Monday, April 29, 2024

Haiti study suggests early-onset heart failure is prevalent form of heart disease in low-income countries

WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE

Early-onset heart failure is alarmingly common in urban Haiti—over 15-fold higher than previously estimated—according to a study conducted by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers in partnership with the Haitian medical organization GHESKIO. Heart failure occurs when the heart muscle can no longer pump an adequate amount of blood throughout the body.

The study indicates that the nature of cardiovascular disease in Haiti, and perhaps other low- and middle-income nations, differs from wealthier countries where ischemic heart disease, also called coronary heart disease, is prevalent. This condition, where the heart doesn't receive enough blood flow and oxygen due to narrowing of heart arteries was assumed to be the global norm.

The findings, published on April 4 in The Lancet Regional Health—Americas, are from one of the world’s first population-based cardiovascular clinical studies in a low-income setting designed to understand the landscape of heart disease. The cohort included 3,003 residents in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, who were clinically assessed for heart conditions.

Dr. Margaret McNairy and Dr. Lily Yan, members of Weill Cornell Medicine’s Center for Global Health and the Division of General Internal Medicine, worked with Dr. Jean Pape, executive director of GHESKIO, to lead the research. Dr. Pape is also the Howard and Carol Holtzmann Professor in Clinical Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. They determined that heart failure affected nearly 12 percent of participants, with a median age of 57, much younger than in the United States.

“What we found differed strikingly from assumptions based on studies in wealthy countries,” said Dr. McNairy, the principal investigator and an associate professor of medicine who has worked with GHESKIO over the past decade. “It’s a paradigm shift for our understanding of cardiovascular disease in under-resourced countries and important to guide health planning for future prevention and treatment.”

Cardiovascular diseases cause more death and disability worldwide than any other type of condition. However, without data collected on the ground it was unclear whether they affect people in the same way globally.

“In a place like Haiti, people live in an environment where they encounter extreme poverty, more pollution and experience high levels of stress, including from civil unrest,” said corresponding author Dr. Yan, an assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. “Consequently, we thought there would be differences in heart disease and the factors driving it.” This study tested that suspicion.

Distinctive Risks for an All-Too-Common Problem

GHESKIO community outreach workers recruited residents from a random sample of households in urban Port-au-Prince and invited them to participate by visiting the GHESKIO clinic. Once there, participants answered questions about their health and received a comprehensive physical exam including blood pressure measurements and blood work. They also had non-invasive tests including an electrocardiogram (ECG) that measures the electrical activity of the heart and echocardiogram, which looks at the function of their heart.

Delving into the data, the researchers used international guidelines to determine cardiovascular conditions, including heart failure, stroke, heart attack and chest pain. Nearly 15 percent of Haitian adults had one or more of these conditions, indicating cardiovascular diseases are a widespread issue. Heart failure, specifically stiffening of the muscle, affected the majority of these patients.

Their analysis found that elevated blood pressure, known as hypertension, was the most common risk factor for heart failure among Haitians. However, a previous study showed that only 13 percent of Haitian adults with hypertension had their blood pressure under control.

When establishing infrastructure to address cardiovascular diseases in Haiti, “this study suggests that we need to shift focus to early prevention of hypertension and heart failure,” Dr. McNairy said. The team is also studying the underlying factors contributing to this health crisis including the adversity Haitians routinely face such as hunger, poverty, sanitation, stress and other factors.

This study was funded by NIH grants R01HL143788, D43TW011972, and K24HL163393, clinicaltrials.gov NCT03892265.

JOURNAL

The Lancet Regional Health - Americas

"BioBlitz" citizen science reveals urban biodiversity, guides management

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Citizen scientists are uncovering rare animal, plant, and fungi species in areas where they have never been seen before, increasing our knowledge of urban biodiversity and proving the existence of local species long thought extinct. The approach used is called a BioBlitz, a biological census in which citizen scientists contribute photographs or audio of living organisms they can see or hear in a designated area over a particular period, creating a snapshot of an area’s biodiversity.

In a recently published article in the journal BioScience, Dr. Esti Palma (University of Melbourne) and colleagues use the 2021 Melbourne City Nature Challenge as a case study to outline best practices for future BioBlitzes. During that effort, citizen scientists observed 135 different animal, plant and fungi species that had never been recorded in their local area. They also found 26 species that had not been recorded in Melbourne for at least 30 years. One rare species rediscovered was the thin strawberry weevil, a tiny species not seen for more than 44 years.

Palma explains that sprawl and population growth mean that it is crucial to understand what native and introduced plants and animals live in urban reserves and across public and private greenspace. “It can be hard for us to notice as we go about our busy lives, but cities are filled with indigenous insects, spiders and plants, as well as birds, frogs, fungi, small reptiles and invertebrates like snails,” he said. BioBlitzes are vital to managers, say the authors, because they present "local governments with a cost-effective tool to make informed, evidence-based management and policy decisions, improve education and engagement programs, foster cross-council collaborations, and support a stronger sense of environmental stewardship within the local community."

Coauthor Dr. Luis Mata (University of Melbourne) states that the 2021 evaluation also provided academically rigorous evidence of the benefits of citizen science events, as well as ways to make BioBlitzes even more useful, including conducting them across seasons or at night, with more tools and training to assist participants in collecting high-quality data. “As the citizen science movement grows, there is more potential for them to contribute timely, targeted, and high-quality records to shape local policies, as well as management, education, and research,” Dr Mata said.

The City Nature Challenge began in 2016 when staff at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and the California Academy of Sciences conceived a friendly competition between San Francisco and Los Angeles to see which city could record the largest number of species by the largest number of participants over an eight-day period.

This year, hundreds of Victorians used their smartphones or cameras to participate in the 2024 City Nature Challenge urban BioBlitz, which began on Friday, 26 April, across more than 25 councils in metropolitan Melbourne. More than 600 cities worldwide are participating this year.

Media enquiries: Mia Tyquin | +61 403 671 863| mia.tyquin@unimelb.edu.au

JOURNAL

BioScience

DOI

10.1093/biosci/biae012

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The city nature challenge: A global citizen science phenomenon contributing to biodiversity knowledge and informing local government practices

Long snouts protect foxes when diving headfirst in snow

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. – When hunting for mice in winter, red and arctic fox are known to plunge headfirst at speeds of 2-4 meters per second, but their sharp noses reduce the impact force in snow and protect them from injury, according to a new Cornell University study.

The fundamental research sheds light on the biomechanics of the unique hunting behavior (known as mousing), advances our understanding of animal adaptations and offers insights into snow injuries people experience during snowboarding or skiing.

The study published April 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While there have been many studies of water birds and animals such as porpoises and dolphins diving from air into water, interactions between animals and the air-snow interface have not been well-researched. Snow has fluid-like properties when light and fluffy, and solid-like properties when compacted, such as when people make snowballs.

“The fox’s sharp snout doesn’t significantly compress the snow, it penetrates it without much resistance,” said Sunghwan Jung, the paper’s corresponding author and professor of biological and environmental engineering. Jisoo Yuk, a doctoral student in Jung’s lab, is the paper’s first author.

In the study, the authors scanned skulls of red and arctic foxes (from the Canidae family) and lynx and puma skulls (from the Felidae family) at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. They 3D-printed the skulls and attached each to a sensor that measured impact force. The skulls were then dropped into both snow and water, and the researchers entered data into computer models to compare impacts of both.

Jung and colleagues found that the foxes’ sharp snouts penetrated the snow with little resistance, minimizing potential tissue damage during a headfirst dive. “Without much compression, in spite of the high-speed impact, the snow behaves like water,” Jung said. But the flat Felidae snouts compressed the snow upon impact, creating a large and potentially damaging resistance.

When mousing in snow, the fox’s long snout also allows it to reach its prey earlier, as mice are very sensitive to movements in their environment and can quickly escape. Other behavioral studies have shown that prior to pouncing, foxes shake their heads to listen to the rustling sounds of mice or other animals beneath the snow’s surface, thereby gauging the depth of the sound source.

“This is a very dangerous process, but we haven’t had reports of foxes getting injured,” Jung said.

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

-30-

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2321179121

ARTICLE TITLE

Effect of skull morphology on fox snow diving

Laser imaging could offer early detection for at-risk artwork

Time is robbing some historical paintings of their yellow colors. Technique could spot the first signs of fading before they’re visible to the eye

DUKE UNIVERSITY

DURHAM, N.C. -- Look closely at Impressionist paintings in museums compared with photos of them taken 50 years ago, and you might notice something odd: some are losing their bright yellow hues.

Take the dramatic sunset in Edward Munch’s famous painting “The Scream.” Portions of the sky that were once a vivid orangish yellow have faded to off-white.

Likewise, some of the sunny yellow that Henri Matisse brushed between the reclining nudes in his painting “The Joy of Life” is now more of a drab beige.

Several other paintings from this period are facing similar issues. The bright yellow paint these artists used was made from the chemical compound cadmium sulfide. The pigment was beloved by many European artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and Pablo Picasso all brushed their canvasses with it.

“So many painters really loved this pigment,” said Yue Zhou, who earned her Ph.D. in the lab of Duke chemistry professor Warren Warren.

But as the decades passed, many artists and art conservators realized they had a problem: Their cadmium yellow brushstrokes didn’t look as vibrant as they once did.

The passage of time exposes artwork to light, moisture, dust and other elements of nature that can make pigments vulnerable to fading and discoloration.

In a new study, Duke University researchers show that a laser microscopy technique they developed could offer a means of early detection, making it possible to identify the first tiny signs of color change even before they’re visible to the eye.

Several techniques exist to study what pigments were used in a painting and how much they’ve broken down. But they typically involve scraping off a tiny chip of paint with a scalpel to analyze its composition. That method can damage the piece and limits the area to be studied, Zhou said.

“It's a little like surgery,” she added.

Enter pump-probe microscopy. It can peer into layers of paint and detect chemical changes that mark the onset of a pigment’s decay, without taking cross-sections of the original artwork.

The technique uses ultra-fast pulses of harmless visible or near-infrared light, lasting less than a trillionth of a second, and measures how they interact with pigments in the paint. The resulting signals can be used as chemical fingerprints to identify which compounds are present.

By focusing the laser beam at different locations and depths within the sample, the researchers are able to create 3D maps of certain pigments and monitor what’s happening at scales as small as a hundredth of a millimeter.

For the new study, published April 26 in the Journal of Physics: Photonics, the researchers used pump-probe microscopy to analyze samples of cadmium yellow paint subjected to an artificial aging process.

In a lab on Duke’s west campus, Zhou stirred up samples of the famous color. Taking a bottle of powdered cadmium sulfide pigment off a shelf, she mixed it with linseed oil and then brushed it on microscope slides to dry.

Some samples were left in a dark and dry environment, protected from moisture and light damage. But the rest were placed in a special chamber and exposed to light and high humidity -- factors known to wreak havoc on unstable colors.

The researchers then imaged the paint samples using pump-probe microscopy to track the degradation progress on a microscopic scale.

Compared with control samples, the samples that got the aging treatment emerged looking the worse for wear. After four weeks in the aging chamber, they had faded to lighter shades of yellow.

But even before these changes became noticeable, clear signs of decay were already apparent in the pump-probe data, Zhou said.

The cadmium sulfide signal started to wane as early as week one, eventually decreasing by more than 80% by week four.

The signal loss is a result of chemical changes in the pigments, Zhou said. Moisture triggers the transformation of cadmium sulfide, which is yellow, into cadmium sulfate, which is white -- resulting in a whitish or dull cast.

Senior co-authors Warren and Martin Fischer originally developed the technique to analyze pigments in human tissue, not works of art -- to inspect skin moles for signs of cancer. But then they realized the same approach could be used for art conservation.

There is a caveat: while the technique spots early changes in a nondestructive way, conservators can’t easily recreate the bulky laser setup in their own museums.

In the future, the team says it might be possible to develop a cheaper, more portable version that can be used to study paintings that are too vulnerable or large to transport and analyze off site.

Of course, any color loss that has already happened can’t be reversed. But one day, art conservators might have a new tool to spot these changes earlier and take steps to slow or stop the process in its beginning stages.

The research has potential applications beyond artists’ pigments. Looking at cadmium yellow degradation in century-old paintings could help researchers better understand modern materials that are vulnerable to the elements too, such as the cadmium sulfide used in solar cells, Warren said.

This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (CHE-2108623) and from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (2021242921).

CITATION: "Non-Destructive Three-Dimensional Imaging of Artificially Degraded CdS Paints by Pump-Probe Microscopy," Yue Zhou, David Grass, Warren S. Warren, and Martin C. Fischer. Journal of Physics: Photonics, April 14, 2024. DOI: 10.1088/2515-7647/ad3e65

JOURNAL

Journal of Physics Photonics

DOI

10.1088/2515-7647/ad3e65

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Non-Destructive Three-Dimensional Imaging of Artificially Degraded CdS Paints by Pump-Probe Microscopy

Scientists harness the wind as a tool to move objects

New approach allows contactless or remote manipulation of objects by machines or robots

AALTO UNIVERSITY

Researchers have developed a technique to move objects around with a jet of wind. The new approach makes it possible to manipulate objects at a distance and could be integrated into robots to give machines ethereal fingers.

‘Airflow or wind is everywhere in our living environment, moving around objects like pollen, pathogens, droplets, seeds and leaves. Wind has also been actively used in industry and in our everyday lives – for example, in leaf blowers to clean leaves. But so far, we can’t control the direction the leaves move – we can only blow them together into a pile,’ says Professor Quan Zhou from Aalto University, who led the study.

The first step in manipulating objects with wind is understanding how objects move in the airflow. To that end, a research team at Aalto University recorded thousands of sample movements in an artificially generated airflow and used these to build templates of how objects move on a surface in a jet of air.

The team’s analysis showed that even though the airflow is generally chaotic, it’s still regular enough to move objects in a controlled way in different directions – even back towards the nozzle blowing out the air.

‘We designed an algorithm that controls the direction of the air nozzle with two motors. The jet of air is blown onto the surface from several meters away and to the side of the object, so the generated airflow field moves the object in the desired direction. The control algorithm repeatedly adjusts the direction of the air nozzle so that the airflow moves the objects along the desired trajectory,’ explains Zhou.

‘Our observations allowed us to use airflow to move objects along different paths, like circles or even complex letter-like paths. Our method is versatile in terms of the object’s shape and material – we can control the movement of objects of almost any shape,’ he continues.

The technology still needs to be refined, but the researchers are optimistic about the untapped potential of their nature-inspired approach. It could be used to collect items that are scattered on a surface, such as pushing debris and waste to collection points. It could also be useful in complex processing tasks where physical contact is impossible, such as handling electrical circuits.

‘We believe that this technique could get even better with a deeper understanding of the characteristics of the airflow field, which is what we’re working on next,’ says Zhou.

The article has been published in Advanced Intelligent Systems. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202400174

JOURNAL

Advanced Intelligent Systems

DOI

10.1002/aisy.202400174

ARTICLE TITLE

Meter-Scale Distance Manipulation of Diverse Objects with Jet-Induced Airflow Field

Kaposi sarcoma discovery could facilitate drug development

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA HEALTH CARE

Dirk Dittmer, PhD — IMAGE:
DIRK DITTMER, PHD, AND COLLEAGUES HAVE DEVELOPED A MODEL OF KAPOSI SARCOMA COULD BE KEY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW DRUGS TO TREAT THE DISEASE. KAPOSI SARCOMA IS THE MOST COMMON CANCER IN PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV. “BEFORE THIS, ONLY REPURPOSED DRUGS FROM OTHER CANCERS WERE USED TO TREAT KAPOSI SARCOMA, BUT NOW WE CAN START INVESTIGATING ENTIRELY NEW COMPOUNDS TO HELP TREAT WHAT CAN BE A LETHAL CANCER.”
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CREDIT: UNC LINEBERGER COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER

Researchers at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, after decades of research efforts, have developed a mouse model of Kaposi sarcoma that could be key to the development of new drugs to treat the disease. Kaposi sarcoma is a cancer that is the most common cancer in people living with HIV.

The findings appeared in Cell Host & Microbe.

“This is an important development as we have created the first animal model ever of Kaposi sarcoma. Animal models are essential to move new drugs from the laboratory bench into clinical trials,” said UNC Lineberger’s Dirk Dittmer, PhD, senior corresponding author, co-leader of the UNC Lineberger Virology Research Program and director of the UNC Viral Genomics Core. “Before this, only repurposed drugs from other cancers were used to treat Kaposi sarcoma, but now we can start investigating entirely new compounds to help treat what can be a lethal cancer.”

About 20% of all human cancers arise from viruses or require viral infection as an essential cofactor. The Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpes virus (KSHV) was discovered in 1994 and is associated with Kaposi’s sarcoma as well as B-cell cancers. KSHV-associated diseases affect internal organs and are ultimately fatal. In the U.S., the diseases are found primarily in immunosuppressed people such as those who are HIV-positive or are transplant patients.

Worldwide, an estimated 34,270 cases of Kaposi sarcoma were diagnosed, and 15,086 deaths reported in 2020, with twice as many cases and deaths occurring in men compared to women. Africa accounted for 73% of new cases and 86.6% of the deaths from Kaposi sarcoma worldwide. The disease is endemic, and not HIV-related, in some southern and eastern African countries.

Aside from animal models, one way to study cancer is to look at tumor cells in the lab. But according to Dittmer, Kaposi sarcoma tumor cells are very finicky and dependent on signaling molecules and blood supply, which is why they don’t survive in a laboratory culture dish. Therefore, researchers have been focusing on developing animal models that would mimic, as closely as possible, the disease in humans.

One of the challenges the researchers faced in developing their model was the fact that two types of genes are transcribed into proteins in the Kaposi sarcoma mouse model. Normally when a virus infects a cell, the cell dies as the virus replicates, which is a process called cell lysis; the genes that are needed for the virus to propagate itself are lytic genes. Cancer viruses are different as they enter a quiet state, called latency, where only the genes that help the infected cell survive are expressed. The mouse model the researchers developed is complex as a bit of both types of genes were needed.

Cervical cancer and its related virus, HPV (human papilloma virus), offers a good comparison for the challenge of developing a Kaposi sarcoma mouse model. The KSHV genome is 20 times larger than HPV. HPV has two cancer-causing genes, E6 and E7, so to mimic the disease in animals, researchers only needed to design two mice, one for each gene. KSHV may have as many as 10 cancer-causing genes that all work together so it would be way too difficult to develop that many mice, hence the virtue of their single model, Dittmer noted.

“Another of the key virtues of our new mouse model is that it helps us understand angiogenesis, or new blood vessel formation. Without angiogenesis cancer cells are deprived of oxygen and die,” Dittmer said. “In this mouse model, we can study angiogenesis blocking drugs better than ever before. If new drugs work against Kaposi sarcoma, they will also likely work against lesser-angiogenic tumors, which would be a major plus.”

For next steps, the researchers hope that others will pursue drug and vaccine development based on a new understanding of fundamental aspects of KSHV provided by their mouse model, including possible development of a much-needed primate model for human KSHV and Kaposi sarcoma.

JOURNAL

Cell Host & Microbe

DOI

10.1016/j.chom.2024.03.012

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

The complete Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus genome induces early-onset, metastatic angiosarcoma in transgenic mice

Study finds school entry requirements linked to increased HPV vaccination rates

ATRIUM HEALTH WAKE FOREST BAPTIST

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – April 29, 2024 – A new study from researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine shows that school entry requirements are linked to an increase in human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinations.

The findings appear online in Pediatrics.

HPV is a common sexually transmitted infection, which can cause health problems such as genital warts and certain cancers. To prevent infection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that 11- to 12-year-olds receive two doses of the HPV vaccine, given 6 to 12 months apart. However, CDC data from 2022 shows that only 50% of 13-year-olds were up to date on HPV vaccinations.

School-entry requirements, where parents/guardians are required to vaccinate their children against HPV or receive an exemption before beginning a particular grade, are currently only found in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

“There are a variety of state and federal policies designed to address low HPV vaccination rates among adolescents, but there has been little research to determine which policies are most effective,” said Brigid Grabert, Ph.D., J.D., assistant professor of implementation science at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and senior author of the study.

In collaboration with researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, Grabert and team systematically reviewed studies from 2009-2022 assessing the association between policies and HPV vaccination coverage among U.S. adolescents. The team identified 36 eligible studies and summarized findings based on policy type such as school-entry requirements, federally funded policies and educational requirements, which require schools or other organizations to distribute information about the benefits of HPV vaccination.

“We found consistent evidence that school-entry requirements work in places that require parents who don’t vaccinate to submit an exemption,” Grabert said. “We also found that school-entry requirements for other vaccines resulted in positive spillover effects for HPV vaccinations.”

Grabert said that federally funded policies related to the Vaccines for Children program and Medicaid were also consistently associated with an increase in HPV vaccinations. However, few studies noted an association between educational requirements and HPV vaccination coverage.

“Policymakers should be aware that HPV-related cancers and disease can be reduced,” Grabert said. “But not all policies are effective. Policymakers should carefully consider the best strategy to increase the administration of HPV vaccines.”

JOURNAL

PEDIATRICS

DOI

10.1542/peds.2023-064692

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Systematic review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Policy Approaches for Increasing Adolescent HPV Vaccination Coverage: A Systematic Review

COVID-19-induced financial hardships reveal mental health struggles

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

When COVID-19 caused significant economic disruptions, thousands of people around the world experienced sudden shocks to their financial situation through reduced earnings or job losses.

Now economic researchers at the University of South Australia have examined the mental health effects on people who experienced immediate or expected financial setbacks during the height of the pandemic.

Data gathered from China, Japan and South Korea during the early phases of the pandemic revealed that the severe economic shocks induced by COVID-19 caused significant effects to people’s mental health including anxiety, sleeping troubles, boredom and loneliness.

UniSA’s Associate Professor of Economics Tony Cavoli says the anticipation of future income loss had a more profound impact on people’s mental wellbeing compared to the actual decreases in their income.

“Our research shows that mental health issues are more likely to occur due to anticipated income losses rather than actual losses. It was also interesting to find that although women are generally more likely to experience mental health problems, in many instances in our study we found that men were more likely to experience anxiety than women in response to either actual or expected losses in their income,” he says.

“There are a couple of reasons as to why this might be the case. Firstly, in societies that are perhaps seen as more traditional in terms of household and familial structures, it is possible that males feel greater societal pressure to remain employed. Secondly, those industries for which there was a higher likelihood of experiencing income reductions were more likely to have greater participation by males.”

The initial impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns led to decreased demand, a reduction in hours worked and significant job losses. The Australian Bureau of Statistics predicted the pandemic caused a $47 billion hit to the country’s economy.

Assoc Prof Cavoli says his study presents an important insight into people’s anxieties arising from economic turbulence and uncertainties.

“We have an insight into how people dealt with income shocks during stressful times, and this is a really important opportunity for future policy implications, particularly around the design of government support and other interventions,” he says.

“Responses from governments, for example, early in times of crisis may help individuals manage possibility anxieties arising from economic uncertainties."

For more information:

Akbar Zamanzadeh, Tony Cavoli, Matina Ghasemi, Ladan Rokni, "The effect of actual and expected income shocks on mental wellbeing: Evidence from three East Asian countries during COVID-19," Economics & Human Biology, Volume 53, 2024, 101378, ISSN 1570-677X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101378.

END.

………………………………………………………

Media contact: Melissa Keogh, Communications Officer, UniSA Media
M: +61 403 659 154 E: Melissa.Keogh@unisa.edu.au

Researcher contact: Associate Professor Tony Cavoli, UniSA, E: Tony.Cavoli@unisa.edu.au

JOURNAL

Economics & Human Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101378

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The effect of actual and expected income shocks on mental wellbeing: Evidence from three East Asian countries during COVID-19

Study suggests staying current with COVID-19 vaccinations helps combat emerging variants

OHSU is among first to test in a biosafety level 3 laboratory whether vaccine-elicited antibodies block infection of a live virus

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY

New research using live SARS-CoV-2 virus reveals an updated vaccine provides a strong immune response against previous strains and emerging variants.

The findings by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, suggest a clear benefit in receiving updated vaccinations on a regular basis, especially among older people or those with underlying medical conditions.

“The virus is still circulating, it’s continuing to evolve, and it remains dangerous,” said co-senior author Fikadu Tafesse, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular microbiology and immunology in the OHSU School of Medicine. “Sooner or later, there will be another variant that evades the immunity we have already built up. Our study demonstrates that it’s worthwhile to update our immune repertoire.”

As the pandemic has receded from public consciousness, vaccine uptake has waned in the U.S., according to federal data.

The new study is the latest in laboratory research at OHSU testing variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The project relies upon more than 2,000 university employees who have volunteered to have their blood drawn before, during and after vaccination. The research project began early in the pandemic with antibody testing.

In the latest study, researchers isolated blood drawn from 55 people before and after they received an updated vaccine beginning last fall that targets the XBB.1.5 subvariant of the omicron variant of the virus.

They found a strong response in terms of the levels of antibodies generated, and their ability to neutralize the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 plus new variants that have emerged since the novel coronavirus arrived in late 2019. Importantly, the vaccine appeared to generate a strong response against the JN.1 variant that is now circulating broadly worldwide – suggesting regularly updating the vaccine will be useful in confronting emerging variants.

The study marks another milepost in the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

“Overall, this work strongly supports use of the updated vaccine,” said co-senior author Marcel Curlin, M.D., associate professor of medicine (infectious diseases) in the OHSU School of Medicine and medical director of OHSU Occupational Health. “In the big picture, COVID-19 is not going away but lining up alongside the other common respiratory illnesses such as flu and RSV, which cause relatively mild disease for most people and a lot of harm to a few.”

In contrast to most other research studies, OHSU is among the first to test the ability of vaccine-elicited antibodies in blood serum to block infection of a live virus in a biosafety level 3 laboratory.

In addition to Tafesse and Curlin, co-authors include Xammy Huu Nguyenla, Mastura Wahedi, Timothy Bates and Mila Trank-Greene of OHSU.

The work was supported in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health, award R01AI141549. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

JOURNAL

Emerging Infectious Diseases

DOI

10.3201/eid3006.240051

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Evaluating Humoral Immunity Elicited by XBB.1.5 Monovalent COVID-19 Vaccine

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Apr-2024