of BCMA in circulating tumor cells of patients with hematological malignancies has not been validated for the detection of circulating plasma and B cells. The application of BCMA as a biomarker in single-cell detection and profiling of circulating tumor cells in patients' blood could enable early disease profiling and therapy response monitoring. Here, we report …

Discovery Of An Orally Active Benzoxaborole Prodrug Effective In The Treatment Of Chagas Disease In Non-Human Primates, Angel M Padilla, Wei Wang, Tsutomu Akama, David S Carter, Eric Easom, Yvonne Freund, Jason S Halladay, Yang Liu, Sarah A Hamer, Carolyn L Hodo, Gregory K Wilkerson, Dylan Orr, Brooke White, Arlene George, Huifeng Shen, Yiru Jin, Michael Zhuo Wang, Susanna Tse, Robert T Jacobs, Rick L Tarleton

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Trypanosoma cruzi, the agent of Chagas disease, probably infects tens of millions of people, primarily in Latin America, causing morbidity and mortality. The options for treatment and prevention of Chagas disease are limited and underutilized. Here we describe the discovery of a series of benzoxaborole compounds with nanomolar activity against extra- and intracellular stages of T. cruzi. Leveraging both ongoing drug discovery efforts in related kinetoplastids, and the exceptional models for rapid drug screening and optimization in T. cruzi, we have identified the prodrug AN15368 that is activated by parasite carboxypeptidases to yield a compound that targets the messenger RNA …

Characteristics Of Community-Acquired Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacterales, Rima Shrestha, Courtney L Luterbach, Weixiao Dai, Lauren Komarow, Michelle Earley, Gregory Weston, Erica Herc, Jesse T Jacob, Robert Salata, Darren Wong, Deverick Anderson, Kirsten B Rydell, Cesar A Arias, Liang Chen, David Van Duin, Mdro Investigators

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Community-acquired carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CA-CRE) are an important threat.

METHODS: In CRACKLE-2, we defined patients with CA-CRE as admitted from home, without pre-existing conditions, and a positive culture within 48 h of admission. Healthcare-associated CRE (HA-CRE) were those with the lowest likelihood of community acquisition, not admitted from home and cultured >48 h after admission. Specific genetic markers in carbapenemase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae were evaluated through random forest modelling.

RESULTS: CA-CRE and HA-CRE were detected in 83 (10%) and 208 (26%) of 807 patients. No significant differences were observed in bacterial species or strain type distribution. K. pneumoniae (204/291, 70%) was …

Novel Technologies To Characterize And Engineer The Microbiome In Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Alba Boix-Amorós, Hilarly Monaco, Elisa Sambataro, Jose C. Clemente

Publications and Research

We present an overview of recent experimental and computational advances in technology used to characterize the microbiome, with a focus on how these developments improve our understanding of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Specifically, we present studies that make use of flow cytometry and metabolomics assays to provide a functional characterization of microbial communities. We also describe computational methods for strain-level resolution, temporal series, myco - biome and virome data, co-occurrence networks, and compositional data analysis. In addition, we review novel techniques to therapeutically manipulate the microbiome in IBD. We discuss the benefits and drawbacks of these technologies to increase awareness …

Infection And Transmission Determinants Of Flea-Borne Rickettsioses, Hanna J. Laukaitis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

The genus Rickettsia is comprised of Gram-negative, obligate intracellular bacteria that are spread by hematophagous arthropods. Elucidating the factors conferring rickettsial virulence has perplexed investigators for decades, complicated by the lack of efficient genetic tools necessary to uncover rickettsial- and vector-specific factors contributing to persistence. The advent of transposon mutagenesis has enabled the field to make vast developments in uncovering novel rickettsial mechanisms utilized in various host backgrounds. Thus, the aim of this study was to generate Rickettsia felis transposon mutants and characterize novel phenotypes associated with genetic disruption in an arthropod background. Distribution of rickettsiae is reliant on the …

Cyclic Di-Gmp Regulates Motility, Biofilm Formation, And Desiccation Tolerance In Acinetobacter Baumannii, Garrett Reynolds

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Acinetobacter baumannii is an increasingly multidrug-resistant pathogen contributing to hospital-acquired infections necessitating the discovery of novel treatments. A bacterial second messenger, cyclic diguanosine monophosphate (cyclic di-GMP), can regulate various persistence factors that are potentially advantageous for survival in hospital environments. Cyclic di-GMP–modulating enzymes and cyclic di-GMP–binding effectors predictively are encoded in the Acinetobacter baumannii genome. I hypothesized that cyclic di-GMP controls motility, biofilm formation, and desiccation tolerance in Acinetobacter baumannii. Disrupting cyclic di-GMP–modulating enzymes or cyclic di-GMP–binding effectors should alter the regulatory effectiveness of these phenotypes. I tested the multidrug-resistant isolate Acinetobacter baumannii strain AB5075 and identified several transposon …

Solid-State Nmr Analysis Of Unlabeled Fungal Cell Walls From Aspergillus And Candida Species, Liyanage D. Fernando, Malitha C. Dickwella Widanage, S. Chandra Shekar, Frederic Mentink-Vigier, Ping Wang, Sungsool Wi, Tuo Wang

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Fungal infections cause high mortality in immunocompromised individuals, which has emerged as a significant threat to human health. The efforts devoted to the development of antifungal agents targeting the cell wall polysaccharides have been hindered by our incomplete picture of the assembly and remodeling of fungal cell walls. High-resolution solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ss NMR) studies have substantially revised our understanding of the polymorphic structure of polysaccharides and the nanoscale organization of cell walls in Aspergillus fumigatus and multiple other fungi. However, this approach requires 13C/15N-enrichment of the sample being studied, severely restricting its application. Here we employ the dynamic …

Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Mucosal Attachment And Colonization By Clostridioides Difficile, Ben Sidner

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Clostridioides difficile is a Gram-positive, spore-forming, anaerobic bacterium which causes gastrointestinal disease and is a leading cause of nosocomial infections. Although infection typically occurs following antibiotic therapy, in recent years there has been an increase in infections which are not preceded by antibiotic use. Additionally, community-associated infections and rates of disease recurrence have increased. While it is understood that a healthy gastrointestinal microbiota provides protection against infection, the molecular mechanisms which underly C. difficile's ability to colonize and persist in the gut are mostly unknown. Building on work from others that suggests C. difficile associates with the outer mucus …

Presence Of Blaper-1 And Blaveb-1 Beta-Lactamase Genes Among Isolates Of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa From Burn And Trauma Hospital Peshawar, Pakistan, Suleman Khan, Samiyah Tasleem, Alfarah Rehmat Ullah,, Sarwat Moon, Saad Alghamdi, Raina Saad Suliman, Muhammad Ateeq, Muhmmad Salman, Anas S. Dablool,, Banan Atwah, Farkad Bantun

Journal of Bioresource Management

Pseudomonas aeruginosa spp are the most prevalent bacteria that cause nosocomial infections in hospitals. Most antibiotics, including novel new β-lactams, are already resistant to them, and they can become resistant during treatment, which can make the treatment fail. P. aeruginosa isolates from ICU patients who had Per-1 and VEB-1 were the main focus of this study. These two ESBLs are the two most common in ICU patients who had them. 50 isolates were gathered from Peshawar's LRH ICU facilities in the year 2021. The antibiotic susceptibility test was conducted in accordance with the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute's standards (CLSI). …

Effect Of Sub-Inhibitory Concentrations Of Nitrofurantoin, Ciprofloxacin And Trimethoprim On In-Vitro Biofilm Formation In Uropathogenic Escherichia Coli, Shane Whelan

ORBioM (Open Research BioSciences Meeting)

The purpose of the current study was to determine the effect of sublethal concentrations of nitrofurantoin, ciprofloxacin and trimethoprim on biofilm formation in 57 uropathogenic Escherichia coli strains (UPEC).

The MIC of nitrofurantoin, ciprofloxacin and trimethoprim was determined for 57 UPEC isolates. Biofilm formation for each isolate with and without sub-lethal concentrations of each antibiotic was then quantified, and the statistical significance of changes in biofilm formation was ascertained by way of a Dunnett's test.

The effects of sub-MIC antibiotics on biofilm formation of UPEC were variable. A total of 22.8% of strains were induced to form biofilm by nitrofurantoin, …

Inflammatory Diseases And Resections Of The Digestive Tract Influence The Risk Of Circulating Food-Specific-Igg, Jacques Izard, Walker Carson, Joseph Baumert, Jennifer Clarke

Department of Food Science and Technology: Faculty Publications

Objectives: Individuals affected with inflammatory diseases of the digestive tract or have had surgical removal of sections of the digestive tract are often in need to adjust their diet. The symptomatology associated with food intake issues is often informally reported as food sensitivity. We investigated the circulating food-specific-IgG among ten conditions.

Conclusion: The risk of the having circulating food-specific IgG differed widely among the conditions investigated. The maintenance of a colonic environment might influence the risk of food sensitivity in ostomates.

Extracellular Vesicles Released After Cranial Radiation: An Insight Into An Early Mechanism Of Brain Injury., Suriyan Sukati, Jenni Ho, Luksana Chaiswing, Pradoldej Sompol, Harshul Pandit, Wendy Wei, Tadahide Izumi, Quan Chen, Heidi Weiss, Teresa Noel, Subbarao Bondada, D Allan Butterfield, Daret K St Clair

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

Cranial radiation is important for treating both primary brain tumors and brain metastases. A potential delayed side effect of cranial radiation is neurocognitive function decline. Early detection of CNS injury might prevent further neuronal damage. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as a potential diagnostic tool because of their unique membranous characteristics and cargos. We investigated whether EVs can be an early indicator of CNS injury by giving C57BJ/6 mice 10 Gy cranial IR. EVs were isolated from sera to quantify: 1) number of EVs using nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA); 2) Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), an astrocyte marker; and 3) …

Investigating Alternative Induction Of The S. Aureus 80a Prophage, Jody Caretti

Student Scholar Showcase

Widespread antibiotic resistance has quickly become one of the most concerning crises affecting modern medicine, especially in cases of Staphylococcal infections, which have become resistant to all ��-lactam antibiotics. As a result, research into alternative forms of treatment for bacterial infections is a top priority. Bacteriophage therapy is a popular candidate for replacing antibiotics, due to the way the viruses interact with the bacteria. The 80�� prophage integrates its DNA into Staphylococcus aureus strain 10616 via the lysogenic cycle, and replicates with the bacterial cell. When stressed, the bacteria stop replicating and the prophage stimulates the lytic cycle, activating transcription …

A Quantitative Analysis Of The Efficacy Of Various Essential Oils Against The Sars Cov-2 Virus, Elizabeth Wagstaff, Chandrelyn Kraczek, Jack Brandon Lopez

Annual Research Symposium

A poster presentation and abstract for the Roseman Symposium. The project focuses on testing 3 essential oil blends and two disinfectants containing an essential oil blend against SARS CoV-2 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project procedure involves plaque assays, disinfection, and neutralization techniques.

Trait Energy And Fatigue May Be Connected To Gut Bacteria Among Young Physically Active Adults: An Exploratory Study, Ali Boolani, Karyn M. Gallivan, Kristin S. Ondrak, Courtney J. Christopher, Hector F. Castro, Shawn R. Campagna, Christopher M. Taylor, Meng Luo, Scot E. Dowd, Matthew Lee Smith, Lauri O. Byerley

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Recent scientific evidence suggests that traits energy and fatigue are two unique unipolar moods with distinct mental and physical components. This exploratory study investigated the correlation between mental energy (ME), mental fatigue (MF), physical energy (PE), physical fatigue (PF), and the gut microbiome. The four moods were assessed by survey, and the gut microbiome and metabolome were determined from 16 S rRNA analysis and untargeted metabolomics analysis, respectively. Twenty subjects who were 31 ± 5 y, physically active, and not obese (26.4 ± 4.4 kg/m2) participated. Bacteroidetes (45%), the most prominent phyla, was only negatively correlated with PF. The second …

Decoding The Mystery Of Antibiotic Persistence, Tahmina Hossain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work combines microbiology, molecular biology, Next-Generation Sequencing and system biology approaches to explore the mechanism of antibiotic persistence: a multi-drug tolerant, non-dividing, and metabolically altered state present in a subpopulation of cells due to phenotypic diversity rather than genetic variation (i.e. mutations). Persister can survive lethal antibiotic state and resuscitate after the treatment period is over. They are considered as the major contributing factor behind recurring infections. They also have a high mutation rate, which increases the chances of bacteria gaining antibiotic resistance. The formation of this phenotypic variant (persister) threatens the therapeutic effectiveness of antibiotics and understanding how …

Microbial Contamination And Metabolite Exposure Assessment During Waste And Recyclable Material Collection, Fabiola Salambaga, Loïc Wingert, Isabelle Valois, Nancy Lacombe, François Gouin, Julien Trépanier, Maximilien Debia, Ewelina Soszczyńska, Magdalena Twarużek, Robert Kosicki, Marta Dias, Susana Viegas, Liliana Caetano, Carla Viegas, Geneviève Marchand

Études primaires

Waste workers are exposed to bioaerosols when handling, lifting and dumping garbage. Bioaerosol exposure has been linked to health problems such as asthma, airway irritant symptoms, infectious, gastrointestinal and skin diseases, and cancer. Our objective was to characterize the exposure of urban collectors and drivers to inhalable bioaerosols and to measured the cytotoxic effect of air samples in order to evaluate their health risk.

Personal and ambient air sampling were conducted during the summer of 2019. Workers from 12 waste trucks collecting recyclables, organic waste or compost were evaluated. Bacteria and fungi were cultured, molecular biology methods were used to …

Small Bowel Stomas Are Associated With Higher Risk Of Circulating Food-Specific-Igg Than Patients With Organic Gastrointestinal Conditions And Colostomies, Walker K. Carson, Joseph L. Baumert, Jennifer Clarke, Jacques Izard

Department of Food Science and Technology: Faculty Publications

Objective The effects of food sensitivity can easily be masked by other digestive symptoms in ostomates and are unknown. We investigated food-specific-IgG presence in ostomates relative to participants affected by other digestive diseases.

Design Food-specific-IgG was evaluated for 198 participants with a panel of 109 foods. Immunocompetency status was also tested. Jejunostomates, ileostomates, and colostomates were compared with individuals with digestive tract diseases with inflammatory components (periodontitis, eosinophilic esophagitis, duodenitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, and appendicitis), as well as food malabsorption due to intolerance. A logistic regression model with covariates was used to estimate the effect of the experimental data …

An Investigation Into The Prevalence Of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci Within An Irish Hospital, Dylan Casey

International Undergraduate Journal of Health Sciences

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) are well-recognised nosocomial pathogens that pose a significant threat to public health. Associated with poorer clinical outcomes than their vancomycin-sensitive counterparts, the prevalence of VRE in Ireland has increased in recent times, with the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network reporting that out of 29 countries, Ireland demonstrated the highest rates of vancomycin resistance among invasive Enterococcus faecium isolates between 2011 and 2014 (2011; 34.9%, 2012; 44.0%, 2013; 42.7%, 2014; 45.1%). Herein, we investigate VRE prevalence in the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) – an acute care hospital in southern Ireland. A total of 21 first-time VRE infections were …