'Birthing a Better Future': A mixed-methods evaluation of an exhibition on the early years of life.

Background: Our study aimed to evaluate to what extent Zero2 Expo's 'Birthing a Better Future', a co-created multimedia exhibition, was effective in raising awareness on the importance of the first 1001 days of life and explore what refinements would help to optimize the impact of future exhibitions.

Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods evaluation of the exhibition delivered in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. Through convenience sampling, 14 participants were selected to participate in 12 structured interviews and 19 participants completed a questionnaire.

Single use and conventional bronchoscopes for Broncho alveolar lavage (BAL) in research: a comparative study (NCT 02515591).

Background: Broncho alveolar lavage (BAL) is widely used for investigative research to study innate, cellular and humoral immune responses, and in early phase drug trials. Conventional (multiple use) flexible bronchoscopes have time and monetary costs associated with cleaning, and carries a small risk of cross infection. Single use bronchoscopes may provide an alternative, but have not been evaluated in this context.

Agglutination by anti-capsular polysaccharide antibody is associated with protection against experimental human pneumococcal carriage.

The ability of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) to decrease transmission by blocking the acquisition of colonization has been attributed to herd immunity. We describe the role of mucosal immunoglobulin G (IgG) to capsular polysaccharide (CPS) in mediating protection from carriage, translating our findings from a murine model to humans. We used a flow cytometric assay to quantify antibody-mediated agglutination demonstrating that hyperimmune sera generated against an unencapsulated mutant was poorly agglutinating.

Polysaccharide-Specific Memory B Cells Predict Protection against Experimental Human Pneumococcal Carriage.

Rationale: We have previously demonstrated that experimental pneumococcal carriage enhances immunity and protects healthy adults against carriage reacquisition after rechallenge with a homologous strain.

Objectives: To investigate the role of naturally acquired pneumococcal protein and polysaccharide (PS)-specific immunity in protection against carriage acquisition using a heterologous challenge model.

Methods: We identified healthy volunteers that were naturally colonized with pneumococcus and, after clearance of their natural carriage episode, challenged them with a heterologous 6B strain.