The persistence of SARS-CoV-2 infections at a global level reflects the repeated emergence of variant strains encoding unique constellations of mutations. These variants have been generated principally because of a dynamic host immune landscape, the countermeasures deployed to combat disease, and selection for enhanced infection of the upper airway and respiratory transmission. The resulting viral diversity creates a challenge for vaccination efforts to maintain efficacy, especially regarding humoral aspects of protection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Over the years, funding for urologic diseases has witnessed a steady rise, reaching $587 million in 2020 from $541 million in 2018. In parallel, there has been a notable increase in the total number of urology journals from 2011 to 2018. This surge in research funding and journal publications calls for urologists to effectively navigate through a vast body of evidence to make the best evidence-based clinical decisions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWestern Pac Surveill Response J
December 2024
Problem: The first known locally acquired cases of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) infection in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, were identified in March 2022. NSW Health (the state entity for health care in NSW), with its partner agencies, conducted a serological survey to identify the prevalence of JEV antibody responses in high-risk communities in NSW.
Context: JEV infection is rare in Australia; therefore, vaccination is not recommended for the majority of Australians.
The continued emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants and the threat of future Sarbecovirus zoonoses have spurred the design of vaccines that can induce broad immunity against multiple coronaviruses. Here, we use computational methods to infer ancestral phylogenetic reconstructions of receptor binding domain (RBD) sequences across multiple Sarbecovirus clades and incorporate them into a multivalent adenoviral-vectored vaccine. Mice immunized with this pan-Sarbecovirus vaccine are protected in the upper and lower respiratory tracts against infection by historical and contemporary SARS-CoV-2 variants, SARS-CoV, and pre-emergent SHC014 and Pangolin/GD coronavirus strains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStress is one of, if not the, most ubiquitously studied risk factor across the health sciences. This is unlikely to change given that the primary drivers of mortality and disability are chronic, stress-mediated illnesses (often highly comorbid with psychopathology). We argue that an important limitation of stress research is the consistency with which the Trier Social Stress Test is used when the research questions are not specific to social stress.
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