A Survey of Tick Surveillance and Control Practices in the United States.

Tickborne diseases are an increasing public health threat in the United States. Prevention and diagnosis of tickborne diseases are improved by access to current and accurate information on where medically important ticks and their associated human and veterinary pathogens are present, their local abundance or prevalence, and when ticks are actively seeking hosts. The true extent of tick and tickborne pathogen expansion is poorly defined, in part because of a lack of nationally standardized tick surveillance.

Validating Species Distribution Models With Standardized Surveys for Ixodid Ticks in Mainland Florida.

Tick-borne pathogens are of growing concern. The U.S.

Is it best on the nest? Effects of avian life-history on haemosporidian parasitism.

Infectious diseases vary in prevalence and pathology among host species. Species may differ in prevalence of infection due to varying exposure and susceptibility to disease agents throughout their lifetime, which may be attributable to underlying differences in their phenology, physiology and behavior. A recently growing body of literature has focused on the utility of host life-history traits to provide mechanistic explanations for interspecific variation in host-parasite associations.

Standardized Ixodid Tick Survey in Mainland Florida.

A statewide survey of questing ixodid ticks in mainland Florida was developed consistent with U.S. CDC standards to maximize the amount of epidemiologic and environmental data gathered.

Modeling the Distribution of Medically Important Tick Species in Florida.

The lone star (), black-legged () and American dog ticks () are species of great public health importance as they are competent vectors of several notable pathogens. While the regional distributions of these species are well characterized, more localized distribution estimates are sparse. We used records of field collected ticks and an ensemble modeling approach to predict habitat suitability for each of these species in Florida.

Fine-scale distribution modeling of avian malaria vectors in north-central Kansas.

Infectious diseases increasingly play a role in the decline of wildlife populations. Vector-borne diseases, in particular, have been implicated in mass mortality events and localized population declines are threatening some species with extinction. Transmission patterns for vector-borne diseases are influenced by the spatial distribution of vectors and are therefore not uniform across the landscape.

Influence of land use and climate on Salmonella carrier status in the small Indian mongoose (Herpestes auropunctatus) in Grenada, West Indies.

Invasive mammals can be important reservoirs for human pathogens. A recent study showed that 12% of mongooses carried Salmonella spp. in their large intestines.

Patterns of spatio-temporal distribution, abundance, and diversity in a mosquito community from the eastern Smoky Hills of Kansas.

Nearly 30% of emerging infectious disease events are caused by vector-borne pathogens with wildlife origins. Their transmission involves a complex interplay among pathogens, arthropod vectors, the environment and host species, and they pose a risk for public health, livestock and wildlife species. Examining habitat associations of vector species known to transmit infectious diseases, and quantifying spatio-temporal dynamics of mosquito vector communities is one aspect of the holistic One Health approach that is necessary to develop effective control measures.

The Lewis GFP transgenic rat strain is a useful cell donor for neural transplantation.

Stem cell transplantation is a promising therapeutic approach in neurodegenerative diseases. Studying graft survival and development has important implications for the further development of experimental and clinical transplantation protocols. Cellular elements in neural transplants are sometimes difficult to identify.

Facile synthesis and supramolecular chemistry of hydrogen bond/halogen bond-driven multi-tasking tectons.

Hydrogen bonds and halogen bonds can be used as synthetic vectors without structural interference as long as the primary molecular recognition events are designed around a careful combination of geometric and electrostatic complementarity. In addition, a one-step procedure for the synthesis of tectons equipped with powerful hydrogen- and halogen-bond donors is presented.

Ectopic dopaminergic progenitor cells from En1(+/Otx2lacZ) transgenic mice survive and functionally reinnervate the striatum following transplantation in a rat model of Parkinson's disease.

Cell-based therapies for Parkinson's disease (PD) using neural stem cells to replace the lost dopamine neurons is currently an intense area of research. In this study we have evaluated the restorative potential of ectopic dopaminergic (DA) neurons derived from the rostral hindbrain (RH) of En1(+/Otx2lacZ) transgenic mice. The genetic modification of the DA progenitor domain in the En1(+/Otx2lacZ) mice is a gain of function, resulting in the enlargement of the area containing DA neurons, as well as an increase in their absolute number in the midbrain/hindbrain region.

Neuroprotective effects of erythropoietin on 6-hydroxydopamine-treated ventral mesencephalic dopamine-rich cultures.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder with motor symptoms caused by the loss of dopaminergic (DA) cells and consequently dopamine release in the nigrostriatal system. In vivo and in vitro 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) PD models are widely used to study the effect of striatal dopamine depletion as well as novel neuroprotective or restorative therapeutic strategies for PD. In the present study, we investigated in vitro the toxicity of 6-OHDA on DA neurons derived from E14 rat ventral mesencephalon (VM) and the neuroprotective efficiency of erythropoietin (Epo) on VM-derived cell cultures against 6-OHDA toxicity.