Plasticity in transmission strategies of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium chabaudi : environmental and genetic effects

Parasites may alter their behaviour to cope with changes in the within-host environment. In particular, investment in transmission may alter in response to the availability of parasite resources or host immune responses. However, experimental and theoretical studies have drawn conflicting conclusions regarding parasites' optimal (adaptive) responses to deterioration in habitat quality. We analyse data from acute infections with six genotypes of the rodent malaria species to quantify how investment in transmission (gametocytes) is influenced by the within-host environment. Using a minimum of modelling assumptions, we find that proportional investment in gametocytogenesis increases sharply with host anaemia and also increases at low parasite densities. Further, stronger dependence of investment on parasite density is associated with greater virulence of the parasite genotype. Our study provides a robust quantitative framework for studying parasites' responses to the host environment and whether these responses are adaptive, which is crucial for predicting the short-term and evolutionary impact of transmission-blocking treatments for parasitic diseases

Processing and Properties of High-Entropy Ultra-High Temperature Carbides

The research was supported by the EPSRC Programme Grant XMAT [EP/K008749/2]. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from projects: APVV-15-0469 & VEGA 2/0163/16

The exclusive B to K*(to K pi) l+ l- decay: CP conserving observables

We study the K* polarization states in the exclusive 4-body B meson decay B to K* (to K pi) l+ l- in the low dilepton mass region working in the framework of QCDF. We review the construction of the CP conserving transverse and transverse/longitudinal observables AT2, AT3, and AT4. We focus here, on analyzing their behaviour at large recoil energy in presence of right-handed currents.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, invited talk at Flavianet Meeting, Kazimierz, Poland, July, 200

New observables in the decay mode anti-B --> anti-K*0 l+ l-

We discuss the large set of observables available from the angular distributions of the decay anti-B --> anti-K*0 l+ l-. We present a NLO analysis of all observables based on the QCD factorization approach in the low-dilepton mass region and an estimate of \Lambda/m_b corrections. Moreover, we discuss their sensitivity to new physics. We explore the experimental sensitivities at LHCb (10 fb^-1) and Super-LHCb (100 fb^-1) based on a full-angular fit method and explore the sensitivity to right handed currents. We also show that the previously discussed transversity amplitude A_T^(1) cannot be measured at the LHCb experiment or at future B factory experiments as it requires a measurement of the spin of the final state particles.Comment: 30 pages, 14 figures. Changes: Typos in (4.3) and (4.11) corrected, analysis, results and figures unchange

The importance of high-throughput cell separation technologies for genomics/proteomics-based clinical diagnostics

Gene expression microarray analyses of mixtures of cells approximate a weighted average of the gene expression profiles (GEPs) of each cell type according to its relative abundance in the overall cell sample being analyzed. If the targeted subpopulation of cells is in the minority, or the expected perturbations are marginal, then such changes will be masked by the GEP of the normal/unaffected cells. We show that the GEP of a minor cell subpopulation is often lost when that cell subpopulation is of a frequency less than 30 percent. The GEP is almost always masked by the other cell subpopulations when that frequency drops to 10 percent or less. On the basis of these results one should always assume that the GEP of a given cell subpopulation is probably seriously affected by, the presence of significant numbers of other "contaminating" cell types. Several methodologies can be employed to enrich the target cells submitted for microarray analyses. These include magnetic sorting and laser capture microdissection. If a cell subpopulation of interest is small, very high-throughput cell separation technologies are needed to separate enough cells for conventional microarrays. However, high-throughput flow cytometry/cell sorting overcomes many restrictions of experimental enrichment conditions. This technology can also be used to sort smaller numbers of cells of specific cell subpopulations and subsequently amplify their mRNAs before microarray analyses. When purification techniques are applied to unfixed samples, the potential for changes in gene levels during the process of collection is an additional concern. Since RNA rapidly degrades, and specific mRNAs turn over in minutes or hours, the cell separation process must be very rapid. Hence, high-throughput cell separation (HTS) technologies are needed that can process the necessary number of cells expeditiously in order to avoid such uncontrolled changes in the target cells GEP. In cases where even the use of HTS yields only a small number of cells, the mRNAs (after reverse transcription to cDNA's) must be amplified to yield enough material for conventional microarray analyses. However, the problem of using "microamplification" PCR methods to expand the amount of cDNAs (from mRNAs) is that it is very difficult to amplify equally all of the mRNAs. Unequal amplification leads to a distorted gene expression profile on the microarray. Linear amplifications is difficult to achieve. Unfortunately, present-day gene-chips need to be about 100 times more sensitive than they are now to be able to do many biologically and biomedically meaningful experiments and clinical tests

Biosensor-controlled gene therapy/drug delivery with nanoparticles for nanomedicine

Nanomedicine involves cell-by-cell regenerative medicine, either repairing cells one at a time or triggering apoptotic pathways in cells that are not repairable. Multilayered nanoparticle systems are being constructed for the targeted delivery of gene therapy to single cells. Cleavable shells containing targeting, biosensing, and gene therapeutic molecules are being constructed to direct nanoparticles to desired intracellular targets. Therapeutic gene sequences are controlled by biosensor-activated control switches to provide the proper amount of gene therapy on a single cell basis. The central idea is to set up gene therapy "nanofactories" inside single living cells. Molecular biosensors linked to these genes control their expression. Gene delivery is started in response to a biosensor detected problem; gene delivery is halted when the cell response indicates that more gene therapy is not needed

Microstructure of (Hf-Ta-Zr-Nb)C high-entropy carbide at micro and nano/atomic level

Support from the projects APVV-15-0469, APVV-15-0621, VEGA 2/0163/16, and VEGA 2/0082/17 is acknowledged. MJR and EGC acknowledge the support of EPSRC grant XMAT (EP/K008749/2)

Pressure assisted flash sintering of Mn-Co based spinel coatings for solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs)

Pressure assisted flash sintering was used to process Mn-Co-Cu based spinel coatings, electrophoretically deposited on a Crofer22APU interconnect. This method resulted in highly dense coatings, heat-treated for only a short duration (200 °C/min). The high heating rate promoted Cu modified Mn-Co spinel and limited the formation of a Cr-oxide scale on the Crofer22APU substrate. Flash sintering was found to be a promising and time efficient sintering technique to overcome some of the issues related to low coating density and oxide scale formation in solid oxide electrolysis cell conditions