Using Health Information Technology to Create Pathways for Hepatitis C Treatment and Cure in West Virginia.

This case study describes use of health information technology for enhanced team-based care and care coordination between primary care providers and infectious disease specialists for curing and eventually eliminating hepatitis C in West Virginia. This program, the West Virginia Hepatitis Academic Mentoring Partnership, aims to improve outcomes of West Virginians with chronic hepatitis C infection by training and supporting primary care providers to screen, diagnose, evaluate, treat, cure, and follow patients in the community rather than referring them to distant specialists with long wait times. This initiative supports health equity by increasing access to quality care in severely under-resourced rural areas.

Influence of oviposition experience on multiparasitism by Pimpla disparis Vierick and Itoplectis conquisitor Say (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae).

We evaluated the potential for competition between the exotic ichneumonid parasitoid Pimpla disparis Vierick and the native ichneumonid Itoplectis conquisitor Say, in the form of multiparasitism and destructive host feeding, by examining how previous oviposition experience influenced host selection. Both species commonly attack the host species, bagworm, Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis (Haworth) (Lepidoptera: Psychidae), in central Illinois. We used in our study adult female parasitoids that were naïve, had previously oviposited into hosts that contained heterospecifics, or had oviposited into hosts that initially were unparasitized.

Larval feeding on Bt hybrid and non-Bt corn seedlings by Harmonia axyridis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and Coleomegilla maculata (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae).

Zoophytophagy is an omnivorous activity that occurs when a primarily carnivorous species feeds on plant material. Plant feeding by beneficial predators may have negative consequences if the plant material has been chemically treated, contains toxins, or was transgenically altered. Although common in predaceous Hemiptera, zoophytophagy has been rarely studied in aphidophagous coccinellids.

Vaccination in humans generates broad T cell cytokine responses.

In recent years, the quantification of T cell responses to pathogens or immunogens has become a common tool in the evaluation of disease pathogenesis or vaccine immunogenicity. Such measurements are usually limited to enumerating IFN-gamma-producing cells after ex vivo stimulation with Ag, but little is known about the phenotype or complete functional repertoire of the Ag-specific cells. We used 12-color flow cytometry to characterize Ag-specific T cells elicited by vaccines or natural infection to determine lineage and differentiation status as well as the capacity to produce four cytokines (IFN-gamma, TNF-alpha, IL-2, and IL-4) and a chemokine (MIP1beta).