Multiparameter Telemetry as a Sensitive Screening Method to Detect Vaccine Reactogenicity in Mice

Refined vaccines and adjuvants are urgently needed to advance immunization against global infectious challenges such as HIV, hepatitis C, tuberculosis and malaria. Large-scale screening efforts are ongoing to identify adjuvants with improved efficacy profiles. Reactogenicity often represents a major hurdle to the clinical use of new substances. Yet, irrespective of its importance, this parameter has remained difficult to screen for, owing to a lack of sensitive small animal models with a capacity for high throughput testing. Here we report that continuous telemetric measurements of heart rate, heart rate variability, body core temperature and locomotor activity in laboratory mice readily unmasked systemic side-effects of vaccination, which went undetected by conventional observational assessment and clinical scoring. Even minor aberrations in homeostasis were readily detected, ranging from sympathetic activation over transient pyrogenic effects to reduced physical activity and apathy. Results in real-time combined with the potential of scalability and partial automation in the industrial context suggest multiparameter telemetry in laboratory mice as a first-line screen for vaccine reactogenicity. This may accelerate vaccine discovery in general and may further the success of vaccines in combating infectious disease and cancer

Fate of rising methane bubbles in stratified waters: How much methane reaches the atmosphere?

There is growing concern about the transfer of methane originating from water bodies to the atmosphere. Methane from sediments can reach the atmosphere directly via bubbles or indirectly via vertical turbulent transport. This work quantifies methane gas bubble dissolution using a combination of bubble modeling and acoustic observations of rising bubbles to determine what fraction of the methane transported by bubbles will reach the atmosphere. The bubble model predicts the evolving bubble size, gas composition, and rise distance and is suitable for almost all aquatic environments. The model was validated using methane and argon bubble dissolution measurements obtained from the literature for deep, oxic, saline water with excellent results. Methane bubbles from within the hydrate stability zone (typically below ∼500 m water depth in the ocean) are believed to form an outer hydrate rim. To explain the subsequent slow dissolution, a model calibration was performed using bubble dissolution data from the literature measured within the hydrate stability zone. The calibrated model explains the impressively tall flares (>1300 m) observed in the hydrate stability zone of the Black Sea. This study suggests that only a small amount of methane reaches the surface at active seep sites in the Black Sea, and this only from very shallow water areas (<100 m). Clearly, the Black Sea and the ocean are rather effective barriers against the transfer of bubble methane to the atmosphere, although substantial amounts of methane may reach the surface in shallow lakes and reservoirs

Molecular Modeling and Simulation: Force Field Development, Evaporation Processes and Thermophysical Properties of Mixtures

To gain physical insight into the behavior of fluids on a microscopic level as well as to broaden the data base for thermophysical properties especially for mixtures, molecular modeling and simulation is utilized in this work. Various methods and applications are discussed, including a procedure for the development of new force field models. The evaporation of liquid nitrogen into a supercritical hydrogen atmosphere is presented as an example for large scale molecular dynamics simulation. System-size dependence and scaling behavior are discussed in the context of Kirkwood-Buff integration. Further, results for thermophysical mixture properties are presented, i.e. the Henry’s law constant of aqueous systems and diffusion coefficients of a ternary mixture

Heating Values of Fuels: An Introductory Experiment

This experiment is a simple, inexpensive way for students to determine the heats of combustion of common solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels

Heating Values of Fuels: An Introductory Experiment

This experiment is a simple, inexpensive way for students to determine the heats of combustion of common solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels