BugBitten
New insight into the interaction between Leishmania and the sand fly midgut
Our research uncovers a new mode of binding that explains how Leishmania can exploit almost any sand fly in the world as a vector. This interaction is critical for parasite survival in the sand fly midgut.
Within the sand fly,
Leishmania transform into a number of flagellated promastigote forms, each with specific roles to play in colonising the vector for onward transmission. However, to survive in a sand fly is not straightforward.
The problem
As
Leishmania live exclusively in the sand fly gut this can present some unique problems for the parasite. Firstly, they need to resist the hostile proteolytic environment of the bloodmeal as it is digested and survive assault from oxidative radicals. Next, they have to get out of the digested bloodmeal, which is encased in a chitinous peritrophic matrix, before the sand fly defecates. Thirdly, they must resist being lost from the sand fly when it
The G7, whose foreign and development ministers met this week in London, published a famine prevention and humanitarian crises compact – a call to action in recognition of the situation.
The Global Report on Food Crisis, published this week, showed the number of people in need of urgent support was the highest in the report’s five-year history, and that 155 million people are facing food shortages.
Save the Children’s analysis, which applied confirmed aid cuts in Africa and Asia to funding for basic nutrition programmes, combined with known cuts to nutrition funding in other countries, suggests UK assistance here may be cut in half from 2019. In humanitarian settings, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) funding to nutrition was £396m in 2019 and estimated to be £218m in 2021, a 45% cut. UK aid funding to basic nutrition was £122m in 2019, £111m in 2020 and £26m in 2021, an 80% cut, it said.
The honorary conferring was part of the
Glocalisation in Healthcare - Nurses and Midwives thinking globally and acting locally to drive the policy and educational agenda event hosted by DCU.
Delivering the citation for
Annette Kennedy, Dr. Daniela Lehwaldt, DCU School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health, said:
“Annette has always been a leader - from her days as a nurse tutor, to her time as head of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, to her current position as President of the International Council of Nurses, representing around 20 million nurses in 130 countries worldwide.
Her approach to leadership brings to mind the well known Irish expression, Ní neart go cur le chéile”, roughly translated as, “there is no strength without unity”. Indeed, her watchword for her term as ICN President is “Together”. Annette is about bringing people together, and empowering them. As she told nurses in a recent ICN address, “together we can change the worl