Environmental Sciences LibGuide

The Environmental Sciences Program is an interdisciplinary undergraduate program at the University of Iowa. It includes faculty from the Departments of Anthropology, Geography, Biology, Geoscience, Chemistry, and Civil and Environmental Engineering. Students pursuing a BS in Environmental Sciences can pursue one of four tracks: Biosciences, Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, or Hydrosciences. The four tracks are very different, however there is some overlap with elective courses and there is a set of required foundations courses that all students must take. The interdisciplinary nature of any environmental science topic requires a student to have access to resources across many disciplines. This potential overlap in information needs lead to the decision to create one LibGuide for the Environmental Sciences Program. This guide will serve as a general guide to environmental resources for all of the students in the program. Future guides may be created that focus on resources for each of the four specific tracks in the Environmental Sciences Program

Dengue viruses cluster antigenically but not as discrete serotypes

The four genetically divergent dengue virus (DENV) types are traditionally classified as serotypes. Antigenic and genetic differences among the DENV types influence disease outcome, vaccine-induced protection, epidemic magnitude, and viral evolution.We scharacterized antigenic diversity in the DENV types by antigenic maps constructed from neutralizing antibody titers obtained from African green monkeys and after human vaccination and natural infections. Genetically, geographically, and temporally, diverse DENV isolates clustered loosely by type, but we found that many are as similar antigenically to a virus of a different type as to some viruses of the same type. Primary infection antisera did not neutralize all viruses of the same DENV type any better than other types did up to 2 years after infection and did not show improved neutralization to homologous type isolates. That the canonical DENV types are not antigenically homogeneous has implications for vaccination and research on the dynamics of immunity, disease, and the evolution of DENV