Belief or experience? The anthropologist's dilemma

As an anthropologist who studies the religious beliefs and practices of others, I have long pondered the role that my own religious experience plays in my work, and I am similarly curious concerning the relationship between personal belief and practice and the anthropological study of religion in the work of my contemporaries. What follows is a reflection of these interests. I attempt to survey some current anthropological approaches to religion in the context of current intellectual trends, particularly in the fields of the philosophy of language, postmodernism and science, while at the same time advancing an argument for the distinctiveness of ethnographic fieldwork as a methodological tool that can give a unique and immensely valuable insight in to the nature of religion as a social fact. This rests on the premise that the embodied encounter between the anthropologist and the ‘other’, who becomes an object of study, combines internal experience and reflexivity in a way that has the potential for successful and honest cultural translation, through recognition of the essentially dialogical and contextual nature of knowledge

Non-canonical inflammasome activation mediates the adjuvanticity of nanoparticles

The non-canonical inflammasome sensor caspase-11 and gasdermin D (GSDMD) drive inflammation and pyroptosis, a type of immunogenic cell death that favors cell-mediated immunity (CMI) in cancer, infection, and autoimmunity. Here we show that caspase-11 and GSDMD are required for CD8+ and Th1 responses induced by nanoparticulate vaccine adjuvants. We demonstrate that nanoparticle-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) are size dependent and essential for CMI, and we identify 50- to 60-nm nanoparticles as optimal inducers of ROS, GSDMD activation, and Th1 and CD8+ responses. We reveal a division of labor for IL-1 and IL-18, where IL-1 supports Th1 and IL-18 promotes CD8+ responses. Exploiting size as a key attribute, we demonstrate that biodegradable poly-lactic co-glycolic acid nanoparticles are potent CMI-inducing adjuvants. Our work implicates ROS and the non-canonical inflammasome in the mode of action of polymeric nanoparticulate adjuvants and establishes adjuvant size as a key design principle for vaccines against cancer and intracellular pathogens