Publications by authors named "Swinburne A J Augustine"

Article Synopsis
  • * A total of 531 saliva samples were analyzed from two Tribal Nation festivals and compared with 453 samples previously collected in the Midwest, employing logistic and linear regression models.
  • * Results indicated varying seroprevalences of specific infections, with higher antibody responses to certain noroviruses and unique associations between lifestyle factors (like water consumption and animal contact) and infection rates in the Tribal populations.
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Article Synopsis
  • Environmental exposures and their impact on public health are increasingly concerning, with antibody tests emerging as valuable tools for large-scale studies.
  • A study conducted on beachgoers in Iowa used a salivary antibody test to measure immunity against six common pathogens, revealing that 80% had prior exposure to at least one pathogen.
  • The findings indicated significant exposure to noroviruses and demonstrated that the multiplex immunoassay is effective for assessing health risks from environmental pathogens.
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Hepatitis A virus (HAV) is a common infection that is transmitted through the fecal-oral route, shed in the stool of infected individuals, and spread either by direct contact or by ingesting contaminated food or water. Each year, approximately 1.4 million acute cases are reported globally with a major risk factor for exposure being low household socioeconomic status.

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Determining infections from environmental exposures, particularly from waterborne pathogens is a challenging proposition. The study design must be rigorous and account for numerous factors including study population selection, sample collection, storage, and processing, as well as data processing and analysis. These challenges are magnified when it is suspected that individuals may potentially be infected by multiple pathogens at the same time.

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Background: Swimming in fecally-contaminated waterbodies can result in gastrointestinal infections. However, the pathogenic microorganisms responsible are not well understood because sporadic cases of illness are not reported completely, exposure information is often not collected, and epidemiology studies rely on self-reported symptoms. Noroviruses are considered a likely cause because they are found in high densities in sewage, resistant to wastewater treatment and survive in the environment.

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Waterborne infectious diseases are a major public health concern worldwide. Few methods have been established that are capable of measuring human exposure to multiple waterborne pathogens simultaneously using non-invasive samples such as saliva. Most current methods measure exposure to only one pathogen at a time, require large volumes of individual samples collected using invasive procedures, and are very labor intensive.

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The etiology and impacts of human exposure to environmental pathogens are of major concern worldwide and, thus, the ability to assess exposure and infections using cost effective, high-throughput approaches would be indispensable. This manuscript describes the development and analysis of a bead-based multiplex immunoassay capable of measuring the presence of antibodies in human saliva to multiple pathogens simultaneously. Saliva is particularly attractive in this application because it is noninvasive, cheaper and easier to collect than serum.

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Rapid, cost-effective, and early determination of the serological status of potentially infected individuals, particularly pregnant women, can be critical in preventing life-threatening infections and subsequent fetal congenital abnormalities. An article in this issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (X. Li, C.

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There are numerous pathogens that can be transmitted through water. Identifying and understanding the routes and magnitude of exposure or infection to these microbial contaminants are critical to assessing and mitigating risk. Conventional approaches of studying immunological responses to exposure or infection such as Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISAs) and other monoplex antibody-based immunoassays can be very costly, laborious, and consume large quantities of patient sample.

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The effect of UV exposure on Toxoplasma gondii oocysts has not been completely defined for use in water disinfection. This study evaluated UV-irradiated oocysts by three assays: a SCID mouse bioassay, an in vitro T. gondii oocyst plaque (TOP) assay, and a quantitative reverse transcriptase real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) assay.

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Toxoplasma gondii oocysts are highly resistant to many chemical sanitizers. Methods used to determine oocyst infectivity have relied primarily on mouse, chicken, and feline bioassays. Although considered gold standards, they only provide a qualitative assessment of oocyst viability.

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In this work, we report the cloning and characterization of the first cell surface casein kinase II (CKII) substrate (Tc-1) of Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas' disease. Analysis of the gene sequence revealed a 1,653-bp open reading frame coding for 550 amino acid residues. Northern blot analysis showed a 4.

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