Publications by authors named "William Witt"

The incidence of infections attributed to antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) pathogens has increased exponentially over the recent decades reaching 1.27 million deaths worldwide in 2019. Without intervention, these infections are predicted to cause up to 10 million deaths a year and incur costs of up to 100 trillion US dollars globally by 2050.

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the bacterium responsible for whooping cough, remains a significant public health challenge despite the existing licensed pertussis vaccines. Current acellular pertussis vaccines, though having favorable reactogenicity and efficacy profiles, involve complex and costly production processes. In addition, acellular vaccines have functional challenges such as short-lasting duration of immunity and limited antigen coverage.

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The murine Bordetella pertussis challenge model has been utilized in preclinical research for decades. Currently, inconsistent methodologies are employed by researchers across the globe, making it difficult to compare findings. The objective of this work was to utilize the CD-1 mouse model with two routes of challenge, intranasal and aerosol administration of B.

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We introduce ACEpotentials.jl, a Julia-language software package that constructs interatomic potentials from quantum mechanical reference data using the Atomic Cluster Expansion [R. Drautz, Phys.

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Machine-learned interatomic potentials are fast becoming an indispensable tool in computational materials science. One approach is the ephemeral data-derived potential (EDDP), which was designed to accelerate atomistic structure prediction. The EDDP is simple and cost-efficient.

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The rise of antimicrobial-resistant bacterial infections is a crucial health concern in the 21st century. In particular, antibiotic-resistant causes difficult-to-treat infections associated with high morbidity and mortality. Unfortunately, the number of effective therapeutic interventions against antimicrobial-resistant infections continues to decline.

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Differentiable programming has facilitated numerous methodological advances in scientific computing. Physics engines supporting automatic differentiation have simpler code, accelerating the development process and reducing the maintenance burden. Furthermore, fully differentiable simulation tools enable direct evaluation of challenging derivatives-including those directly related to properties measurable by experiment-that are conventionally computed with finite difference methods.

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Whole cell vaccines are complex mixtures of antigens, immunogens, and sometimes adjuvants that can trigger potent and protective immune responses. In some instances, such as whole cell Bordetella pertussis vaccination, the immune response to vaccination extends beyond the pathogen the vaccine was intended for and contributes to protection against other clinically significant pathogens. In this study, we describe how B.

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Calcium (Ca) is well known as a second messenger in eukaryotes, where Ca signaling controls life-sustaining cellular processes. Although bacteria produce the components required for Ca signaling, little is known about the mechanisms of bacterial Ca signaling. Previously, we have identified a putative Ca-binding protein EfhP (PA4107) with two canonical EF-hand motifs and reported that EfhP mediates Ca regulation of virulence factors production and infectivity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a human pathogen causing life-threatening infections.

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Over two decades ago acellular pertussis vaccines (aP) replaced whole cell pertussis vaccines (wP) in several countries. Since then, a resurgence in pertussis has been observed, which is hypothesized to be linked, in part, to waning immunity. To better understand why waning immunity occurs, we developed a long-term outbred CD1 mouse model to conduct the longest murine pertussis vaccine studies to date, spanning out to 532 days post primary immunization.

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The properties of a material depend on how its atoms are arranged, and predicting these arrangements from first principles is a longstanding challenge. Orbital-free density functional theory provides a quantum-mechanical model based solely on the electron density, not individual wave functions. The resulting speedups make it attractive for random structure searching, whereby random configurations of atoms are relaxed to local minima in the energy landscape.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers explored the effectiveness of a curdlan-adjuvanted whole-cell vaccine (WCV) delivered intranasally, finding that it significantly reduced bacterial loads and increased specific antibody levels post-vaccination.
  • * Results indicated that while T cells play a role, the protection against the pathogen mainly relies on antibodies, as depletion of B cells hindered bacterial clearance despite T cell presence, suggesting T cell-independent antibody production is sufficient for vaccine efficacy.
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Whole cell vaccines are frequently the first generation of vaccines tested for pathogens and can inform the design of subsequent acellular or subunit vaccines. For respiratory pathogens, administration of vaccines at the mucosal surface can facilitate the generation of a localized mucosal immune response. Here, we examined the innate and vaccine-induced immune responses to infection by two respiratory pathogens: and .

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is an opportunistic pathogen causing acute and chronic respiratory infections associated with morbidity and mortality, especially in patients with cystic fibrosis. Vaccination against before colonization may be a solution against these infections and improve the quality of life of at-risk patients. To develop a vaccine against , we formulated a novel peptide-based subunit vaccine based on the extracellular regions of one of its major siderophore receptors, FpvA.

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Current acellular pertussis vaccines fall short of optimal protection against the human respiratory pathogen resulting in increased incidence of a previously controlled vaccine- preventable disease. Natural infection is known to induce a protective mucosal immunity. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to use acellular pertussis vaccines to recapitulate these mucosal immune responses.

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Hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) compartments are altered to direct immune responses to infection. Their roles during immunization are not well-described. To elucidate mechanisms for waning immunity following immunization with acellular vaccines (ACVs) against (), we tested the hypothesis that immunization with ACVs and whole cell vaccines (WCVs) differ in directing the HSPC characteristics and immune cell development patterns that ultimately contribute to the types and quantities of cells produced to fight infection.

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Kinetic energy density functionals (KEDFs) approximate the kinetic energy of a system of electrons directly from its electron density. They are used in electronic structure methods that lack direct access to orbitals, for example, orbital-free density functional theory (OFDFT) and certain embedding schemes. In this contribution, we introduce libKEDF, an accelerated library of modern KEDF implementations that emphasizes nonlocal KEDFs.

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Introduction: The use of neurostimulation for pain has been an established therapy for many decades and is a major tool in the arsenal to treat neuropathic pain syndromes. Level I evidence has recently been presented to substantiate the therapy, but this is balanced against the risk of complications of an interventional technique.

Methods: The Neurostimulation Appropriateness Consensus Committee (NACC) of the International Neuromodulation Society convened an international panel of well published and diverse physicians to examine the best practices for infection mitigation and management in patients undergoing neurostimulation.

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This article describes the results of comparisons of digitally scanned whole slide images (WSIs) and glass microscope slides for diagnosis of tissues under peer review by the National Toxicology Program. Findings in this article were developed as a result of the data collected from 6 pathology working groups (PWGs), 1 pathology peer review, and survey comments from over 25 participating pathologists. For each PWG, 6-14 pathologists examined 10-143 tissues per study from 6- and 9-month perinatal studies and 2-year carcinogenicity studies.

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One of the most-studied unsteady locomotor behaviors exhibited by fishes is the c-start escape response. Although the kinematics of these responses have been studied extensively and two well-defined kinematic stages have been documented, only a few studies have focused on hydrodynamic patterns generated by fishes executing escape behaviors. Previous work has shown that escape responses by bluegill sunfish generate three distinct vortex rings, each with central orthogonal jet flows, and here we extend this conclusion to two other species: stickleback and mosquitofish.

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Swine leucocyte antigen (SLA) class II molecules on porcine (p) cells play a crucial role in xenotransplantation as activators of recipient human CD4(+) T cells. A human dominant-negative mutant class II transactivator (CIITA-DN) transgene under a CAG promoter with an endothelium-specific Tie2 enhancer was constructed. CIITA-DN transgenic pigs were produced by nuclear transfer/embryo transfer.

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Background Context: Patients often present to spine clinic with evidence of intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD). If conservative management fails, a safe and effective injection directly into the disc might be preferable to the risks and morbidity of surgery.

Purpose: To determine whether injecting human umbilical tissue-derived cells (hUTC) into the nucleus pulposus (NP) might improve the course of IDD.

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Introduction: Targeted intrathecal drug infusion to treat moderate to severe chronic pain has become a standard part of treatment algorithms when more conservative options fail. This therapy is well established in the literature, has shown efficacy, and is an important tool for the treatment of both cancer and noncancer pain; however, it has become clear in recent years that intrathecal drug delivery is associated with risks for serious morbidity and mortality.

Methods: The Polyanalgesic Consensus Conference is a meeting of experienced implanting physicians who strive to improve care in those receiving implantable devices.

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Introduction: The use of intrathecal (IT) infusion of analgesic medications to treat patients with chronic refractory pain has increased since its inception in the 1980s, and the need for clinical research in IT therapy is ongoing. The Polyanalgesic Consensus Conference (PACC) panel of experts convened in 2000, 2003, and 2007 to make recommendations on the rational use of IT analgesics based on preclinical and clinical literature and clinical experiences.

Methods: The PACC panel convened again in 2011 to update the standard of care for IT therapies to reflect current knowledge gleaned from literature and clinical experience.

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