Publications by authors named "E J DIAMANT"

Article Synopsis
  • Urbanization serves as a unique experiment for evolution, as it creates selection pressures that differ from species' historical habitats, prompting questions about adaptation.
  • The study focuses on the dark-eyed junco songbird, investigating morphological differences between urban and nonurban populations in Southern California.
  • Results reveal that while urban juncos show some consistent trait changes, such as shorter wing lengths related to urban environments, there are also unique variations, suggesting a complex response to urban conditions.
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Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has resulted in over seven million deaths globally, prompting the development of the BriLife vaccine by the Israel Institute for Biological Research.
  • BriLife is based on a modified vesicular stomatitis virus that expresses the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 to enhance immune response.
  • A newly validated plaque assay using Vero E6 cells showed high reliability in measuring the vaccine's viral vector concentration, proving to be accurate and robust across different preparations.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has led to high global demand for vaccines to safeguard public health. To that end, our institute has developed a recombinant viral vector vaccine utilizing a modified vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) construct, wherein the G protein of VSV is replaced with the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 (rVSV-ΔG-spike). Previous studies have demonstrated the production of a VSV-based vaccine in Vero cells adsorbed on Cytodex 1 microcarriers or in suspension.

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Background: Though rates of tobacco smoking have decreased consistently over the past 3 decades, cigarette use remains the top preventable cause of premature death in North America. The Clinical Effort Against Secondhand Smoke Exposure (CEASE) is a medical clinic-based intervention that systematically screens parents for tobacco use and offers them direct access to evidence-based smoking cessation services. While the effectiveness of CEASE for parents who smoke has already been demonstrated in the United States, the CEASE model has not yet been tested in Canada, among parents who use e-cigarettes, or among adolescents who use cigarettes and e-cigarettes.

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Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many people around the world stayed home, drastically altering human activity in cities. This exceptional moment provided researchers the opportunity to test how urban animals respond to human disturbance, in some cases testing fundamental questions on the mechanistic impact of urban behaviours on animal behaviour. However, at the end of this 'anthropause', human activity returned to cities.

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