Synergism/complementarity of recombinant adenoviral vectors and other vaccination platforms during induction of protective immunity against malaria

The lack of immunogenicity of most malaria antigens and the complex immune responses required for achieving protective immunity against this infectious disease have traditionally hampered the development of an efficient human malaria vaccine. The current boom in development of recombinant viral vectors and their use in prime-boost protocols that result in enhanced immune outcomes have increased the number of malaria vaccine candidates that access pre-clinical and clinical trials. In the frontline, adenoviruses and poxviruses seem to be giving the best immunization results in experimental animals and their mutual combination, or their combination with recombinant proteins (formulated in adjuvants and given in sequence or being given as protein/virus admixtures), has been shown to reach unprecedented levels of anti-malaria immunity that predictably will be somehow reproduced in the human setting. However, all this optimism was previously seen in the malaria vaccine development field without many real applicable results to date. We describe here the current state-of-the-art in the field of recombinant adenovirus research for malaria vaccine development, in particular referring to their use in combination with other immunogens in heterologous prime-boost protocols, while trying to simultaneously show our contributions and point of view on this subject

Intensity and Duration of Negative Emotions: Comparing the Role of Appraisals and Regulation Strategies

Intensity and duration are two central characteristics of an emotional response. Appraisals and regulation strategies are among the most important determinants of these emotion features. However, as intensity and duration are only moderately correlated, appraisals and regulation strategies may be differently related to these characteristics. A systematic empirical study comparing predictors of emotion intensity and duration is missing. The goal of the present study is to fill this gap. Participants were asked to recall recently experienced episodes of anger, fear, disgust, guilt, sadness, and shame. Subsequently, they were asked to answer a number of questions regarding (a) the intensity and duration of these emotions, (b) their appraisal of the emotion-eliciting event, and (c) their use of a wide range of regulation strategies. Emotion intensity was found to be mainly predicted by appraisals whereas emotion duration was equally well predicted by appraisals and regulation strategies