Immunology and Infectious Disease Commons^™

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 37. What About Wallace On Vaccination . . . ?, Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Best known for his natural history studies on evolution and biogeography, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823−1913) had a significant second career as a social critic. One of his most controversial stances was his position on (smallpox) vaccination. Anti-vaxxers of the present frequently bring up his name as a resource for their side, but the situation is not so easily reducible to that.

Bibliometric Analysis Of Congenital Toxoplasmosis: A Ten-Year (2013-2023) Review Of Research Publications, Festus Mulakoli, Horatius Musembi, Ann Kimani

School of Nursing & Midwifery, East Africa

Background:Toxoplasma gondii, an obligate intracellular protozoan, infects more than one-third of the global population and causes toxoplasmosis, which can lead to severe fetal complications in pregnant women. The global prevalence of latent toxoplasmosis in pregnant women is 33.8%, with regional variations and risk factors, including the consumption of undercooked meat, exposure to cat feces, and consumption of contaminated water. Pregnant women lack sufficient awareness of these risk factors, necessitating enhanced education, regular screening, and counseling during antenatal care for early detection and management.

Aim: This study performed a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of research on congenital toxoplasmosis published between 2013 …

Common Sources, Perceived Communication Efficacy And Sufficiency Of Cervical Cancer Information, Education And Communication Materials For Women With Hiv/Aids In Rural Kenya, Scholastic Musakali Adeli, Elkanah Orang'o, Violet Naanyu, Ann Mwangi, Peter Itsura, Barry Rosen, Patrick Loehrer

Obstetrics and Gynaecology, East Africa

Introduction: Cervical cancer is the greatest cause of cancer-related death among women in Sub-Saharan Africa, with particularly high incidence and mortality rates in rural regions. In Kenya, Women with HIV/AIDS (WLHA) are at a greater risk of developing cervical cancer though screening rate remains low. Information, education and communication (IEC) materials play a crucial role in raising awareness, promoting screening, and supporting early detection and treatment; however, little is known about the accessibility, content, and perceived effectiveness of these materials from the perspective of WLHA.

Methods: The objective of this study was to determine the common sources, perceived communication efficacy …

Spatially Resolved Transcriptomic Profiles Of Placental Cell Populations In Placental Malaria, Corina A. Mong

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Malaria remains a prevalent infectious disease that continues to cause disease-related morbidity and mortality. Despite preventative efforts, malarial pregnancies still cause birth complications, therefore emphasizing the necessity to study these adverse outcomes in malarial pregnancy. Malaria in pregnancy can lead to placental malaria (PM), which is the presence and accumulation of Plasmodium-infected red blood cells in the placental intervillous space (IVS). Even after treatment, past PM (presence of hemozoin crystals from the parasite in the placenta) can cause a chronic inflammatory response. We predicted that the activation states of the maternal monocytes and fetal macrophages differ within the placenta and …

The Impact Of Polymycovirus 1 On Aspergillus Fumigatus Pathogenesis During Lung Infection, Alexander W. Rapp

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

The genus Aspergillus comprises over 250 species of fungi. Within this genus, only a handful of species cause disease in humans. One species is Aspergillus fumigatus (A.f.), an environmentally ubiquitous, saprophytic fungal pathogen. Lung infections due to A.f. range from invasive infection to allergic forms of the disease. Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) is one of the most severe forms and presents as a hypersensitivity that often results in off-target damage to the surrounding airways. Patients with ABPA are sensitized to fungal antigens and this is commonly seen in cystic fibrosis and genetic predispositions. Recent data from our lab shown how …

Macrophage Heterogeneity And Function In The Lung, Xin Li

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Macrophages are critical custodians of the lung, orchestrating immune surveillance, maintaining tissue homeostasis, and coordinating both innate and adaptive responses. This dissertation examines their heterogeneity and specialized functions, focusing on IMs, which reside in the lung interstitium, and AMs, which occupy the airspace. Through comprehensive single-cell transcriptomic profiling of murine and human samples, we identify multiple IM and AM subsets defined by distinct chemokine, cytokine, receptor, and innate immune gene signatures. These subsets display clear divisions of labor, contributing to immune cell recruitment, tertiary lymphoid structure formation, and alveolar homeostasis.

In IMs, coordinated chemokine programs not only recruit inflammatory cells …

Creation Of An Open Access Textbook, Sue Ann Gardner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

Slide presented during the PRCA Research Celebration, June 3, 2025, in the University Libraries, University of Nebraska-Lincoln titled Creation of an Open Access Textbook, about the development and publication of Concepts in Animal Parasitology, co-edited by Scott L. Gardner and Sue Ann Gardner and published by Zea Books (Lincoln, Nebraska, USA) in 2024.

Mutation Of Smarca4 Induces Cancer Cell-Intrinsic Defects In The Enhancer Landscape And Resistance To Immunotherapy, Yawen Wang, Ismail M Meraz, Md Qudratullah, Sasikumar Kotagiri, Yanyan Han, Yuanxin Xi, Jing Wang, Kadir C Akdemir, Jack A Roth, Yonathan Lissanu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Cancer genomic studies have identified frequent alterations in genes encoding components of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex, including SMARCA4 and ARID1A. Importantly, clinical reports indicate that SMARCA4-mutant lung cancers respond poorly to immunotherapy and have dismal prognosis. In this study, we corroborated the clinical findings by using immune-humanized, syngeneic, and genetically engineered mouse models of lung cancer harboring SMARCA4 deficiency. Specifically, models with SMARCA4 loss showed decreased response to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy associated with significantly reduced infiltration of dendritic cells and CD4+ T cells into the tumor microenvironment. SMARCA4 loss in tumor cells led to profound downregulation of STING1, IL1β, and …

Stability Insights From Modeling Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, Giovani Thai

Master's Theses

This thesis centers around a model for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) as it behaves under imatinib treatment, a common medication for CML patients, and the anti-leukemia immune response. The dynamics are represented with a system of nonlinear delay-differential equations first constructed by Kim et al. in 2008, capturing population changes of T-cells and various CML growth stages. We investigate stability in both the clinical and mathematical sense. Through numerical simulations, we computationally incorporate a supplementary treatment plan to determine its effectiveness in aiding immune response and medication in achieving remission and full elimination. The primary goal is to conduct a …

Exploring Vaccine Efficacy And Safety For Ms Patients On Immunosuppressant Treatment In Light Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Rain Pross

University Honors Theses

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurodegenerative autoimmune disorder affecting approximately 2.8 million people worldwide. Despite decades of research to understand the molecular mechanisms of MS pathology, little is known about why the neurodegeneration caused by this illness occurs. For this reason, current treatments for MS target two broader aspects of the disease: relapse management and prevention via disease-modifying therapies. These treatments often involve immunosuppressive mechanisms, creating vulnerability to infectious diseases that became particularly concerning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This literature review examines the safety and efficacy of vaccination for MS patients on immunosuppressant therapies, highlighting the novel mRNA vaccines …

Individual, Social, And Environmental Factors Associated With Patterns Of Parasitic Infection In Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus Imitator), Megan C. Henriquez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Parasites, and the infectious diseases they carry, are thought to have significantly impacted our evolutionary trajectory for millennia. Exploring how parasites are acquired and transmitted by their hosts in wild, natural populations is integral to understanding how similar processes may have shaped host-parasite co-evolutionary relationships over time. However, parasitological studies in humans and in non-human primates have produced inconsistent results, highlighting the dynamic, nuanced, and unique relationships individual parasites have with their hosts. These relationships are largely regulated by variation in factors at host, social, and environmental levels. Characteristics unique to the host (e.g., age and sex), factors pertaining to …

Analytical Approaches For Identification Of Essential Genomes Of Plasmodium Knowlesi And Babesia Divergens, Sida Ye

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Apicomplexa constitute a large phylum of single-celled, obligate intracellular protozoan parasites. Notably, Plasmodium spp. and Babesia spp. are apicomplexan parasites that infect red blood cells. Plasmodium species are the causative agent of malaria and are transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes, affecting large human populations, whereas Babesia spp., transmitted through the bite of Ixodes ticks cause babesiosis.

In this dissertation, we investigate the essential genome of these parasites using high-throughput transposon mutagenesis. Identifying the essential genome is key to finding new drug targets and understanding resistance mechanisms, a crucial pursuit given the rising resistance to frontline antimalarial drugs and the challenges …

Developing A Murine Model To Investigate The Mechanisms Of Peanut, Cashew, Shrimp Multifood Allergy, Aaron Wilson

NYMC Student Theses and Dissertations

Approximately 32 million people in the United States have food allergies, which is approximately 10 percent of the population. Food allergies can be mild, moderate, or even severe, resulting in anaphylaxis. The most predominant food groups that trigger food allergies include peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish. Peanuts and tree nuts have some similarities in protein structure. Shellfish is not associated with the protein properties of peanuts or tree nuts, it is the leading cause of adult anaphylaxis and often co-exist with peanut and tree nut allergies Currently, there are few studies that have established a murine model for allergy …

Characterization Of Sars-Cov-2 Replication And Transcription Complexes Via Structural And Evolutionary Approaches, Amelie Ghirardo, Ben Shabatian, Avishai Aghelian, Kyle Tau, Eleonora Gianti

Undergraduate Research

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) caused around 700M cases and over 7M COVID-19-related deaths recorded worldwide (World Health Organization, March 2025). Aiming to effectively combat this and other disease-causing Coronaviruses (CoV), unprecedented research efforts led to the development of new vaccines and antiviral therapies. Due to emergence of variants of concern (VOCs) with increased transmissibility, immune evasion from vaccination, and potential to resist the available treatments, SARS-CoV-2 continues to represent a major threat to global health. Hence, there is a pressing need to discover new antivirals with broad-spectrum efficacy against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants and related CoVs. This project …

Monoclonal Antibodies Targeting Candida Disrupt Biofilms And Inhibit Growth Across Global Clinical Isolates, Jonothan Rosario-Colon, Karen Eberle, Hong Xin

School of Graduate Studies Faculty Publications

Candida species are a major cause of severe fungal infections, particularly in immunocompromised individuals and hospitalized patients. Among these, Candida auris stands out as an emerging “superbug”, responsible for life-threatening bloodstream infections with mortality rates up to 60%. This multidrug-resistant, hospital-acquired pathogen has been declared a serious global health threat, complicating effective treatment and increasing mortality risks. Our research has identified universal monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting Candida albicans cell wall epitopes, which are highly homologous to those in other pathogenic Candida species, including C. auris. Passive transfer of mAbs—C3.1 (anti-β-1,2-mannotriose) and 9F2 (anti-phosphoglycerate kinase 1)—significantly extended survival and improved fungal …

Myxozoan Diversity And Life Cycles In Catfish Production Ponds In Mississippi, Usa, Ethan Woodyard

Theses and Dissertations

Catfish aquaculture is a critical industry in the United States and Mississippi in particular. The industry is beset by depredation, rising feed costs, competition with imports, and loss to disease. Chief among these is the myxozoan parasite and causative agent of proliferative gill disease, Henneguya ictaluri. In chapter 2, novel molecular markers for greater resolution in species identification of these parasites are provided, allowing more robust life cycle inference, species-level identifications, and inference of evolutionary relationships through molecular phylogenetic analyses. Chapters 3–5 apply the approaches developed in Chapter 2 to a broad array of taxa beyond catfish-infecting Henneguya spp. These …

Chronic Inflammation: The Link Between A High Added Sugar Diet And Disease, Anna Collins

Senior Honors Theses

The modern diet includes many processed foods that contain added sugars, resulting in a significant increase in daily glucose and fructose consumption. Considering this, there is an increased effort to uncover the effects of excess sugar intake on the body’s health and metabolism. Strong evidence supports the connection between a high added sugar diet and the presence of chronic, low-grade inflammation due to cellular distress and metabolic dysfunction. Prolonged inflammatory responses are linked to tissue damage and the development of various metabolic diseases that are prevalent in modern society, such as obesity, fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 …

In The Quest For New Horizons: Evaluating Novel Therapeutic Approaches For Tuberculosis Treatment, Selassie Mawuko, Aminata Traore, Bibi-Sakeena Khemraj, Anna Steto, Richa Gupta

Publications and Research

Tuberculosis (TB) in humans, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is a significant global health concern, resulting in high disease burden and mortality each year which together make it the world’s topmost infectious killer. The emergence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in recent decades has further exacerbated the present situation and warrants an urgent need to develop and investigate innovative treatment regimes. This study aims to assess the therapeutic potential of newly identified drug candidates, namely Bedaquiline, Delamanid, and Linezolid, in treating MDR-TB. We adopted a consolidated and integrated approach encompassing a thorough literature review, empirical experimental studies, multiple sequence alignments, and …

Identification And Preclinical Assessment Of Novel Therapeutic Modalities In Environmental Exposure-Induced Lung Disease, Aaron D. Schwab

Theses & Dissertations

Environmental lung diseases are preventable respiratory conditions either caused or made worse by inhaled environmental exposures. Contemporarily, environmental lung diseases are most associated with workplace exposures given specific occupational processes aerosolize inflammatory agents that can be inhaled at high concentrations. Although a considerable amount is known regarding immunoglobulin (Ig)E-mediated responses to environmental exposures, little is known about non-IgE mediated respiratory conditions resulting from lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-enriched organic dust exposure(s). Chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and pulmonary fibrosis have all been identified as environmental lung diseases caused or exacerbated by such environmental dusts. Therapeutic …

Excess Fructose In High-Fructose Corn Syrup Reduces Cell Viability & Promotes Nitric Oxide Release In Raw 264.7 Macrophages, Renzo F. Galarza, Edward L. Villegas

Research and Creativity Symposium

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is an artificial sweetener that contains slightly higher concentrations of fructose compared to standard sucrose. It has been linked to an increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and fatty liver disease. While both HFCS and sucrose are widely used sweeteners, growing evidence suggests they may differ in their inflammatory potential. We sought to understand the effects of elevated fructose on RAW 264.7 macrophages. To investigate these effects, we treated the cells with either a sucrose solution or a
solution designed to mimic high-fructose corn syrup. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation was used to model innate …