Investigating the Effects of Vps45 Mutations Associated with Severe Congenital Neutropenia on SNARE Interactions

Vps45 is a Sec1/Munc18-like (SM) protein that regulates SNARE complex formation in endosomal vesicle fusion. In yeast, Vps45 has been shown to interact with its binding partner SNARE Tlg2, the yeast homolog of mammalian syntaxin 16 (Sx16), to control its entry into the SNARE complex. Recent studies have identified two independent single amino acid substitutions in Vps45 associated with the immune disorder severe congenital neutropenia. These results suggest that wild-type and mutant Vps45 interact comparably with the cytoplasmic portion of Sx16/Tlg2, but one mutant may associate less strongly with a truncation. Future research should further characterize the mutants using these binding assays. An online introductory guide to biomedical grant proposal writing was also created

Developing Small-Scale Green Rainwater Management Solutions for Amager

Climate change has exacerbated flooding by increasing the intensity and frequency of rain in Copenhagen. The city’s districts of Amager Øst and Amager Vest experience damages due to excess rainfall and uniformly low elevation. In order to decrease runoff without replacing the old sewer system, the municipality is encouraging residents to manage rainwater locally. The installation and use of green solutions to reduce rainwater runoff can also encourage community interaction. For this project we designed a green plan for a courtyard in Islands Brygge, a neighborhood in Amager Vest, to serve as a model for other housing complexes. In addition, to encourage other residents to utilize green strategies, we designed two webpages to make our research and design accessible to the public

Performance characteristics of Fungitell STAT™, a rapid (1→3)-β-D-glucan single patient sample <i>in vitro</i> diagnostic assay

Abstract Serum (1→3)-β-D-glucan (BDG), is an adjunct test in the diagnosis of invasive fungal disease (IFD). Fungitell STAT™, a facile, rapid, single patient option, executable for one or more patient specimens in approximately an hour, has been developed to address a need for rapid in-house testing. This method presents qualitative information concerning serum BDG levels, using an index value that allows the rapid categorization of patients as positive, negative, or indeterminate relative to serum BDG titer. The categorical and analytical performance of Fungitell STAT was evaluated. The categorical agreement between methods was established by testing patient samples which had been previously categorized with Fungitell. Receiver Operating Characteristic curves were used to identify cut-offs using 93 de-identified patient specimens. Subsequently, using these cutoffs, an independent group of 488 patient specimens was analyzed. Positive percent agreement (PPA) with, and without, indeterminate results was 74% and 99%, respectively. Negative percent agreement (NPA) was 91% and 98% with, and without, indeterminate results, respectively. Additionally, commercially available normal off-the-clot sera were spiked with Saccharomyces cerevisiae-derived (1→3)-β-D-glucan to produce analytical samples. Analytical reproducibility using spiked samples was excellent with 94% of the CV (coefficient of variation) values ≤10% among three independent laboratories. Good correlation with the predicate method was demonstrated with correlation coefficients of 0.90 or better with patient samples and 0.99 with spiked samples. The Fungitell STAT index assay provides a rapid and suitable method for serum BDG testing.</jats:p