Recruitment and Retention of Rural Special Educators

Attracting and retaining qualified special education teachers is a problem many rural school districts are facing. Districts in rural areas suffer from a lack of qualified special education teacher candidates. Accordingly, the issue of having enough qualified special educators is not easily solved. It is not just a question of turning out enough graduates, but finding candidates that are capable of teaching and being successful in a rural setting. A partnership between school districts, colleges, and communities will provide a framework for future success. This partnership will benefit both future teachers and the rural students they serve

Dissecting Human Antibody Responses Against Influenza A Viruses And Antigenic Changes That Facilitate Immune Escape

Influenza A viruses pose a serious threat to public health, and seasonal circulation of influenza viruses causes substantial morbidity and mortality. Influenza viruses continuously acquire substitutions in the surface glycoproteins hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). These substitutions prevent the binding of pre-existing antibodies, allowing the virus to escape population immunity in a process known as antigenic drift. Due to antigenic drift, individuals can be repeatedly infected by antigenically distinct influenza strains over the course of their life. Antigenic drift undermines the effectiveness of our seasonal influenza vaccines and our vaccine strains must be updated on an annual basis due to antigenic changes. In order to understand antigenic drift it is essential to know the sites of antibody binding as well as the substitutions that facilitate viral escape from immunity. In this dissertation, we explore both the epitopes targeted in human antibody responses and how influenza viruses evade these responses. We first demonstrate that prior exposure shapes the sites targeted in human antibody responses, and show that many middle-age adults mounted an antibody response against H1N1 viruses that is focused against sites on HA conserved between contemporary strains and strains that circulated in early childhood. In addition, we demonstrate that a viral substitution in this epitope allows influenza viruses to evade neutralizing antibody responses. We next demonstrate that an H3N2 HA substitution introducing a glycosylation site prevents the binding of neutralizing antibodies present in a large number of individuals. Importantly, our egg-based vaccines lack this glycosylation due to culture-adaptive substitutions, but a vaccine containing this glycosylation motif more potently induced antibody responses against circulating strains. Finally, we identify and characterize antibodies that target conserved residues in the receptor-binding site (RBS) of HA. We demonstrate that in some individuals RBS antibodies in sera contribute to neutralization of antigenically distinct strains, even in the case of an antigenically mismatched vaccine. Overall, the work presented here helps address the complex interaction of influenza viruses and human immunity. Importantly, our work identifies shortcomings with our current process of vaccine strain selection and production and investigates epitopes of interest for universal influenza vaccine efforts

An Examination of Resiliency in Rural Special Educators

Retention of rural special education teachers is a dilemma for many school districts. Districts in rural areas suffer from a lack of qualified special educaiton teachers. Therefor, the problem of having enough qualified special educators is not easily solved. Many rural distrits are able to hire teacher candidaes, but fail to retain them for various reasons. Building resiliency in new teachers and educators during the first several years of teaching may be part of the answer to addressing the high rate fo teacher turnover in rural areas. This paper summarizes highlights from research completed with rural Nebraska teachers on th topics of intrinsic resiliency and building resiliency in rural teachers

The crossroads of glycoscience, infection, and immunology

Advances in experimental capabilities in the glycosciences offer expanding opportunities for discovery in the broad areas of immunology and microbiology. These two disciplines overlap when microbial infection stimulates host immune responses and glycan structures are central in the processes that occur during all such encounters. Microbial glycans mediate host-pathogen interactions by acting as surface receptors or ligands, functioning as virulence factors, impeding host immune responses, or playing other roles in the struggle between host and microbe. In the context of the host, glycosylation drives cell-cell interactions that initiate and regulate the host response and modulates the effects of antibodies and soluble immune mediators. This perspective reports on a workshop organized jointly by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in May 2020. The conference addressed the use of emerging glycoscience tools and resources to advance investigation of glycans and their roles in microbe-host interactions, immune-mediated diseases, and immune cell recognition and function. Future discoveries in these areas will increase fundamental scientific understanding and have the potential to improve diagnosis and treatment of infections and immune dysregulation

The Crossroads of Glycoscience, Infection, and Immunology

Advances in experimental capabilities in the glycosciences offer expanding opportunities for discovery in the broad areas of immunology and microbiology. These two disciplines overlap when microbial infection stimulates host immune responses and glycan structures are central in the processes that occur during all such encounters. Microbial glycans mediate host-pathogen interactions by acting as surface receptors or ligands, functioning as virulence factors, impeding host immune responses, or playing other roles in the struggle between host and microbe. In the context of the host, glycosylation drives cell–cell interactions that initiate and regulate the host response and modulates the effects of antibodies and soluble immune mediators. This perspective reports on a workshop organized jointly by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in May 2020. The conference addressed the use of emerging glycoscience tools and resources to advance investigation of glycans and their roles in microbe-host interactions, immune-mediated diseases, and immune cell recognition and function. Future discoveries in these areas will increase fundamental scientific understanding and have the potential to improve diagnosis and treatment of infections and immune dysregulation

Cross-reactive coronavirus antibodies with diverse epitope specificities and Fc effector functions

The continual emergence of novel coronavirus (CoV) strains, like SARS-CoV-2, highlights the critical need for broadly reactive therapeutics and vaccines against this family of viruses. From a recovered SARS-CoV donor sample, we identify and characterize a panel of six monoclonal antibodies that cross-react with CoV spike (S) proteins from the highly pathogenic SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, and demonstrate a spectrum of reactivity against other CoV. Epitope mapping reveals that these antibodies recognize multiple epitopes on SARS-CoV-2 S, including the receptor binding domain, N-terminal domain, and S2 subunit. Functional characterization demonstrates that the antibodies mediate phagocytosis - and in some cases trogocytosis - but not neutralization in vitro. When tested in vivo in murine models, two of the antibodies demonstrate a reduction in hemorrhagic pathology in the lungs. The identification of cross-reactive epitopes recognized by functional antibodies expands the repertoire of targets for pan-coronavirus vaccine design strategies

Extremely potent human monoclonal antibodies from COVID-19 convalescent patients

Human monoclonal antibodies are safe, preventive and therapeutic tools, that can be rapidly developed to help restore the massive health and economic disruption caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. By single cell sorting 4,277 SARS-CoV-2 spike protein specific memory B cells from 14 COVID-19 survivors, 453 neutralizing antibodies were identified. The most potent neutralizing antibodies recognized the spike protein receptor binding domain, followed in potency by antibodies that recognize the S1 domain, the spike protein trimer and the S2 subunit. Only 1.4% of them neutralized the authentic virus with a potency of 1-10 ng/mL. The most potent monoclonal antibody, engineered to reduce the risk of antibody dependent enhancement and prolong half-life, neutralized the authentic wild type virus and emerging variants containing D614G, E484K and N501Y substitutions. Prophylactic and therapeutic efficacy in the hamster model was observed at 0.25 and 4 mg/kg respectively in absence of Fc-functions

Host range, transmissibility and antigenicity of a pangolin coronavirus

The pathogenic and cross-species transmission potential of SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses (CoVs) remain poorly characterized. Here we recovered a wild-type pangolin (Pg) CoV GD strain including derivatives encoding reporter genes using reverse genetics. In primary human cells, PgCoV replicated efficiently but with reduced fitness and showed less efficient transmission via airborne route compared with SARS-CoV-2 in hamsters. PgCoV was potently inhibited by US Food and Drug Administration approved drugs, and neutralized by COVID-19 patient sera and SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic antibodies in vitro. A pan-Sarbecovirus antibody and SARS-CoV-2 S2P recombinant protein vaccine protected BALB/c mice from PgCoV infection. In K18-hACE2 mice, PgCoV infection caused severe clinical disease, but mice were protected by a SARS-CoV-2 human antibody. Efficient PgCoV replication in primary human cells and hACE2 mice, coupled with a capacity for airborne spread, highlights an emergence potential. However, low competitive fitness, pre-immune humans and the benefit of COVID-19 countermeasures should impede its ability to spread globally in human populations

Rapid isolation and profiling of a diverse panel of human monoclonal antibodies targeting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein

Antibodies are a principal determinant of immunity for most RNA viruses and have promise to reduce infection or disease during major epidemics. The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has caused a global pandemic with millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths to date1,2. In response, we used a rapid antibody discovery platform to isolate hundreds of human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein. We stratify these mAbs into five major classes on the basis of their reactivity to subdomains of S protein as well as their cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV. Many of these mAbs inhibit infection of authentic SARS-CoV-2 virus, with most neutralizing mAbs recognizing the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of S. This work defines sites of vulnerability on SARS-CoV-2 S and demonstrates the speed and robustness of advanced antibody discovery platforms

The antigenic anatomy of SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain

Antibodies are crucial to immune protection against SARS-CoV-2, with some in emergency use as therapeutics. Here we identify 377 human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) recognizing the virus spike, and focus mainly on 80 that bind the receptor binding domain (RBD). We devise a competition data driven method to map RBD binding sites. We find that although antibody binding sites are widely dispersed, neutralizing antibody binding is focused, with nearly all highly inhibitory mAbs (IC50<0.1μg/ml) blocking receptor interaction, except for one that binds a unique epitope in the N-terminal domain. Many of these neutralizing mAbs use public V-genes and are close to germline. We dissect the structural basis of recognition for this large panel of antibodies through X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy of 19 Fab-antigen structures. We find novel binding modes for some potently inhibitory antibodies and demonstrate that strongly neutralizing mAbs protect, prophylactically or therapeutically, in animal models