500 million frenemies: a phenomenological study of the prevalence and perceptions of female students and male students as it relates to cyber bullying on social networking websites

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to discover the lived experiences of male and female high school students regarding cyber bullying on social networking websites. Previous research has shown that male and female students have very different experiences with traditional bullying; the current phenomenon of cyber bullying has yet to be widely researched. In addition, this research sought to better understand what, if any, the gender differences were in how students perceive adult prevention of cyber bullying as well as how both genders behave in informing adults of instances of cyber bullying. The goal of this research was to ultimately uncover the lived experiences of male and female students regarding cyber bullying so as to meet each gender\u27s needs in future bullying intervention programs. The participants consisted of 10 males and 10 females from population of 1,010 students; the main source of data came from a series of short and focused interviews. The research design allowed for a more detailed description of how males and females experience cyber bullying, but did not aim to answer why they had different experiences regarding cyber bullying. Instead, a description of their experiences was revealed and interpretations and meaning to describe this phenomenon were deduced. This research gives a voice to all children who are subjected to cyber bullying and portrays the humanistic side of the issue. Overall, this study revealed that the majority of females feel that cyber bullying on social networking websites is a common occurrence among other females. In accordance with traditional bullying patterns, female cyber bullies often socially isolate and gossip about their victims through the medium of social networking websites. In addition, male students also follow the traditional bullying patterns, as male on male cyber bulling begin by targeting victims online with words or pictures, with most situations inevitably leading to a physical altercation. Both male and female students reported there is little to no adult intervention regarding cyber bullying, and they would most often report incidents of bullying abuse to their guidance counselors. This study reaffirmed the notion that male and female students experience different levels and styles of cyber bullying, which should be reflected in future intervention programs

Present status and future perspective of peptide-based vaccine therapy for urological cancer

Use of peptide-based vaccines as therapeutics aims to elicit immune responses through antigenic epitopes derived from tumor antigens. Peptide-based vaccines are easily synthesized and lack significant side-effects when given in vivo. Peptide-based vaccine therapy against several cancers including urological cancers has made progress for several decades, but there is no worldwide approved peptide vaccine. Peptide vaccines were also shown to induce a high frequency of immune response in patients accompanied by clinical efficacy. These data are discussed in light of the recent progression of immunotherapy caused by the addition of immune checkpoint inhibitors thus providing a general picture of the potential therapeutic efficacy of peptide-based vaccines and their combination with other biological agents. In this review, we discuss the mechanism of the antitumor effect of peptide-based vaccine therapy, development of our peptide vaccine, recent clinical trials using peptide vaccines for urological cancers, and perspectives of peptide-based vaccine therapy

Rapid and strong human CD8(+) T cell responses to vaccination with peptide, IFA, and CpG oligodeoxynucleotide 7909

The induction of potent CD8(+) T cell responses by vaccines to fight microbes or tumors remains a major challenge, as many candidates for human vaccines have proved to be poorly immunogenic. Deoxycytidyl-deoxyguanosin oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG ODNs) trigger Toll-like receptor 9, resulting in dendritic cell maturation that can enhance immunogenicity of peptide-based vaccines in mice. We tested whether a synthetic ODN, CpG 7909, could improve human tumor antigen–specific CD8(+) T cell responses. Eight HLA-A2(+) melanoma patients received 4 monthly vaccinations of low-dose CpG 7909 mixed with melanoma antigen A (Melan-A; identical to MART-1) analog peptide and incomplete Freund’s adjuvant. All patients exhibited rapid and strong antigen-specific T cell responses: the frequency of Melan-A–specific T cells reached over 3% of circulating CD8(+) T cells. This was one order of magnitude higher than the frequency seen in 8 control patients treated similarly but without CpG and 1–3 orders of magnitude higher than that seen in previous studies with synthetic vaccines. The enhanced T cell populations consisted primarily of effector memory cells, which in part secreted IFN-γ and expressed granzyme B and perforin ex vivo. In vitro, T cell clones recognized and killed melanoma cells in an antigen-specific manner. Thus, CpG 7909 is an efficient vaccine adjuvant that promotes strong antigen-specific CD8(+) T cell responses in humans