Organisms Commons^™

The Epidemiology Of Human Herpesvirus-8: Transmission Of Infection To Children In Zambian Households, Kay L. Crabtree

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Human Herpes virus-8 (HHV-8) is the known etiologic agent for several malignant pathologies, including Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), the most common tumor in children in sub-Saharan Africa. Saliva is implicated as the culprit of transmission; however there is a paucity of information regarding transmission to young children. In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that household behaviors exposing the susceptible child to saliva increase the risk of transmission of HHV-8 to that child.

To test our hypothesis a large prospective cohort study in Lusaka, Zambia, enrolling 464 young children and their households, was followed for 48 months. Socio-demographics, health histories, feeding …

Human Milk Cortisol Is Associated With Infant Temperament, Katherine R. Grey, Elyssia Poggi Davis, Curt A. Sandman, Laura M. Glynn

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

The implications of the biologically active elements in milk for the mammalian infant are largely unknown. Animal models demonstrate that transmission of glucocorticoids through milk influences behavior and modifies brain development in offspring. The aim of this study was to determine the relation between human milk cortisol levels and temperament of the breastfed infant. Fifty-two mother and infant pairs participated when the infants were three-months old. Milk cortisol levels were assessed and each mother completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ), a widely used parent-report measure of infant temperament. Analyses revealed a positive association between milk cortisol and the negative affectivity …

Maternal Obesity Alters Fetal Development Due To Impaired Placental Function And Has Lasting Effects On Adult Offspring, Kristin Ann Norwood

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Obesity is an epidemic in many developed nations and maternal obesity can result in developmental alterations in offspring that have long-lasting effects. Two experiments were conducted to determine the impact of maternal obesity on placental development and early embryonic growth and muscle development. Experiment one utilized obese Lethal Yellow (LY) and normal weight C57BL/6 (B6) dams to assess how maternal obesity alters skeletal muscle development in mid-gestational embryos. Embryos from LY dams exhibited decreased embryo and placental weights as well as an increase in the myogenic marker desmin. Furthermore, the adipogenic marker PPARG expression was predominately localized to the neural …

An In-Depth Look At Recent Influenza Seasons And Vaccine Effectiveness, Ariana Ricci

Honors Projects in Science and Technology

This paper aims to present an in-depth exploration of immunology, the influenza virus, vaccination, and vaccination’s effectiveness with respect to influenza. It also delves into the possible causes behind the large increase in early childhood deaths during the 2003-2004 influenza season, which was a turning point in terms of influenza incident reporting. Finally, data analysis on the relationship between childhood flu vaccine coverage and childhood outpatient ILI (influenza-like illness) visits by region is presented as a measurement of vaccine effectiveness and identifier of trends. Although this relationship was not statistically significant (alpha=0.05) regionally, this simply points to alternate factors that …

A Guide To Enterotypes Across The Human Body: Meta- Analysis Of Microbial Community Structures In Human Microbiome Datasets, Omry Koren, Dan Knights, Antonio Gonzalez, Levi Waldron, Nicola Segata, Rob Knight, Curtis Huttenhower, Ruth E. Ley

Publications and Research

Recent analyses of human-associated bacterial diversity have categorized individuals into ‘enterotypes’ or clusters based on the abundances of key bacterial genera in the gut microbiota. There is a lack of consensus, however, on the analytical basis for enterotypes and on the interpretation of these results. We tested how the following factors influenced the detection of enterotypes: clustering methodology, distance metrics, OTU-picking approaches, sequencing depth, data type (whole genome shotgun (WGS) vs.16S rRNA gene sequence data), and 16S rRNA region. We included 16S rRNA gene sequences from the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) and from 16 additional studies and WGS sequences from …