Publications by authors named "Duck W"

The human antibody repertoire is broadly reactive with carbohydrate antigens represented in the universe of all living things, including both the host/self- as well as the commensal microflora-derived glycomes. Here we have used BCR receptor cloning and expression together with single-cell transcriptomics to analyze the B cell repertoire to the ubiquitous N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (GlcNAc) epitope in human cohorts and dissect the immune phylogeny of this predominant class of antibodies. We find that circulating anti-GlcNAc B cells exhibiting canonical BMem phenotypes emerge rapidly after birth and couple this observation with evidence for germinal center-dependent affinity maturation of carbohydrate-specific B cell receptors during early childhood.

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Introduction: Historical maps of racialized evaluation of mortgage lending risk (i.e., redlined neighborhoods) have been linked to adverse health outcomes.

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When the U.S. COVID-19 public health emergency declaration expires on May 11, 2023, national reporting of certain categories of COVID-19 public health surveillance data will be transitioned to other data sources or will be discontinued; COVID-19 hospitalization data will be the only data source available at the county level (1).

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On January 31, 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared, under Section 319 of the Public Health Service Act, a U.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC adapted its existing surveillance system to monitor cases and deaths efficiently, implementing a new aggregate case surveillance system for quicker data collection and emergency response.
  • - This new system enabled the CDC to gather and analyze COVID-19 data at national, state, and county levels, using innovative methods like web scraping and algorithms to streamline data accuracy and validation.
  • - The review emphasizes the importance of having a robust aggregate surveillance system ready for future health emergencies, providing near-real-time data to enhance response efforts beyond traditional individual case reporting.
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Article Synopsis
  • - During the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC implemented an aggregate case and death surveillance (ACS) system to effectively track cumulative COVID-19 data, supplementing traditional reporting methods.
  • - As public health jurisdictions updated their historical data, the CDC developed a manual process for updating the ACS dataset to improve the accuracy of reported case and death numbers.
  • - By March 2022, the CDC began integrating data from three jurisdictions via application programming interfaces (APIs), which streamline data transfer and may enhance emergency response efficiency moving forward.
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Objective: To determine the extent to which the gut microbiome influences systemic autoimmunity in a mouse model of lupus.

Methods: We generated germ-free (GF) lupus-prone BXD2 mice, which under normal conditions develop spontaneous germinal centers (GCs) and high titers of serum autoantibodies. GF status was confirmed by gut bacterial culture.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Federal open-data initiatives enhance transparency and trust by making collected data accessible to researchers and policymakers, particularly regarding newly emerging health issues like COVID-19, with the CDC managing over 8 million de-identified records.
  • - The CDC developed two public datasets while considering usefulness, public requests, and privacy concerns, using techniques to safeguard confidential information.
  • - Public datasets are freely accessible on Data.CDC.gov, while more detailed data is obtainable through a data-use agreement on GitHub, thus improving understanding and timely sharing of health data.
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Objectives: Real-time surveillance systems are valuable for timely response to public health emergencies. It has been challenging to leverage existing surveillance systems in state and local communities, and, using a centralized architecture, add new data sources and analytical capacity. Because this centralized model has proven to be difficult to maintain and enhance, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been examining the ability to use a federated model based on secure web services architecture, with data stewardship remaining with the data provider.

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The C3H/HeJBir mouse model of intestinal inflammation was used for isolation of a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, non-spore-forming bacterium (B7(T)) from caecal suspensions. On the basis of partial 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain B7(T) was a member of the class Actinobacteria, family Coriobacteriaceae, and was related closely to Enterorhabdus mucosicola Mt1B8(T) (97.6 %).

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Background & Aims: The normal host immune response to antigens of the enteric microbiota is poorly defined. In this study, we isolated recombinant microbial antigens from commensal bacteria and used them to probe the normal murine immune response.

Methods: A plasmid DNA expression library was generated from cecal bacteria of C3H/HeJ mice and used to express 20 recombinant intestinal bacterial proteins (rIBs).

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Helicobacter pylori is the primary cause of peptic ulcer disease and an etiologic agent in the development of gastric cancer. H. pylori infection is curable with regimens of multiple antimicrobial agents, and antimicrobial resistance is a leading cause of treatment failure.

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Computer-assisted analysis of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) libraries can facilitate comparisons of fragment patterns present on multiple gels. We evaluated the ability of the Advanced Analysis (version 4.01) and Database (version 1.

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The use of AOAC standard methods for the determination of nicotine in commercial tobacco products is shown to be inappropriate. The methods do not provide for suitable sample preparation of these products for the analysis and, in addition, they yield high results. Evidence is presented that the nicotine or total alkaloids measured includes artifact nicotine.

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