Yeast Vaccine Vector Including Immunostimulatory And Antigenic Polypeptides And Methods Of Using The Same

Vaccine compositions including a yeast comprising an immunostimulatory polypeptide and optionally an antigenic polypeptide are provided herein. The immunostimulatory polypeptide and the antigenic polypeptide are expressed or displayed on the surface of the yeast vaccine composition. Methods of using the vaccine composition to vaccinate subjects are also provided

Yeast vaccine vector including immunostimulatory and antigenic polypeptides and methods of using the same

Vaccine compositions including a yeast comprising an immunostimulatory polypeptide and optionally an antigenic polypeptide are provided herein. The immunostimulatory polypeptide and the antigenic polypeptide are expressed or displayed on the surface of the yeast vaccine composition. Methods of using the vaccine composition to vaccinate subjects are also provided

Exclusionary employment in Britain’s broken labour market

There is growing evidence of the problematic nature of the UK’s ‘flexible labour market’ with rising levels of in-work poverty and insecurity. Yet successive Governments have stressed that paid work is the route to inclusion, focussing attention on the divide between employed and unemployed. Past efforts to measure social exclusion have tended to make the same distinction. The aim of this paper is to apply Levitas et al’s (2007) framework to assess levels of exclusionary employment, i.e. exclusion arising directly from an individual’s labour market situation. Using data from the Poverty and Social Exclusion UK survey, results show that one in three adults in paid work is in poverty, or in insecure or poor quality employment. One third of this group have not seen any progression in their labour market situation in the last five years. The policy focus needs to shift from ‘Broken Britain’ to Britain’s broken labour market

Social exclusion of older persons: a scoping review and conceptual framework

As a concept, social exclusion has considerable potential to explain and respond to disadvantage in later life. However, in the context of ageing populations, the construct remains ambiguous. A disjointed evidence-base, spread across disparate disciplines, compounds the challenge of developing a coherent understanding of exclusion in older age. This article addresses this research deficit by presenting the findings of a two-stage scoping review encompassing seven separate reviews of the international literature pertaining to old-age social exclusion. Stage one involved a review of conceptual frameworks on old-age exclusion, identifying conceptual understandings and key domains of later-life exclusion. Stage two involved scoping reviews on each domain (six in all). Stage one identified six conceptual frameworks on old-age exclusion and six common domains across these frameworks: neighbourhood and community; services, amenities and mobility; social relations; material and financial resources; socio-cultural aspects; and civic participation. International literature concentrated on the first four domains, but indicated a general lack of research knowledge and of theoretical development. Drawing on all seven scoping reviews and a knowledge synthesis, the article presents a new definition and conceptual framework relating to old-age exclusion

The combined effect of perceptual and conceptual dimensions on product design aesthetics

In design research perceptual features of a design such as unity- in-variety as well as conceptual properties (whether the design is a good instantiation of designer’s intentions) have been found to affect the aesthetic experience independently. In the course of a research design using systematic manipulations of USB stick designs in three subsequent phases, we have been able to formally relate these distinct dimensions, after having assessed optimal levels for them separately. We have found that both conceptual and perceptual features impact on aesthetic liking, but the perceptual dimension is more decisive. We also encountered a positive interaction, indicating that effects of dimensions are interdependent to an extent.Industrial DesignIndustrial Design Engineerin

A Fast and Inexpensive Protocol for Empirical Verification of Neutralizing Epitopes in Microbial Toxins and Enzymes

In vivo targeting of peptides to antigen-presenting cells by use of agonistic anti-CD40 monoclonal antibodies has been used successfully as an immune response enhancing strategy. When tested in chickens, the antibody-guided platform was capable of inducing specific IgG production within 1 week postimmunization. However, use of this method beyond its initial conception as a vaccine delivery tool has not been fully exploited. In this study, Clostridium perfringens alpha-toxin was used as a model microbial toxin for epitope mapping by using the antibody-guided immunization method to generate a panel of antibodies against specific, regions of the toxin in an attempt to identify crucial determinants on the toxin which, once bound, would hinder downstream toxicity. Alpha-toxin, which possesses both hemolytic and phospholipase C (PLC) enzymatic activities, has long been known to be one of the key destructive etiological agents of necrotic enteritis disease in poultry. Previous attempts to identify crucial antigenic determinants on the toxin mediating its enzymatic activities have been performed using expensive and labor-intensive site-directed mutagenesis techniques. To create a panel of antibodies, 23 short candidate alpha-toxin peptide regions were selected in silico using B-cell epitope prediction algorithms in the public domain and were custom synthesized to load onto the antibody-guided complex for immunization in birds for antisera production. Peptide-specific antibody responses were generated against all candidate neutralizing epitopes and used for in vitro toxin neutralization tests. Antisera against all 23 peptides were able to neutralize the toxin’s hemolytic activity, with neutralization titers ranging from 80 to 320, but none were effective in blocking PLC. The novel approach of antibody-guided immunization introduces a new, inexpensive method for polyclonal IgG production and de facto identification of neutralizing epitopes in microbial toxins and enzymes within 2 weeks from in silico analysis of a putative target sequence