Virginia Tech researchers have created an engineered model of the supportive tissue found within a lymph node to study human health. Working with scientists at the University of Virginia, the researchers are building a bioengineered model of a human lymph node, which performs essential roles in the immune system throughout the body. 

With support from a three-year, $1.85 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (“Role of TBX2 in the establishment of the Prostate Cancer Pre-Metastatic Niche (PMN) in the Bone”), Srinivas Nandana, Ph.D., and Manisha Tripathi, Ph.D., from the Department of Cell Biology and Biochemistry at the TTUHSC School of Medicine seek to advance the understanding of prostate cancer metastasis by investigating the role of TBX2 in establishing the prostate cancer premetastatic niche in bone.

Genetic changes can occur naturally through evolution or can be initiated with the help of genetic engineering. The bacterium Thermoanaerobacter kivui (T. kivui) was manipulated by a research team led by Stefan Pflügl from the Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Bioscience Engineering at TU Wien in such a way that it can metabolize carbon monoxide. When used in bioreactors, it can contribute to converting synthesis gas, which consists of carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂) and hydrogen (H₂), into valuable products.

Stefan Pflügl and his team recently reported in the renowned journal Nature Communications how T. kivui can be brought to use CO as its sole energy source. In the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts, the team also reported on their method of genetically modifying T. kivui within twelve days so that it shows the desired characteristic.

“China virus”, the Chinese virus — at the start of the 2020 pandemic, you likely often encountered this epithet in the media. The use of geographically-based labels to define the disease (COVID-19) and the virus causing it (SARS-CoV-2) had significant consequences on public opinion, fueling and amplifying — sometimes with very serious outcomes — prejudices against specific people and countries, accused of having a causal role in spreading the contagion. The neutral designation COVID-19, proposed for the disease by the WHO in mid-February 2020, was quickly adopted globally. However, geographic names arose again with subsequent variants of the virus: in the media and in everyday language, people referred to the “Indian,” “British,” or “South African” variants, among others.

To counter this trend, in May 2021 the WHO introduced a nomenclature based on Greek letters — Alpha, Beta, Delta, etc. — completely neutral and free of geographic references. A study published in the Journal of Science Communication (JCOM) analyzed the impact of this change in the Australian media, showing that although the shift toward neutral names happened relatively quickly after the announcement, the positive effects in reducing potential stigma remained only partial.

This finding highlights the importance of expanding research on this topic, in order to establish effective communication guidelines within national and global pandemic response plans.