Performance of snap beans varieties in lowland of Morogoro in Tanzania

Snap beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) are among the important vegetable crops grown in Tanzania, but the yield is low (2 to 8 t ha-1) as snap beans mostly are grown in highland of that country. The aim of the study was to evaluate the growth and yield of snap bean varieties in lowland areas of Morogoro, in Tanzania. The trial was conducted in 3 different seasons at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) from 13th July 2010 to 25th June 2011. Four snap bean varieties (Serengeti, Teresa, HS 215 and HS 217) were tested in a randomized complete block design replicated three times. Measurements were recorded including plant height, branches number, harvesting duration and pods weight per plant. Collected data were subjected to ANOVA, mean separation was done based on Student-Newman-Keuls using statistical software COSTAT6.4 (p≤5%). The results showed that seasons differed significantly (p≤ 0.001) and first season gave the tallest plant (49.65 cm), highest pods weight per plant (193.33g), longer harvesting duration (23.40 days) but branches number were equal in all seasons. Snap bean varieties also varied in their performance, with the tallest height, longest period of harvest and highest pods weight per plant observed in Teresa variety; while the contrast was observed in HS 217 in almost all seasons. From these results, growing snap bean especially Teresa variety in season one gave high yield and best pods quality compared to other seasons. Therefore, it is advised to the farmers of Morogoro to maximize their income and yield from snap bean varieties by growing them in season starting from July up to September. Keywords: Snap beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), high temperature, lowland, growth, yiel

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

T-Cell Receptor Sequencing of Kaposi Sarcoma Tumors to Identify Candidate Tumor-Reactive T Cells

Abstract 60 Background: Development of Kaposi sarcoma (KS) is strongly associated with immune dysfunction in the context of HIV infection, but little is known about T-lymphocyte responses against KS tumor cells or human herpesvirus-8, the viral cause of KS. Increasing evidence suggests that treatment response in KS is attributable in part to an antitumor immune response that is mediated by tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL). The aim of this work was to identify TIL characteristics that are associated with tumor regression in patients with KS who were treated with antiretroviral therapy and chemotherapy as well as to identify a molecular signature of response. Methods: High-throughput sequencing of the T-cell receptor β chain ( TRB) was used to define the repertoire of T cells that infiltrate up to two pretreatment and two post-treatment KS tumors and matched normal skin obtained from HIV-infected adults with KS who received care at the Uganda Cancer Institute. We compared TRB repertoire in serially collected tumors to identify TRB sequences carried in candidate tumor-reactive T cells. Results: TRB sequencing was performed on KS tumor and matched normal skin samples from 12 HIV-infected adults with KS who collectively demonstrated a range of treatment responses. Unique populations of T cells were identified in pretreatment tumors but not in normal skin in all patients, which suggested the presence of KS-specific T-cell responses. Durable complete response to treatment in one patient was associated with significant expansion of a small number of T-cell clones, one of which carried a TRB sequence that was associated with a public CD8 + Epstein-Barr virus–associated T-cell receptor. Conclusion: Understanding the immune response to KS through cellular and molecular dissection of TIL will provide important insights into KS biology and may ultimately guide new immune-based strategies to stage and treat this often-refractory cancer. Funding: Solid Tumor Translational Research Transformative Team Grant, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute Grant No. K23-CA150931. AUTHORS' DISCLOSURES OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST No COIs from the authors