The Future of Smallpox Vaccination: is MVA the key?

Eradication of the smallpox virus through extensive global vaccination efforts has resulted in one of the most important breakthroughs in medical history, saving countless lives from the severe morbidity and mortality that is associated with this disease. Although smallpox is now extinct in nature, laboratory stocks of this virus still remain and the subject of smallpox vaccination has gained renewed attention due to the potential risk that smallpox may be used as a biological weapon by terrorists or rogue states. Despite having the longest history of any modern vaccine, there is still much to be learned about smallpox vaccination and the correlates of protection remain to be formally defined. This Commentary will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of traditional smallpox vaccination in comparison with immunization using modified vaccinia virus Ankura (MVA), a non-replicating virus with a strong safety record but weakened immunogenicity

Contributions of humoral and cellular immunity to vaccine-induced protection in humans

AbstractVaccines play a vital role in protecting the host against infectious disease. The most effective licensed vaccines elicit long-term antigen-specific antibody responses by plasma cells in addition to the development of persisting T cell and B cell memory. The relative contributions of these different immune cell subsets are context-dependent and vary depending on the attributes of the vaccine (i.e., live/attenuated, inactivated, and subunit) as well as the biology of the pathogen in question. For relatively simple vaccines against bacterial antigens (e.g., tetanus toxin) or invariant viruses, the immunological correlates of protection are well-characterized. For more complex vaccines against viruses, especially those that mutate or cause latent infections, it is more difficult to define the specific correlates of immunity. This often requires observational/natural history studies, clinical trials, or experimental evaluation in relevant animal models in order for immunological correlates to be determined or extrapolated. In this review, we will discuss the relative contributions of virus-specific T cell and B cell responses to vaccine-mediated protection against disease

Designing Promise Programs: Decisions and Effects

Having gained popularity over the past two decades, promise programs are a relatively new policy tool aimed at increasing the number of people who earn two-year and four-year postsecondary educational degrees by providing partial or full financial aid. In contrast to other forms of financial aid for postsecondary education, promise programs guarantee funding to students of a specified geographic area, which is sometimes accompanied by merit or need-based requirements. Promise programs differ in design, vary in result, and potentially cause substitution and migration effects. By analyzing several mature promise programs, I identify three fundamental design decisions that policymakers must consider when creating promise programs

Investigation of Membrane Electrode Assembly Design and Fabrication Parameters

Several aspects must be considered when attempting to design a fuel cell that will perform well and show durability without being expensive. This project focused on the membrane, gas-diffusion, and catalyst layers of the MEA, and improvements that could be made to both the process and parameters of its design and fabrication. By first understanding the main aspects of MEA performance and fabrication, several factors were decided upon to investigate further from among the wide range of possible experimental variables. In order to rationalize this, a theoretical model proposed by Thampan et al, of MEA performance was considered. A literature review was also preformed to guide the experimental phase of the project and to gain knowledge of current research being done on the relevant topics

Data Stewardship Portal: Client-side Web Frontend

Práce popisuje proces návrhu, vývoje, testování a nasazení webového frontendu pro Data Stewardship Portal, který je součástí Interoperability platformy v ELIXIR CZ projektu. Portál zahrnuje rozsáhlý editor knowledge modelů a modul pro migrace. Pro webový vývoj je použito řešení založené na Haskellu.The thesis goes through the process of design, development, testing and deployment of the client-side web frontend for the Data Stewardship Portal which is part of the Interoperability platform at ELIXIR CZ project. The portal includes extensive Knowledge Model Editor and Migration Module. Haskell-based solution is used for the web development

Cytokine-Mediated Programmed Proliferation of Virus-Specific CD8+ Memory T Cells

SummaryDuring infection, CD8+ T cells not only respond to antigenic signals through their T cell receptor (TCR) but also incorporate inflammatory signals from cytokines produced in the local infected microenvironment. Transient TCR-mediated stimulation will result in programmed proliferation that continues despite removal of the antigenic stimulus, but it remains unclear whether brief exposure to specific cytokines will elicit similar effects. Here, we have demonstrated that brief stimulation of memory T cells with interleukin-12 (IL-12) and interleukin-18 (IL-18) results in tightly regulated programmed proliferation, in addition to acquisition of enhanced virus-specific cytokine production and cytolytic activity. CD8+ T cells briefly exposed to IL-12 and IL-18 in vitro showed improved antiviral activity in vivo, as demonstrated by increased proliferation and reduced viremia. These results indicate that even transitory exposure to inflammatory cytokines can provide a selective advantage to infiltrating CD8+ T cells by triggering a developmental program that is initiated prior to direct contact with virus-infected cells

Role of Multivalency and Antigenic Threshold in Generating Protective Antibody Responses

Vaccines play a vital role in protecting our communities against infectious disease. Unfortunately, some vaccines provide only partial protection or in some cases vaccine-mediated immunity may wane rapidly, resulting in either increased susceptibility to that disease or a requirement for more booster vaccinations in order to maintain immunity above a protective level. The durability of antibody responses after infection or vaccination appears to be intrinsically determined by the structural biology of the antigen, with multivalent protein antigens often providing more long-lived immunity than monovalent antigens. This forms the basis for the Imprinted Lifespan model describing the differential survival of long-lived plasma cell populations. There are, however, exceptions to this rule with examples of highly attenuated live virus vaccines that are rapidly cleared and elicit only short-lived immunity despite the expression of multivalent surface epitopes. These exceptions have led to the concept that multivalency alone may not reliably determine the duration of protective humoral immune responses unless a minimum number of long-lived plasma cells are generated by reaching an appropriate antigenic threshold of B cell stimulation. Examples of long-term and in some cases, potentially lifelong antibody responses following immunization against human papilloma virus (HPV), Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), Hepatitis B virus (HBV), and Hepatitis A virus (HAV) provide several lessons in understanding durable serological memory in human subjects. Moreover, studies involving influenza vaccination provide the unique opportunity to compare the durability of hemagglutinin (HA)-specific antibody titers mounted in response to antigenically repetitive whole virus (i.e., multivalent HA), or detergent-disrupted “split” virus, in comparison to the long-term immune responses induced by natural influenza infection. Here, we discuss the underlying mechanisms that may be associated with the induction of protective immunity by long-lived plasma cells and their importance in future vaccine design

A Genetic Lesion that Arrests Plasma Cell Homing to the Bone Marrow

The coordinated regulation of chemokine responsiveness plays a critical role in the development of humoral immunity. After antigen challenge and B cell activation, the emerging plasma cells (PCs) undergo CXCL12-induced chemotaxis to the bone marrow, where they produce Ab and persist. Here we show that PCs, but not B cells or T cells from lupus-prone NZM mice, are deficient in CXCL12-induced migration. PC unresponsiveness to CXCL12 results in a marked accumulation of PCs in the spleen of mice, and a concordant decrease in bone marrow PCs. Unlike normal mice, in NZM mice, a majority of the splenic PCs are long-lived. This deficiency is a consequence of the genetic interactions of multiple systemic lupus erythematosus susceptibility loci