Using sensory and consumer science in drug delivery system optimization: mixed methods in women of color as a case study

Although sensory and consumer science methods may have originated in the food and beverage industries, they have widespread application for many other products, including fast moving consumer goods, personal care, and more recently, pharmaceuticals. Here, we present the later as a case study, showing how sensory methods can be applied to preclinical optimization of drug delivery systems. Past clinical trials suggest vaginal microbicides may be an effective means for women to protect themselves from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs); critically however, these microbicides will not work if they are not used due to poor acceptability. Multiple factors influence microbicide acceptability, including product features as well as cultural and social factors. In an iterative process, we developed soft-gel vaginal suppositories and have shown that properties like firmness, size, and shape all influence women’s willingness to try. However, our prior work was conducted among white women in a rural setting, so we revisited these questions in women of color using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Here, women of color evaluated suppositories of different fracturability, firmness, size, and shape. We assessed willingness to try and imagined ease of insertion, and used Just About Right (JAR) scales to measure appropriateness of firmness and size. To better understand reasons underlying these quantitative results, qualitative reactions to suppositories of different sizes, shapes, and firmness level were obtained via focus groups with women of color. This work illustrates a) how sensory and consumer science methods can be used to optimize acceptability of drug delivery systems, and b) how mixed methods provide more complete insights than purely quantitative approaches.     

Layers of epidemy: Present pasts during the first weeks of COVID-19 in western Kenya

The epidemic of COVID-19 appears to be reshaping the world, separating before and after, present and past. Its perceived novelty raises the question of what role the past might play in the present epidemic and in responses to it. Taking the view that the past has not passed, but is present in is material and immaterial remains, and continuously emerging from these, we argue that it should not be studied as closed narration but through the array of its traces, which constitute the texture of the present. To that end, and building on long-term ethnographic research on past and present epidemics in western Kenya, we assemble here some preliminary observations on the first weeks of COVID-19 in Kenya. We explore how the acute epidemic crisis currently unfolding is intertwined with layered fragments of earlier epidemic events, attending to material infrastructures, institutional practices, and ritual responses, to the presence of virally loaded bodies, pharmaceuticals, and their residues, and to the resurgence of often painful memories and emotions. People in this region have experienced a long century of epidemics and anti-epidemic measures of varying duration and intensity, from colonial and postcolonial sleeping sickness and smallpox to HIV/AIDS and more recently cancer, alongside actual or anticipated outbreaks of cholera and Ebola. This local perception of one long epidemic qualifies the notion of a radical temporal break that the COVID-19 pandemic is often associated with in European conversations.     

具有加强诊断措施的Filippov HIV/AIDS传染病模型（英）

本文建立 Filippov HIV/AIDS 传染病模型,用以刻画如下诊断措施：一旦已诊断 HIV 感染者数量超过某一水平,便启用加强的诊断措施;否则实施普通的诊断措施．应用等效控制法讨论了所建立模型的滑动模式区域和滑动动力学,在此基础上通过定性分析讨论了模型的全局动力学．数值结果表明,当阈值水平足够高或足够低时,HIV 感染者数量最终稳定在一个相对较高或较低的水平;若选取一个恰当的阈值,HIV 感染者数量最终会围绕该阈值波动．这说明阈值水平的选取对控制 HIV 至关重要,据此可确定是否有必要实施加强的诊断措施．     

HIV多表位核酸疫苗构建及其免疫原性

目的设计新型HIV复合多表位疫苗,并检测其在小鼠体内的免疫效果。方法检索抗原表位数据库,进行新型HIV多表位核酸疫苗的设计,利用化学合成的方法合成多表位基因,并构建重组质粒pVAX1-MEGNp24,转染BHK-21细胞,间接免疫荧光法检测多表位基因的表达。重组质粒免疫BALB/c小鼠,ELISA法检测抗体动态变化,流式细胞仪检测脾T淋巴细胞亚类。结果重组质粒pVAX1-MEGNp24经酶切及测序分析,证明构建正确。间接免疫荧光显示能在BHK-21细胞中表达多表位基因。免疫小鼠可诱导小鼠特异性体液免疫和细胞免疫。结论已成功构建了重组质粒pVAX1-MEGNp24,小鼠免疫试验显示其具有良好的免疫原性。     

具CTL免疫反应的HollingⅡ型HIV模型的稳定性分析

考虑了一类具CTL免疫反应的HIV四维数学模型,研究了该模型无病毒平衡点、感染无免疫平衡点的全局渐近稳定性以及感染免疫平衡点的局部渐近稳定性.最后用数值模拟验证了理论结果.     

A music-based HIV prevention intervention for urban adolescents.

Objective: This research examines the process of conducting and evaluating a music-based HIV prevention intervention among urban adolescents, and is informed by the information, motivation, behavioral skills (IMB) model. Design: Musically talented opinion leaders were recruited to write, record, and distribute HIV prevention themed music to their peers to increase HIV prevention motivation, behavioral skills, and behaviors. In this 3-month field experiment, participants were 306 students enrolled in health classes at each of three large multiracial urban high schools (one treatment school; two control schools). Main Outcome Measures: Measures of HIV prevention information, motivation, behavioral skills, and behaviors, both pre- and postintervention. Results and Conclusion: Results indicate that the intervention influenced several aspects of HIV prevention motivation, behavioral skills, and condom use and HIV testing behaviors. This research demonstrates that the incorporation of music into HIV prevention interventions for adolescents has the potential to be effective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

HIV-1Gag p24的高效表达

将编码人免疫缺陷病毒I型 (HIV 1)核心蛋白p2 4的基因序列克隆到原核表达载体pET2 8(b)中 ,并转化不同的受体菌后 ,用IPTG诱导表达。SDS PAGE分析表明 ,受体菌BL2 1(DE3)plysS表达量最高 ,表达的重组p2 4蛋白占菌体总蛋白的 46 %。目的蛋白可与抗HIV 1p2 4单克隆抗体发生特异性反应。     

Increased in vitro Anti-HIV Activity of Caffeinium-Functionalized Polyoxometalates

Polyoxometalates (POMs), molecular metal oxide anions, are inorganic clusters with promising antiviral activity. Herein we report increased anti-HIV-1 activity of a POM when electrostatically combined with organic counter-cations. To this end, Keggin-type cerium tungstate POMs have been combined with organic methyl-caffeinium (Caf) cations, and their cytotoxicity, antiviral activity and mode of action have been studied. The novel compound, Caf₄K[β₂-CeSiW₁₁O₃₉]×H₂O, exhibits sub-nanomolar antiviral activity and inhibits HIV-1 infectivity by acting on an early step of the viral infection cycle. This work demonstrates that combination of POM anions and organic bioactive cations can be a powerful new strategy to increase antiviral activity of these inorganic compounds.     

HIV相关癌症的动力学模型研究(英文)

本文通过建立两个动力学模型,研究了HIV感染者中癌症的高发现象。我们分别研究了其平衡态的存在性及稳定性。对正平衡态还发现了Hopf分支的存在,并发现随着分支参数的变化,系统出现了周期解与混沌交替出现的现象。