Synergism/complementarity of recombinant adenoviral vectors and other vaccination platforms during induction of protective immunity against malaria

The lack of immunogenicity of most malaria antigens and the complex immune responses required for achieving protective immunity against this infectious disease have traditionally hampered the development of an efficient human malaria vaccine. The current boom in development of recombinant viral vectors and their use in prime-boost protocols that result in enhanced immune outcomes have increased the number of malaria vaccine candidates that access pre-clinical and clinical trials. In the frontline, adenoviruses and poxviruses seem to be giving the best immunization results in experimental animals and their mutual combination, or their combination with recombinant proteins (formulated in adjuvants and given in sequence or being given as protein/virus admixtures), has been shown to reach unprecedented levels of anti-malaria immunity that predictably will be somehow reproduced in the human setting. However, all this optimism was previously seen in the malaria vaccine development field without many real applicable results to date. We describe here the current state-of-the-art in the field of recombinant adenovirus research for malaria vaccine development, in particular referring to their use in combination with other immunogens in heterologous prime-boost protocols, while trying to simultaneously show our contributions and point of view on this subject

The touched self : Affective touch and body awareness in health and disease

Antje Gentsch, Laura Crucianelli, Paul Jenkinson, Aikaterini Fotopoulou, ‘The touched self: Affective touch and body awareness in health and disease’, in Hakan Olausson, Johan Wessberg, India Morrison, Francis McGlone, eds., Affective touch and the neurophysiology of CT afferents, (Switzerland: Springer, 2016), ISBN 978-1-4939-6416-1, eISBN 978-1-4939-6418-5.This chapter focuses on how interpersonal, affective touch shapes our sense of self as embodied beings. In the first section, we highlight the centrality of bodily representations for our psychological sense of self, with special emphasis on the role of internal bodily signals in forming the emotional, core of selfhood. The second section focuses on affective touch as a domain of interoception and addresses its important contribution to healthy body representation and bodily awareness. Specifically, we present recent, accumulating evidence in healthy volunteers pointing to the crucial role of affective touch in the construction and maintenance of fundamental facets of bodily awareness, such as the sense of body ownership. Finally, in a third section, we discuss findings in neurological and psychiatric disorders of body representation and awareness, indicating the importance of affective touch and other affiliative, interpersonal signals for the construction of a coherent, efficient and resilient sense of embodied selfhood. Overall, our chapter draws on perspectives from multiple mind and brain fields in order to highlight how affective touch, a bodily modality by which we can communicate social affiliation and care, has a fundamental role in the constitution of selfhood.Peer reviewe