Keynote 1 — The Unfinished Black/African Struggles for Liberation

The ongoing Black Lives Matter, Rhodes Must Fall, Indigenous people, and Black women/feminist movements among many other subaltern formations are clear signifiers of the unfinished struggles for liberation, reverberating within Global Africa. The unfinished struggles include the abolitionist, anti/decolonial, Black womanist/feminist, Indigenous people, civil rights movements and initiatives aimed at delivering development for dispossessed and destituted peoples. At the centre of the unfinished struggles has been overlapping historical (a people denied of history, dismemberment & Black condition), existential (coloniality of being & antiblackness), material (dispossession & destitution), epistemic (cognitive empire & coloniality of knowledge), and identity (self-definition & selfdetermination) concerns and questions. These are constituent elements of initiatives aimed at reworlding the world from the vantage point of Global Africa. This keynote address revisits the fundamental unresolved concerns and issues of the Black/African struggles for liberation and reflects on the trajectories of liberation struggles as it simultaneously critiques notions of human rights, discourses of development, and limits of decolonization of the 20th century as they continue to fail to deliver Black lives which matter

Alumni Presentation and Panel: Engaging the Past

The Alumni Panel featured three black, Dayton-area, UD alumni: LaShea Smith, B.A. International Studies, 1991; Veronica Morris, B.A. Communications Management, 1992; and J.W. Terry, B.S. Business Economics, 2010, Master’s of Public Administration, 2013. The alumni offered insightful perspectives on UD and race from their positions as graduates, as local business people, and, for one, as the mother of a UD student graduating in May 2016. The panelists were asked to prepare a short set of responses to two questions: 1) What were your most salient experience of race at UD? 2) Now, as a graduate of the university, what reflections about race on campus can you offer current students?https://ecommons.udayton.edu/afs_symp/1016/thumbnail.jp

Conformation of the Transmembrane Domain of the Anthrax Toxin Receptor

Restauració dels vitrallsFoto final, plafó a6, cara interna, amb llum a través. Geomètric

Setting the Context

Panelists were members of the planning committee of this symposium and began meeting in September 2020. These proceedings are available free for download but also available for purchase in print for $6 plus tax and shipping.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/global_voices_4/1007/thumbnail.jp

Faculty and Staff Perspectives

University of Dayton is an employer across all sorts of levels. We are citizens of the University in lots of ways, and what we contribute as faculty and staff creates the place. We have longevity that students do not have. We hope that this will develop into a deeper dive into the University of Dayton\u27s past and thinking about the lives of Black faculty and staff. This isn’t the culmination of a project but rather a beginning of thinking about learning from and remembering that past because if we don’t cultivate these things, we lose them. This is what we’re doing today. We’re going to feature the voices of Black faculty and staff who have contributed to the life of our University, many of whom keep the University running and going. These proceedings are available free for download but also available for purchase in print for $6 plus tax and shipping.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/global_voices_4/1012/thumbnail.jp

Partially Randomized, Non-Blinded Trial of DNA and MVA Therapeutic Vaccines Based on Hepatitis B Virus Surface Protein for Chronic HBV Infection

BACKGROUND: Chronic HBV infects 350 million people causing cancer and liver failure. We aimed to assess the safety and efficacy of plasmid DNA (pSG2.HBs) vaccine, followed by recombinant modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA.HBs), encoding the surface antigen of HBV as therapy for chronic HBV. A secondary goal was to characterize the immune responses. METHODS: Firstly 32 HBV e antigen negative (eAg(-)) participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: to receive vaccines alone, lamivudine (3TC) alone, both, or neither. Later 16 eAg(+) volunteers in two groups received either 3TC alone or both 3TC and vaccines. Finally, 12 eAg(-) and 12 eAg(+) subjects were enrolled into higher-dose treatment groups. Healthy but chronically HBV-infected males between the ages of 15-25 who lived in the western part of The Gambia were eligible. Participants in some groups received 1 mg or 2 mg of pSG2.HBs intramuscularly twice followed by 5×10(7) pfu or 1.5×10(8) pfu of MVA.HBs intradermally at 3-weekly intervals with or without concomitant 3TC for 11-14 weeks. Intradermal rabies vaccine was administered to a negative control group. Safety was assessed clinically and biochemically. The primary measure of efficacy was a quantitative PCR assay of plasma HBV. Immunity was assessed by IFN-γ ELISpot and intracellular cytokine staining. RESULTS: Mild local and systemic adverse events were observed following the vaccines. A small shiny scar was observed in some cases after MVA.HBs. There were no significant changes in AST or ALT. HBeAg was lost in one participant in the higher-dose group. As expected, the 3TC therapy reduced viraemia levels during therapy, but the prime-boost vaccine regimen did not reduce the viraemia. The immune responses were variable. The majority of IFN-γ was made by antigen non-specific CD16(+) cells (both CD3(+) and CD3(-)). CONCLUSIONS: The vaccines were well tolerated but did not control HBV infection. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN ISRCTN67270384

Absence of an association of human polyomavirus and papillomavirus infection with lung cancer in China: a nested case–control study

Abstract Background Studies of human polyomavirus (HPyV) infection and lung cancer are limited and those regarding the association of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and lung cancer have produced inconsistent results. Methods We conducted a nested case–control study to assess the association between incident lung cancer of various histologies and evidence of prior infection with HPyVs and HPVs. We selected serum from 183 cases and 217 frequency matched controls from the Yunnan Tin Miner’s Cohort study, which was designed to identify biomarkers for early detection of lung cancer. Using multiplex liquid bead microarray (LBMA) antibody assays, we tested for antibodies to the VP1 structural protein and small T antigen (ST-Ag) of Merkel cell, KI, and WU HPyVs. We also tested for antibodies against HPV L1 structural proteins (high-risk types 16, 18, 31, 33, 52, and 58 and low-risk types 6 and 11) and E6 and E7 oncoproteins (high risk types 16 and 18). Measures of antibody reactivity were log transformed and analyzed using logistic regression. Results We found no association between KIV, WUV, and MCV antibody levels and incident lung cancer (P-corrected for multiple comparisons >0.10 for all trend tests). We also found no association with HPV-16, 18, 31, 33, 52, and 58 seropositivity (P-corrected for multiple comparisons >0.05 for all). Conclusions Future studies of infectious etiologies of lung cancer should look beyond HPyVs and HPVs as candidate infectious agents

ADEQUACY OF THE CURRENT RECOMMENDED DOSAGE OF CIPROFLOXACIN IN PRETERM AND TERM NEONATES WITH SEPSIS

Objectives: To determine the percentage of neonates with sepsis, on treatment with standard recommended dose of intravenous  ciprofloxacin, who had the serum ciprofloxacin Peak concentration: Minimum inhibitory concentration (Cmax:MIC), within the acceptable range. Design: Observational study design Intervention : In the Neonatology ICU, ciprofloxacin was initiated at a dose of 10mg/kg, twice daily in 95 neonates diagnosed with sepsis. On day 3 of ciprofloxacin, blood specimens were collected to measure the trough and peak concentrations  of ciprofloxacin and was measured by high performance liquid chromatography. The MIC was measured if the blood culture was positive. When the blood culture was negative,the reference values for the MIC from ‘The Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute Guidelines’ were adopted. Main outcomes: Minimum inhibitory concentration and serum concentrations of ciprofloxacin Results: Blood culture was positive in 14 babies. The mean (±SD) trough concentration of ciprofloxacin in term, preterm and very preterm neonates was 3.21(±1.99), 2.54 (±1.26)  and  4.01(±1.80) μg/mL respectively. The mean (±SD) peak concentration of serum ciprofloxacinin term, preterm and very preterm neonates was, 12.55 (±4.945) 8.68(±3.61) and 12.07(±3.63) μg/mL, respectively.  The percentage of neonates who achieved the acceptable Cmax /MIC ratio was predicted to be 74.07% if the strain was sensitive, 7.41% if intermediate and zero for resistant strains. Conclusion: The current recommended dose of intravenous ciprofloxacin in neonates in India may be adequate for treating sepsis due to susceptible organisms. For the treatment of sepsis caused by organisms with intermediate susceptibility, higher dosing regimens may be needed

Kinetic Assessment and Therapeutic Modulation of Metabolic and Inflammatory Profiles in Mice on a High-Fat and Cholesterol Diet

The kinetics of metabolic and inflammatory parameters associated with obesity were evaluated in a murine diet-induced obesity (DIO) model using a diet high in fat and cholesterol. Cellular infiltration and mediator production were assessed and shown to be therapeutically modulated by the PPARgamma agonist rosiglitazone. C57BL/6 mice were maintained on a 45% fat/ 0.12% cholesterol (HF/CH) or Chow diet for 3, 6, 16, or 27 weeks. Flow cytometry was employed to monitor peripheral blood monocytes and adipose tissue macrophages (ATM). Gene expression and protein analysis methods were used to evaluate mediator production from total epididymal fat (EF), stromal vascular fraction (SVF), and sorted SVF cells. To investigate therapeutic intervention, mice were fed a HF/CH diet for 12 weeks and then a diet formulated with rosiglitazone (5 mg/kg) for an additional 6 weeks. A HF/CH diet correlated with obesity and a dramatic proinflammatory state. Therapeutic intervention with rosiglitazone attenuated the HF/CH induced inflammation. In addition, a novel population was found that expressed the highest levels of the pro-inflammatory mediators CCL2 and IL-6

Patients' ratings of genetic conditions validate a taxonomy to simplify decisions about preconception carrier screening via genome sequencing

Advances in genome sequencing and gene discovery have created opportunities to efficiently assess more genetic conditions than ever before. Given the large number of conditions that can be screened, the implementation of expanded carrier screening using genome sequencing will require practical methods of simplifying decisions about the conditions for which patients want to be screened. One method to simplify decision making is to generate a taxonomy based on expert judgment. However, expert perceptions of condition attributes used to classify these conditions may differ from those used by patients. To understand whether expert and patient perceptions differ, we asked women who had received preconception genetic carrier screening in the last 3 years to fill out a survey to rate the attributes (predictability, controllability, visibility, and severity) of several autosomal recessive or X-linked genetic conditions. These conditions were classified into one of five taxonomy categories developed by subject experts (significantly shortened lifespan, serious medical problems, mild medical problems, unpredictable medical outcomes, and adult-onset conditions). A total of 193 women provided 739 usable ratings across 20 conditions. The mean ratings and correlations demonstrated that participants made distinctions across both attributes and categories. Aggregated mean attribute ratings across categories demonstrated logical consistency between the key features of each attribute and category, although participants perceived little difference between the mild and serious categories. This study provides empirical evidence for the validity of our proposed taxonomy, which will simplify patient decisions for results they would like to receive from preconception carrier screening via genome sequencing