Therapeutic effect of Echinococcus granulosus cyst fluid on bacterial sepsis in mice.

Background: The primary pathophysiological process of sepsis is to stimulate a massive release of inflammatory mediators to trigger systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), the major cause of multi-organ dysfunction and death. Like other helminths, Echinococcus granulosus induces host immunomodulation. We sought to determine whether E.

Early cellular and molecular signatures correlate with severity of West Nile virus infection.

Infection with West Nile virus (WNV) drives a wide range of responses, from asymptomatic to flu-like symptoms/fever or severe cases of encephalitis and death. To identify cellular and molecular signatures distinguishing WNV severity, we employed systems profiling of peripheral blood from asymptomatic and severely ill individuals infected with WNV. We interrogated immune responses longitudinally from acute infection through convalescence employing single-cell protein and transcriptional profiling complemented with matched serum proteomics and metabolomics as well as multi-omics analysis.

Epidemiology of giardiasis and assemblages A and B and effects on diarrhea and growth trajectories during the first 8 years of life: Analysis of a birth cohort in a rural district in tropical Ecuador.

Background: There are limited longitudinal data on the acquisition of Giardia lamblia infections in childhood using molecular assays to detect and type assemblages, and measure effects of infections on diarrhea risk and childhood growth.

Methods: We analysed stool samples from a surveillance sample within a birth cohort in a rural district in tropical Ecuador. The cohort was followed to 8 years of age for the presence of G.

Autogenous reproduction by (Ixodida: Argasidae) females and vertical transmission of the tick-borne pathogen (Spirochaetales: ).

Previous research has implicated ticks, including , as long-term reservoirs of relapsing fever (RF) spirochetes. Considering the tick's long lifespan and their efficiency in maintaining and transferring spirochetes within the population, the infection could persist in a given enzootic focus for decades. However, little is known about the relative importance of horizontal and vertical transmission routes in the persistence and evolution of RF .

Vaccine value profile for Hookworm.

Hookworm, a parasitic infection, retains a considerable burden of disease, affecting the most underprivileged segments of the general population in endemic countries and remains one of the leading causes of mild to severe anemia in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs), particularly in pregnancy and children under 5. Despite repeated large scale Preventive Chemotherapy (PC) interventions since more than 3 decades, there is broad consensus among scholars that elimination targets set in the newly launched NTD roadmap will require additional tools and interventions. Development of a vaccine could constitute a promising expansion of the existing arsenal against hookworm.

Excretory/secretory products from Trichinella spiralis adult worms ameliorate myocardial infarction by inducing M2 macrophage polarization in a mouse model.

Background: Ischemia-induced inflammatory response is the main pathological mechanism of myocardial infarction (MI)-caused heart tissue injury. It has been known that helminths and worm-derived proteins are capable of modulating host immune response to suppress excessive inflammation as a survival strategy. Excretory/secretory products from Trichinella spiralis adult worms (Ts-AES) have been shown to ameliorate inflammation-related diseases.

Toll-like receptor 4 and CD11b expressed on microglia coordinate eradication of Candida albicans cerebral mycosis.

The fungal pathogen Candida albicans is linked to chronic brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the molecular basis of brain anti-Candida immunity remains unknown. We show that C. albicans enters the mouse brain from the blood and induces two neuroimmune sensing mechanisms involving secreted aspartic proteinases (Saps) and candidalysin.

Vaccine Preventable Disease and Vaccine Hesitancy.

Global immunization programs have saved tens of millions of lives over the last 2 decades. Now, the recent successes of COVID-19 vaccines having saved more than 3 million lives in North America during the pandemic may open the door to accelerate technologies for other emerging infection vaccines. New vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus, norovirus, influenza, herpes simplex virus, shingles, dengue fever, enteric bacterial infections, malaria, and Chagas disease are advancing through clinical development and could become ready for delivery over the next 5 years.

Adaptation of Chagas Disease Screening Recommendations for a Community of At-risk HIV in the United States.

Chagas disease (CD), caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, is underdiagnosed in the United States. Improved screening strategies are needed, particularly for people at risk for life-threatening sequelae of CD, including people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV, PWH). Here we report results of a CD screening strategy applied at a large HIV clinic serving an at-risk population.

Review of Toxocariasis at a Children's Hospital Prompting Need for Public Health Interventions.

Background: Toxocariasis, caused the by dog and cat roundworm, is one of the most common zoonotic helminth infections in the United States and can lead to severe lifelong morbidity in children. Although historical seroprevalence studies have identified a high frequency of toxocariasis regionally in the United States, there are few studies linking epidemiology and clinical disease in children. The study objective was to examine the contemporary epidemiology of pediatric toxocariasis within an endemic US region.

New records of Ornithodoros turicata (Ixodida: Argasidae) in rural and urban sites in the Mexican states of Aguascalientes and Zacatecas indicate the potential for tick-borne relapsing fever.

Soft ticks from the Ornithodoros genus are vectors of relapsing fever (RF) spirochetes around the world. In Mexico, they were originally described in the 19th century. However, few recent surveillance studies have been conducted in Mexico, and regions where RF spirochetes circulate remain vague.

DNA-encoded chemical libraries yield non-covalent and non-peptidic SARS-CoV-2 main protease inhibitors.

The development of SARS-CoV-2 main protease (M) inhibitors for the treatment of COVID-19 has mostly benefitted from X-ray structures and preexisting knowledge of inhibitors; however, an efficient method to generate M inhibitors, which circumvents such information would be advantageous. As an alternative approach, we show here that DNA-encoded chemistry technology (DEC-Tec) can be used to discover inhibitors of M. An affinity selection of a 4-billion-membered DNA-encoded chemical library (DECL) using M as bait produces novel non-covalent and non-peptide-based small molecule inhibitors of M with low nanomolar K values.

Development of chimeric protein as a multivalent vaccine for human Kinetoplastid infections: Chagas disease and leishmaniasis.

Leishmania spp. and Trypanosoma cruzi are parasitic kinetoplastids of great medical and epidemiological importance since they are responsible for thousands of deaths and disability-adjusted life-years annually, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Despite efforts to minimize their impact, current prevention measures have failed to fully control their spread.

Description of a new Pavlovskyella species (Acari: Argasidae) from Chile.

Soft ticks (Argasidae) of the Pavlovskyella Pospelova-Shtrom subgenus are important vectors of relapsing fever spirochetes, which are agents of disease globally. South American representatives of the Pavlovskyella subgenus include 3 species: Ornithodoros (Pavlovskyella) brasiliensis Aragão, Ornithodoros (Pavlovskyella) furcosus Neumann, and Ornithodoros (Pavlovskyella) rostratus Aragão. Here, we describe a fourth species based on morphological and mitogenomic evidence of ticks collected in burrows of unknown hosts in central Chile.

Vaccine access, equity and justice: COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination.

Although significant progress has been made in achieving goals for COVID-19 vaccine access, the quest for equity and justice remains an unfinished agenda. Vaccine nationalism has prompted calls for new approaches to achieve equitable access and justice not only for vaccines but also for vaccination. This includes ensuring country and community participation in global discussions and that local needs to strengthen health systems, address issues related to social determinants of health, build trust and leverage acceptance to vaccines, are addressed.

COVID-19 vaccines and the pandemic: lessons learnt for other neglected diseases and future threats.

Through the experiences gained by accelerating new vaccines for both Ebola virus infection and COVID-19 in a public health emergency, vaccine development has benefited from a 'multiple shots on goal' approach to new vaccine targets. This approach embraces simultaneous development of candidates with differing technologies, including, when feasible, vesicular stomatitis virus or adenovirus vectors, messenger RNA (mRNA), whole inactivated virus, nanoparticle and recombinant protein technologies, which led to multiple effective COVID-19 vaccines. The challenge of COVID-19 vaccine inequity, as COVID-19 spread globally, created a situation where cutting-edge mRNA technologies were preferentially supplied by multinational pharmaceutical companies to high-income countries while low and middle-income countries (LMICs) were pushed to the back of the queue and relied more heavily on adenoviral vector, inactivated virus and recombinant protein vaccines.

From concept to delivery: a yeast-expressed recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine technology suitable for global access.

Introduction: The development of a yeast-expressed recombinant protein-based vaccine technology co-developed with LMIC vaccine producers and suitable as a COVID-19 vaccine for global access is described. The proof-of-concept for developing a SARS-CoV-2 spike protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) antigen as a yeast-derived recombinant protein vaccine technology is described.

Areas Covered: Genetic Engineering: The strategy is presented for the design and genetic modification used during cloning and expression in the yeast system.