Engaging Canadian youth in conversations: Using knowledge exchange in school-based health promotion

The voice of youth is crucial to advancing solutions that contribute to effective strategies to improve youth health outcomes. The problem, however, is that youth/student voices are often overlooked, and stakeholders typically engage in decision-making without involving youth. The burden of chronic disease is increasing worldwide, and in Canada chronic disease accounts for 89 per cent of deaths. However, currently, youth spend less time being physically active while engaging in more unhealthy eating behaviours than ever before. High rates of unhealthy behaviours such as physical inactivity, unhealthy eating and tobacco use are putting Canadian youth at risk of health problems such as increased levels of overweight and obesity, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Focus group methodology was utilised to conduct 7 focus groups with 50 students in grades 7–12 from schools in Prince Edward Island, Canada. The key themes that emerged included: (1) youth health issues such as lack of opportunities to be physically active, cost and quality of healthy food options, and bullying; (2) facilitators and barriers to health promotion, including positive peer and adult role models, positive relationships with adults and competitiveness of school sports; and (3) lack of student voice. Our findings suggest that actively engaging youth provides opportunities to understand youth perspectives on how to encourage them to make healthy choices and engage in healthy behaviours. Attention needs to be paid to inclusive knowledge exchange practices that value and integrate youth perspectives and ideas as a basis for building health promotion actions and interventions.Keywords: knowledge exchange, youth health, youth engagemen

Host responses in an ex-vivo human skin model challenged with Malassezia sympodialis

FUNDING: This project was funded by a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award for Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology (097377/Z/11/Z). We would like to acknowledge the support of Internal Funding through a Core Facilities Voucher from the University of Aberdeen. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The authors gratefully acknowledge the Technology hubs at the University of Aberdeen (Microscopy and Histology, qPCR facility and Proteomics) for their support, sample processing and training. Special thanks to Professor Annika Scheynius from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden for sharing her expertise and constructive discussions and for giving us the inspiration to work on Malassezia.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Property differences among the four major Candida albicans strain clades

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Malassezia sympodialis Mala s 1 allergen is a potential KELCH protein that cross reacts with human skin

Open Access via the OUP Agreement We thank Giuseppe Ianiri and Joe Heitman for their continuous support and many insightful discussions. Thanks to the Microscopy and Histology Facility at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, for sample processing and access to microscopes. Thanks to Dr. David Stead and the Aberdeen Proteomics Facility, University of Aberdeen for the proteomics analysis. Funding This project was funded by a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award for Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology (097377/Z/11/Z). D.E.C.L., C.M,. and D.M. acknowledge funding from the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award for Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology 097 377/Z/11/Z. A.S. acknowledges, the Swedish Cancer and Allergy Fund.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Contribution of Fdh3 and Glr1 to Glutathione Redox State, Stress Adaptation and Virulence in Candida albicans

Acknowledgments: We thank Aaron Mitchell and Dominique Sanglard for providing the C. albicans protein kinase and transposon mutant libraries, and Louise Walker for the strain CAMY203.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

An ex-vivo human skin model to study superficial fungal infections

Funding This project was funded by a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award for Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology 097377. We would like to acknowledge the support of the Medical Research Council Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Aberdeen (MR/N006364/1). Acknowledgments Thanks to Ms. Lucinda Wight in the Microscopy and Histology Facility at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom for training on the use of microscopes and the SEM processing. Thanks to Dr. David Stead in the Aberdeen Proteomics Facility, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom for the processing of protein samples.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Monoclonal antibodies targeting surface exposed epitopes of Candida albicans cell wall proteins confer in vivo protection in an infection model

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We gratefully acknowledge Kevin McKenzie and Lucy Wight from the University of Aberdeen Microscopy and Histology Facility for training and access to fluorescence microscopy and for their support and assistance in this work. We also gratefully acknowledge David Stead from Aberdeen Proteomics for his support and assistance with the Candida proteome analysis and the staff of the University of Aberdeen Medical Research Facility for their support and assistance with the mouse studies. This work was supported by the following research grants: the High Throughput and Fragment Screening Fund, Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA); a seed corn award from the University of Aberdeen Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund; an M.Res. studentship by the Medical Research Council Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Aberdeen (grant number MR/P501955/1); a Ph.D. studentship from the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen; a Ph.D. studentship from Taibah University and a Saudi Government scholarship; and a Ph.D. studentship by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement number H2020-MSCA-ITN-2014-642095 (OPATHY). C.A.M., S.P., and A.J.P. contributed to the concept and study design. C.A.M. and S.P. developed the methodology. S.A.A. and L.F. performed recombinant antibody generation and ELISAs. L.F. and M.M. completed IgG reformatting and the production of mAbs for animal studies. M.M., T.H.T., and L.A.W. performed ELISAs and immunofluorescence staining. M.M. performed macrophage assays, and D.M.M. planned, conducted, and analyzed animal studies. C.A.M., S.P., and A.J.P. contributed to funding acquisition and project administration, and C.A.M., S.P., and L.A.W. contributed to the supervision and training of M.Res. and Ph.D. students. S.P. wrote the original draft, and C.A.M., D.M.M., and A.J.P. completed review and editing. All authors had full access to the data and approved the manuscript before it was submitted by the corresponding author(s). S.P., A.J.P., and C.A.M. are inventors on a patent related to the development of antifungal antibodies to surface-exposed epitopes of fungal pathogens owned by the University of Aberdeen. All other authors declare that they have no competing interests.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Immune sensing of Candida albicans requires cooperative recognition of mannans and glucans by lectin and Toll-like receptors

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