Novel Eurasian Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A H5 Viruses in Wild Birds, Washington, USA, 2014

The novel Eurasian lineage clade 2.3.4.4 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N8) virus (http://www.who.int/influenza/gisrs_laboratory/h5_nomenclature_clade2344/en/) spread rapidly and globally during 2014, substantially affecting poultry populations. The first outbreaks were reported during January 2014 in chickens and domestic ducks in South Korea and subsequently in China and Japan (1–4), reaching Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom by November 2014 and Italy in early December 2014 (5). Also in November 2014, a novel HPAI H5N2 virus was reported in outbreaks on chicken and turkey farms in Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada (5). This H5N2 influenza virus is a reassortant that contains the Eurasian clade 2.3.4.4 H5 plus 4 other Eurasian genes (polymerase acidic protein subunit, matrix protein, polymerase basic protein subunit [PB] 2, nonstructural protein) and 3 North American wild bird lineage genes (neuraminidase [NA], nucleoprotein, PB1) (5). Taiwan has recently reported novel reassortants of the H5 clade 2.3.4.4 with other Eurasian viruses (H5N2, H5N3)

Effects of Colony Creation Method and Beekeeper Education on Honeybee (Apis mellifera) Mortality

Responding to current issues requires Extension educators to quickly react and collaborate. The Washington Department of Agriculture requested help developing and conducting outreach programs on dairy cattle drug residue prevention as a result of a new program announced by the US FDA. Curriculum focused on causes of residues and improving treatment records. Five face-to-face sessions with over 180 farmers and veterinarians and 360 views of an online program indicated interest. Over 65% of attendees intended to review their treatment protocols. A concomitant reduction in residue violations from dairy animals in the state was seen after the programs

Time and Energy Management during Descent and Approach: A Batch-Simulation Study

A noval integrated planning and guidance concept has been developed that optimizes aircraft trajectories from Top of Descent to the runway threshold to achieve a continuous engine-idle descent. The new concept, named Time and Energy Managed Operations (TEMO), aims at reducing noise, gaseous emissions and fuel burn while maintaining airport landing capacity by means of time management. TEMO uses an optimization algorithm to minimize thrust and speedbrake use through energy management by exchanging kinetic and potential energy. Sustained deviations during descent are corrected using a strategic or tactical approach. TEMO is evaluated in a batch simulation study and compared with conventional step-down descents in terms of environmental impact. Various disturbances are introduced to test TEMO's robustness to disturbances and time constraints. Moreover, the two different methods of correcting deviations are compared. The results show that TEMO allows idle descents whilst adhering to time constraints and reduces the environmental impact of aircraft. Moreover, TEMO can cope with disturbances and updated time constraints. However, large wind estimation errors degrade TEMO performance

Novel Eurasian Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A H5 Viruses in Wild Birds, Washington, USA, 2014

Novel Eurasian lineage avian influenza A(H5N8) virus has spread rapidly and globally since January 2014. In December 2014, H5N8 and reassortant H5N2 viruses were detected in wild birds in Washington, USA, and subsequently in backyard birds. When they infect commercial poultry, these highly pathogenic viruses pose substantial trade issues

Conformational control of Cas9 by CRISPR hybrid RNA-DNA guides mitigates off-target activity in T cells

The off-target activity of the CRISPR-associated nuclease Cas9 is a potential concern for therapeutic genome editing applications. Although high-fidelity Cas9 variants have been engineered, they exhibit varying efficiencies and have residual off-target effects, limiting their applicability. Here, we show that CRISPR hybrid RNA-DNA (chRDNA) guides provide an effective approach to increase Cas9 specificity while preserving on-target editing activity. Across multiple genomic targets in primary human T cells, we show that 2'-deoxynucleotide (dnt) positioning affects guide activity and specificity in a target-dependent manner and that this can be used to engineer chRDNA guides with substantially reduced off-target effects. Crystal structures of DNA-bound Cas9-chRDNA complexes reveal distorted guide-target duplex geometry and allosteric modulation of Cas9 conformation. These structural effects increase specificity by perturbing DNA hybridization and modulating Cas9 activation kinetics to disfavor binding and cleavage of off-target substrates. Overall, these results pave the way for utilizing customized chRDNAs in clinical applications