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WaNPRC’s Kristina Adams Waldorf Counters COVID Misinformation That Targets Pregnant Women

Primate Center core staff scientist, practicing OB/GYN and mom is leading the effort against COVID-19 vaccine misinformation around pregnancy

KING TV: UW doctor fights COVID misinformation targeting pregnant women

By Eric Wilkinson

SEATTLE — The internet is filled with websites spreading lies and misinformation about COVID-19. A quick Google search finds page after page of articles downplaying the effectiveness of

Dr. Adams Waldorf overseeing lab research

vaccines.

“They say the data shows COVID vaccines are a spectacular failure. In reality, it’s exactly the opposite,” said UW Medicine OB/GYN Dr. Kristina Adams Waldorf.

She sees the effects all the time with her patients.

“Like many, I’ve become tired of the misinformation and I find it’s really hard to battle this,” she said.

The breaking point for Adams Waldorf and her colleagues was last summer when 15 unvaccinated pregnant women in Mississippi alone died from COVID.

They knew they had to push back on the misinformation killing moms and their unborn babies.

“We now know that the COVID-19 disease increases a pregnant woman’s chances of dying 22 times and the vaccine is protective for this,” said Adams Waldorf. “That’s an incredibly important piece of information women need to know.”

Adams Waldorf launched a social media campaign called One Vax Two Lives and a website called onevaxtwolives.com. It’s dispelling many of the myths – like the vaccine is “experimental” and not safe for pregnant women or their fetuses.

According to Adams Waldorf, scientists have been studying mRNA vaccines for 20 or 30 years.

“We know so much about them it’s absolutely incorrect to say this is an experimental vaccine,” she said.

Some of the misinformation has a kernel of truth – like the fact that the vaccine alters a woman’s menstrual cycle.

“That’s actually true, but it’s true by only one day,” said the doctor. “So a 28-day menstrual cycle becomes a 29-day menstrual cycle, which is within the spectrum of normal, and it’s temporary.”

One thing Adams Waldorf said is very true about some of the misinformation sites is the profit motive. Many of the sites have direct links where readers can buy unproven and sometimes dangerous treatments. Continue reading…

WaNPRC Animal Program Fully Compliant with Federal Regulations

See USDA report from 1/26/2022 here

WaNPRC’s Deborah Fuller Speaks to The Conversation About the Future of Nucleic Acid Vaccines

How mRNA and DNA vaccines could soon treat cancers, HIV, autoimmune disorders and genetic diseases

January 24, 2022 8.31am EST – The Conversation

Fuller holding gene gun used to micro-inject DNA into skin cells

The two most successful coronavirus vaccines developed in the U.S. – the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines – are both mRNA vaccines. The idea of using genetic material to produce an immune response has opened up a world of research and potential medical uses far out of reach of traditional vaccines. Deborah Fuller is a microbiologist at the University of Washington and Associate Director of Research for the Washington National Primate Research Center. She has been studying genetic vaccines for more than 20 years. The Conversation spoke to her about the future of mRNA vaccines for The Conversation Weekly podcast.

Dr. Michael Gale’s Lab: Studying the omicron variant of COVID-19

WaNPRC’s IDTM Core Staff Scientist addresses vaccine and antibody protection

KING TV: Seattle lab studies omicron variant of COVID-19

By Glenn Farley

Virus samples from Washington’s three positive omicron cases of COVID-19 are now in the hands of scientists in a super secure, Level 3 containment lab at UW Medicine’s complex of research centers in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood.

“Do current antibodies from vaccination protect against omicron?” said Dr. Michael Gale about the upcoming experiments. Gale is the UW Medical School’s co-director for Emerging and Infectious Diseases, and Director for the Center for Innate Immunity and Immune Disease. His department also works with the National Institutes of Health. Continue reading…

Marking 10th Anniversary of Field Course with Mahasarakham University in Thailand

“We have managed to conduct this annual field course despite the pandemic – both last year and this year. And it was somewhat bittersweet, as this is the only field course (across all our program countries) that we will be able to conduct in 2021. Mahasarakham University also hosted a special seminar to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of this field course. The past 20+ months have been a real challenge. Thank you to all the wonderful MSU students and staff.”

– Randall C. Kyes, PhD, Division of Global Programs

Great first day of our 10th anniversary Field Course in Conservation Biology & Global Health with our partners at Mahasarakham University, Thailand.

The Team. It has been a true pleasure working with Dr. Tanee, Dr. Thamsenanupap, (Mahasarakham Univ., Thailand), and Dr. P. Kyes (WaNPRC @UW) – beginning with our very first field course in 2012. As we celebrate our 10th anniversary Field Course in Conservation Biology & Global Health, I want to express my gratitude to this team and all the others who have made this program a great success.

Demonstration of an aerial drones and applications for conservation biology and global health.

Special Seminar celebrating our “10th Anniversary Field Course in Conservation Biology & Global Health,” joined by Dean Singseewo (fourth from left) and MSU President Srivilai (fifth from left).

Dr. Deborah Fuller Addresses the Omicron Variant, Vaccines and Travel Bans

WaNPRC AD for Research speaks to media about new SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern

SEATTLE TIMES: University of Washington scientist weighs in on spread of new coronavirus omicron variant
By Elise Takahama, staff reporter

While the world’s newest coronavirus variant of concern, named omicron, hasn’t yet been detected in Washington state or the United States, a UW scientist said Friday that its high number of mutations is particularly concerning.

The new variant — which was first identified in South Africa and has now been seen in travelers to Belgium, Botswana, Hong Kong and Israel — has about 50 mutations, about 30 of which are located in the spike protein, a primary protein the virus uses to enter our cells, said Dr. Deborah Fuller, a microbiologist at UW Medicine.

“The concern regarding the number of mutations in that region is that there’s a potential that those mutations could make our vaccines less effective because the antibody response induced against the spike protein might be less effective against those mutants,” she said. Continue reading…

KING TV: 5 things to know about the new omicron variant of COVID-19

The World Health Organization designated a new “variant of concern,” naming it “omicron” after a letter in the Greek alphabet.

WaNPRC Announces Appointment of New Director

After a national search for a new center director, the WaNPRC has been awarded with the recruitment of an internationally recognized outside candidate. Effective October 16, 2021, Michele A. Basso, PhD, will join the WaNPRC as the new director.

Dr. Basso is already discussing plans for recruitment of new investigators and bringing in new core staff, particularly in the field of HIV and at the intersection of neuroscience and infectious disease.

Kyes Stresses Importance of Monitoring Wildlife and Human Interactions in Nepal

The Natural Resource Management Program at Nepal College of Engineering (NEC), in association with University of Washington, organized an August 20 webinar entitled, “Bush to Bench to Bedside: The Critical Role of Field Research in Biodiversity Conservation and Translational Science.”

The keynote speaker at the webinar, Professor Randall C. Kyes, said that long-term monitoring is very important to find out the status of biodiversity. He presented his research experience in different countries and emphasized on possible zoonotic diseases passing between humans and wildlife. Speaking about research on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in monkeys of Kathmandu Valley. The Master of Sciences in Natural Resources Management program at the Center for Postgraduate Studies (CPS) is a collaborative partner for this research. Kyes said that evidence of human-to-human transmission of MRSA bacteria has been found in monkeys of Kathmandu Valley.

Warning of the potential dangers to wildlife from human and wildlife interactions, he said there is a need for ongoing research on wildlife and biodiversity. The webinar was attended by graduate students from various colleges. NEC CPS regularly organizes a series of webinars on various topics of biodiversity conservation and natural resource management.

The above is a translation of an article from Nagarik News, a Nepali language daily newspaper and news network, Nepal Republic Media Pvt. Ltd.
Dr. Randall C. Kyes is chief of the Division of Global Programs at the Washington National Primate Research Center.

NIAID Now: The Important Role of Animal Research in mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine Development

As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues, safe and effective vaccines are playing a pivotal role in preventing severe disease and death and limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated rapid vaccine development and testing. Fortunately, NIAID’s decades-long support and conduct of coronavirus and vaccine research laid the groundwork for helping to develop a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine in record speed.

COVID-19 Animal Models

Animal research plays a key role in developing successful vaccines for humans. Before promising vaccine candidates can be tested in humans, they must first be tested for safety and effectiveness in animals as required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. To do this, scientists first determine whether a vaccine candidate can stimulate an adequate and safe immune response. This important step is often conducted using small and then, potentially, larger animal models of disease. Mice are frequently used because they reproduce rapidly, have a well-characterized immune system and a defined genome. Some labs turned to mouse models of infection early in the COVID-19 pandemic only to find that mice don’t get infected with SARS-CoV-2. In order to infect cells, SARS-CoV-2 must bind to a human protein called ACE2. The human and mouse ACE2 proteins are different, and SARS-CoV-2 does not bind to mouse cells. Scientists overcame this problem by generating mice that can express the human version of ACE2 and can therefore be infected with SARS-CoV-2. When these genetically modified mice are infected by the virus, they lose weight and become sick in ways that are similar to what happens when people are infected with the virus. Mouse models provided vital information about COVID-19 symptoms and its disease course and continues to be used by researchers to understand COVID-19 disease.

Syrian hamsters are another important animal model for COVID-19 because disease in those animals closely resembles the disease in humans. Additionally, older male hamsters develop more severe disease than young female hamsters, which reflects some of the differences seen in humans infected by SARS-CoV-2. Hamster models have contributed to the evaluation of investigational COVID-19 vaccine candidates, immunotherapies, and antiviral drugs.

Vaccine development for COVID-19 also benefitted from nonhuman primate studies. In assessing immunogenicity and protection of vaccines in pre-clinical animal models, nonhuman primates provide several advantages for clinical translation. They are outbred, have greater similarity to humans than rodents in innate immune responses and B- and T-cell repertoires, and allow use of clinically-relevant vaccine doses. Recent studies in nonhuman primates show that SARS-CoV-2 targets similar replication sites and recapitulates some aspects of COVID-19 disease. Nonhuman primates are used during the later stages of vaccine development and typically build upon the knowledge accumulated in earlier small animal studies.

Retinal Researchers Tap Into TDP to Learn More About Predictive Coding

Retina ‘hardwired’ to predict path of moving objects

by Michael McCarthy

Professor Michael Manookin works at a confocal microscope.

Finding helps explain how baseball players can connect with a 100-mph fastball and how the rest of us manage everyday tasks.

Neural circuits in the primate retina can generate the information needed to predict the path of a moving object before visual signals even leave the eye, UW Medicine researchers demonstrate in a new paper.

“The ability to predict where moving objects will go is so important for survival that it’s likely hardwired into all sighted animals,” said Michael Manookin, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He led the research team with Fred Rieke, professor of physiology and biophysics.

Manookin and his colleagues report their findings in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Belle Liu and Arthur Hong, two UW undergraduate students, were the lead authors on the paper.

In the study, the researchers looked at how motion was processed by cellular circuits in the retina. The circuits the researchers focused on are composed of light-sensing photoreceptor cells, called cones; an intermediate layer of cells, called bipolar cells; and ganglion cells that collect signals from bipolar cells and transmit these signals out of the eye to other brain regions.

Continue reading at UW Medicine Newsroom.