The yellow fever vaccine 17D is one of the most successful live-attenuated vaccines ever developed, controlling mosquito-borne yellow fever virus and yellow fever disease worldwide. Introduced in 1937, 17D never underwent rigorous phase III clinical trials to evaluate safety or efficacy, and while protection in the field was quickly established, no prospective evaluation of vaccine efficacy has ever been conducted. One important measure of vaccine efficacy is breakthrough infection resulting from vaccine failure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe chicken major histocompatibility complex (MHC, also known as the BF-BL region of the B locus) is notably small and simple with few genes, most of which are involved in antigen processing and presentation. There are two classical class I genes, of which only BF2 is well and systemically expressed as the major ligand for cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). The other class I gene, BF1, is believed to be primarily a natural killer (NK) cell ligand.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccess to fast and reliable nucleic acid testing continues to play a key role in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the context of increased vaccine break-through risks due to new variants. We report a rapid, low-cost (~ 2 USD), simple-to-use nucleic acid test kit for self-administered at-home testing without lab instrumentation. The entire sample-to-answer workflow takes < 60 min, including noninvasive sample collection, one-step RNA preparation, reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) in a thermos, and direct visual inspection of a colorimetric test result.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPreventing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in newborns by vertical transmission remains an important unmet medical need in resource-poor areas where antiretroviral therapy (ART) is not available and mothers and infants cannot be treated prepartum or during the breastfeeding period. In the present study, the protective efficacy of the potent HIV-neutralizing antibodies PGT121 and VRC07-523, both produced in plants, were assessed in a multiple-SHIV (simian-human immunodeficiency virus)-challenge breastfeeding macaque model. Newborn macaques received either six weekly subcutaneous injections with PGT121 alone or as a cocktail of PGT121-LS plus VRC07-523-LS injected three times every 2 weeks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe compared the serum neutralizing antibody titers before and after two doses of the BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine in ten individuals who recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection prior to vaccination to 20 individuals with no history of infection, against clinical isolates of B.1.1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe tested human sera from large, demographically balanced cohorts of BNT162b2 vaccine recipients (n=51) and COVID-19 patients (n=44) for neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants B.1.1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZika virus (ZIKV) emerged as a global public health threat throughout the Americas since 2014. Phylogenetically, the virus is composed of three main lineages, an African, Asian, and American lineage. The recent emergence and spread of ZIKV has raised questions regarding the breadth and potency of human primary ZIKV immune sera against antigenically diverse ZIKV.
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