Chaperonin-Inspired pH Protection by Mesoporous Silica SBA-15 on Myoglobin and Lysozyme.

While enzymes are valuable tools in many fields of biotechnology, they are fragile and must be protected against denaturing conditions such as unfavorable solution pH. Within living organisms, chaperonins help enzymes fold into their native shape and protect them from damage. Inspired by this natural solution, mesoporous silica SBA-15 with different pore diameters is synthesized as a support material for immobilizing and protecting enzymes. In separate experiments, the model enzymes myoglobin and lysozyme are physically adsorbed to SBA-15 and exposed to a range of buffered pH conditions. The immobilized enzymes' biocatalytic activities are quantified and compared to the activities of nonimmobilized enzymes in the same solution conditions. It has been observed that myoglobin immobilized on SBA-15 is protected from acidic denaturation from pH 3.6 to 5.1, exhibiting relative activity of up to 350%. Immobilized lysozyme is protected from unfavorable conditions from pH 6.6 to 7.6, with relative activity of up to 200%. These results indicate that the protective effects conferred to enzymes immobilized by physical adsorption to SBA-15 are driven by the enzymes' electrostatic attraction to the material's surface. The pore diameter of SBA-15 affects the quality of protection given to immobilized enzymes, but the contribution of this effect at different pH values remains unclear.

Knowledge of the national emergency telephone number and prevalence and characteristics of those trained in CPR in Queensland: baseline information for targeted training interventions.

Members of the community contribute to survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by contacting emergency medical services and performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) prior to the arrival of an ambulance. In Australia there is a paucity of information of the extent that community members know the emergency telephone number and are trained in CPR. A survey of Queensland adults (n=4490) was conducted to ascertain current knowledge and training levels and to target CPR training. Although most respondents (88.3%) could state the Australian emergency telephone number correctly, significant age differences were apparent (P<0.001). One in five respondents aged 60 years and older could not state the emergency number correctly. While just over half the respondents (53.9%) had completed some form of CPR training, only 12.1% had recent training. Older people were more likely to have never had CPR training than young adults. Additional demographic and socio-economic differences were found between those never trained in CPR and those who were. The results emphasise the need to increase CPR training in those aged 40 and over, particularly females, and to increase the awareness of the emergency telephone number amongst older people.

The translational research impact scale: development, construct validity, and reliability testing.

Increasing emphasis is being placed on measuring return on research investment and determining the true impacts of biomedical research for medical practice and population health. This article describes initial progress on development of a new standardized tool for identifying and measuring impacts across research sites. The Translational Research Impact Scale (TRIS) is intended to provide a systematic approach to assessing impact levels using a set of 72 impact indicators organized into three broad research impact domains and nine subdomains. A validation process was conducted with input from a panel of 31 experts in translational research, who met to define and standardize the measurement of research impacts using the TRIS. Testing was performed to estimate the reliability of the experts' ratings. The reliability was found to be high (ranging from .75 to .94) in all of the domains and most of the subdomains. A weighting process was performed assigning item weights to the individual indicators, so that composite scores can be derived.

Protective immune responses elicited by immunization with a chimeric blood-stage malaria vaccine persist but are not boosted by Plasmodium yoelii challenge infection.

An efficacious malaria vaccine remains elusive despite concerted efforts. Using the Plasmodium yoelii murine model, we previously reported that immunization with the C-terminal 19 kDa domain of merozoite surface protein 1 (MSP1(19)) fused to full-length MSP8 protected against lethal P. yoelii 17XL, well beyond that achieved by single or combined immunizations with the component antigens. Here, we continue the evaluation of the chimeric PyMSP1/8 vaccine. We show that immunization with rPyMSP1/8 vaccine elicited an MSP8-restricted T cell response that was sufficient to provide help for both PyMSP1(19) and PyMSP8-specific B cells to produce high and sustained levels of protective antibodies. The enhanced efficacy of immunization with rPyMSP1/8, in comparison to a combined formulation of rPyMSP1(42) and rPyMSP8, was not due to improved conformation of protective B cell epitopes in the chimeric molecule. Unexpectedly, rPyMSP1/8 vaccine-induced antibody responses were not boosted by exposure to P. yoelii 17XL infected RBCs. However, rPyMSP1/8 immunized and infected mice mounted robust responses to a diverse set of blood-stage antigens. The data support the further development of an MSP1/8 chimeric vaccine but also suggest that vaccines that prime for responses to a diverse set of parasite proteins will be required to maximize vaccine efficacy.