The Opioid Response Project: An Effective Learning Collaborative for Local Communities?

The Opioid Response Project (ORP) was designed as an intensive 2-year health promotion learning collaborative grounded in the Collective Impact Model (CIM) to prepare ten local communities to address the opioid crisis. The purpose of this evaluation was to describe the ORP implementation, provide a summary of the evaluation results, share insights, and discuss implications. Results were informed by multiple data sources, including project documents, surveys, and interviews with members of the ORP and community teams.

Biodiversity of indigenous Saccharomyces populations from old wineries of south-eastern Sicily (Italy): preservation and economic potential.

In recent years, the preservation of biodiversity has become an important issue. Despite much public discussion, however, current practices in the food industry seldom take account of its potential economic importance: on the contrary, the introduction of industrialized agriculture practices over large areas has often resulted in a dramatic reduction in biodiversity.In this paper, we report on the remarkable degree of biodiversity in the wine yeast populations naturally present in a small area of Sicily (Italy) where traditional (non-industrial) winery practices are still in place.

Modulation of dendritic cells using granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) delays type 1 diabetes by enhancing CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cell function.

Abnormalities in DC function are implicated in defective immune regulation that leads to type-1 diabetes (T1D) in NOD mice and humans. In this study, we used GM-CSF and Flt3-L to modulate DC function in NOD mice and observed the effects on T1D development. Treatment with either ligand at earlier stages of insulitis suppressed the development of T1D.

Diversity in the complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) of antibodies from mice with evolving anti-thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor antibody responses.

In a mouse model of autoimmune Graves' disease, stimulatory anti-TSH receptor (TSHR) antibodies (TSAbs) slowly evolve upon repeated immunization with TSHR and lead to hyperthyroidism. Although all immunized mice developed high levels of TSH-binding inhibitory Ig (TBII), only a subset of these mice become hyperthyroid, suggesting that the generation of pathogenic antibodies (Abs) may require affinity maturation. We analyzed the complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) of IGHV1 and IGHV5 heavy chains from mice at different stages of disease development.

IL-10-producing CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells play a critical role in granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor-induced suppression of experimental autoimmune thyroiditis.

Our earlier study showed that GM-CSF has the potential not only to prevent, but also to suppress, experimental autoimmune thyroiditis (EAT). GM-CSF-induced EAT suppression in mice was accompanied by an increase in the frequency of CD4(+)CD25(+) regulatory T cells that could suppress mouse thyroglobulin (mTg)-specific T cell responses in vitro, but the underlying mechanism of this suppression was not elucidated. In this study we show that GM-CSF can induce dendritic cells (DCs) with a semimature phenotype, an important characteristic of DCs, which are known to play a critical role in the induction and maintenance of regulatory T cells.