In retrospect, what I found of interest was the see more reaction of myself and my colleagues to this incident. Our department consists of no less than than seven labs working on Plasmodium: molecular biologists, immunologists and protein biochemists working both in vivo and in vitro, on both human and rodent strains. Yet the guy became the talking point for the whole day. Despite daily contact with the parasite at the bench, in the culture hood or in the insectary, none of us were quite prepared for being confronted by the parasite in the most natural and pertinent of settings: a sick man. Monday

April 25th is World Malaria Day 2011. http://www.rbm.who.int/worldmalariaday/ Matthew Lewis Parasitology Department, University of Heidelberg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] “
“Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) kill tumorigenic and virally infected cells by targeted secretion of lytic granule contents. The precise point at which secretion occurs

is directed by the centrosome docking at the immunological synapse (IS). The centrosome is highly dynamic in CTLs, lagging behind the nucleus in the uropod of migrating CTLs, but translocating Dasatinib chemical structure across the entire length of the cell to dock at the IS when a target cell is recognized. While in most cell types, the centrosome is always closely associated with the nuclear membrane, in CTLs, it often appears to be dissociated from the nucleus, both in migrating cells and when forming an IS. We asked

whether this dissociation is required for CTL killing, by expressing GFP-BICD2-NT-nesprin-3, which tethers the centrosome to the nucleus irreversibly. Immunofluorescence microscopy revealed that the Casein kinase 1 centrosome polarized successfully to the central supramolecular activation complex (cSMAC) of the synapse in GFP-BICD2-NT-nesprin-3-expressing CTLs, with the centrosome and nucleus migrating together to the IS. CTLs in which the centrosome was “glued” to the nucleus were able to dock and release granules at the IS as effectively as mock-treated cells. These data demonstrate that CTL cytotoxicity is independent of centrosomal dissociation from the nuclear envelope. “
“Vaccination with the non-adjuvanted split-virion A/California/7/2009 influenza vaccine (pandemic H1N1 2009 vaccine) began in October 2009 in Japan. The present study was designed to assess the effect of prior vaccination with a seasonal trivalent influenza vaccine on the antibody response to the pandemic H1N1 2009 vaccine in healthy adult volunteers. One hundred and seventeen participants aged 22 to 62 were randomly assigned to two study groups.