How Has The Journey to Womanhood Affected Female Somali Immigrants

Abstract This thesis discusses the practice of female circumcision among Somali immigrant women in a small Midwest community. The literature review gives the historical background of the practice, how it has been criminalized, how organizations are change agents and what impact culture has upon the practice. In the methodology section, the research method is reviewed and highlights the success and difficulties of the qualitative research that was conducted over a span of 2.5 years. The section describes the process from the beginning of me having a presence in the Somali community to how I networked and used a snow ball sampling method to gain additional interviewees. The first woman who interviewed with me helped me gain the confidence and trust of the women who followed suit. Additionally, the analysis explores the reasoning behind, and cultural meaning that is tied to the practice, and how it affects women for the course of their adult life. The analysis gives voice to the women’s personal experience with the practice and in what ways it affects their sense of self. Their stories inform the reader about the impact of their culture and how it is challenged by being in the United States. The conclusion discusses the findings from the interviews, and highlights the ways in which women feel they have been impacted. It then discusses what variables are at play in challenging the future of the practice

Human vaccination against RH5 induces neutralizing antimalarial antibodies that inhibit RH5 invasion complex interactions.

The development of a highly effective vaccine remains a key strategic goal to aid the control and eventual eradication of Plasmodium falciparum malaria. In recent years, the reticulocyte-binding protein homolog 5 (RH5) has emerged as the most promising blood-stage P. falciparum candidate antigen to date, capable of conferring protection against stringent challenge in Aotus monkeys. We report on the first clinical trial to our knowledge to assess the RH5 antigen - a dose-escalation phase Ia study in 24 healthy, malaria-naive adult volunteers. We utilized established viral vectors, the replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus serotype 63 (ChAd63), and the attenuated orthopoxvirus modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA), encoding RH5 from the 3D7 clone of P. falciparum. Vaccines were administered i.m. in a heterologous prime-boost regimen using an 8-week interval and were well tolerated. Vaccine-induced anti-RH5 serum antibodies exhibited cross-strain functional growth inhibition activity (GIA) in vitro, targeted linear and conformational epitopes within RH5, and inhibited key interactions within the RH5 invasion complex. This is the first time to our knowledge that substantial RH5-specific responses have been induced by immunization in humans, with levels greatly exceeding the serum antibody responses observed in African adults following years of natural malaria exposure. These data support the progression of RH5-based vaccines to human efficacy testing