Two decades of research capacity strengthening and reciprocal learning on sexual and reproductive health in East Africa – a point of (no) return

As the world is facing challenges such as pandemics, climate change, conflicts, and changing political landscapes, the need to secure access to safe and high-quality abortion care is more urgent than ever. On 27th of June 2023, the Swedish government decided to cut funding resources available for developmental research, which has played a fundamental role in the advancement of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) globally, including abortion care. Withdrawal of this funding not only threatens the fulfilment of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGS) – target 3.7 on ensuring universal access to SRHR and target 5 on gender equality – but also jeopardises two decades of research capacity strengthening. In this article, we describe how the partnerships that we have built over the course of two decades have amounted to numerous publications, doctoral graduates, and important advancements within the field of SRHR in East Africa and beyon

Some surface-related aspects of the cleaning of new and reused stainless-steel surfaces fouled by protein

The adsorption of β-lactoglobulin to stainless steel and its subsequent alkali-induced removal were followed using ellipsometry. New steel samples differing in bulk composition, surface finish or chemical pretreatment were used. All surfaces were precleaned in strongly alkaline solution, and some were subsequently passivated in nitric acid. Furthermore, on surfaces differing in pretreatment measurements were performed during repeated fouling and cleaning cycles. No correlation was found between the bulk composition or the surface finish and the fouling tendency or the cleanability. However, striking differences in cleanability between stainless-steel surfaces subjected to different chemical pretreatments were evident, particularly at low temperature. Still, only minor effects on the fouling tendency were observed. When subjecting surfaces to repeated fouling and cleaning without renewed pretreatment, the differences in cleaning performance decreased but were still significant. While the cleanability of non-passivated surfaces appeared to decrease somewhat when reused, changes seemed smaller for passivated surfaces

β-Lactoglobulin fouling and its removal upon rinsing and by SDS as influenced by surface characteristics, temperature and adsorption time

The extensive fouling common in the food industry puts high demands on equipment cleaning. The adsorption of β-lactoglobulin and its removal by the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) were followed at pH 6.0 using in situ ellipsometry. Hydrophilic chromium oxide and stainless steel together with hydrophobic methylated silica were studied at different temperatures. Differences between chromium oxide and steel were small, while hydrophobic silica showed significantly different initial adsorption kinetics and adsorbed amounts. Also, the temperature-dependence of the amount desorbed upon rinsing as well as of the overall cleanability differed greatly. At around the β-lactoglobulin denaturation temperature, multilayer build-up at the surface was seen, and the cleanability was very low. Of two protein adsorption times employed, the longer resulted, for metal oxide surfaces, in less desorption during rinsing

Time and temperature aspects of β-lactoglobulin removal from methylated silica surfaces by sodium dodecyl sulphate

The adsorption of β-lactoglobulin onto methylated silica surfaces and the subsequent protein removal by the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) were followed using in-situ ellipsometry. Experiments were performed at pH 6.0 in phosphate-buffered saline solution. Parameters varied include temperature, length of time for protein adsorption from solution and surface residence time of β-lactoglobulin. The temperature was kept constant throughout a trial, and the majority of experiments were carried out at a few degrees below the protein denaturation temperature as reported from differential scanning calorimetry studies. β-Lactoglobulin adsorption at high temperatures resulted in aggregation at the surface after a lag phase of several minutes. Varying the protein adsorption time and thus the amount adsorbed while keeping the protein surface residence time fixed did not seem to affect the amount desorbed upon rinsing or the amount eluted by surfactant. For short β-lactoglobulin adsorption times, the adsorbed amounts were comparable at all temperatures studied. The temperature hardly affected the amount desorbed during rinsing, but did however have a pronounced influence on the protein removed by surfactant. Up to around 60°C practically all β-lactoglobulin was eluted by the SDS. The fraction removed then decreased with temperature, with a sharp drop between 70 and 73°C, and a further decline at higher levels. SDS was seen to be highly inefficient at removing β-lactoglobulin adsorbed at temperatures above 70°C. The trend observed is attributed to temperature-dependent changes in the protein resident on the surface. The β-lactoglobulin surface residence time was seen to significantly affect the elutability. At short residence times the removal efficiency was comparably high, but decreased with time. However, no significant difference could be detected between two sufficiently long residence times. The behaviour is consistent with the assumption of multiple states of adsorbed proteins, together with slow conformational changes in the adsorbed protein layer

A simple but precise method for quantitative measurement of the quality of the laser focus in a scanning optical microscope

We report a method for characterizing the focussing laser beam exiting the objective in a laser scanning microscope. This method provides the size of the optical focus, the divergence of the beam, the ellipticity and the astigmatism. We use a microscopic-scale knife-edge in the form of a simple transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grid attached to a glass microscope slide, and a light-collecting optical fibre and photodiode underneath the specimen. By scanning the laser spot from a reflective to a transmitting part of the grid, a beam profile in the form of an error function can be obtained and by repeating this with the knife-edge at different axial positions relative to the beam waist, the divergence and astigmatism of the post-objective laser beam can be obtained. The measured divergence can be used to quantify how much of the full numerical aperture of the lens is used in practice. We present data of the beam radius, beam divergence, ellipticity, and astigmatism obtained with low (0.15, 0.7) and high (1.3) numerical aperture lenses and lasers commonly used in confocal and multi-photon laser scanning microscopy. Our knife-edge method has several advantages over alternative knife-edge methods used in microscopy including that the knifeedge is easy to prepare, that the beam can be characterized also directly under a coverslip, as necessary to reduce spherical aberrations for objectives designed to be used with a coverslip, and it is suitable for use with commercial laser scanning microscopes where access to the laser beam can be limited