The Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio) is the national institute for biodiversity and conservation in Costa Rica. Created at the end of the 1980s, and despite having national status, it is a privately run institution that works closely with various government agencies, universities, business sector and other public and private entities inside and outside of the country. The goals of the institute are to complete an inventory of the natural heritage of Costa Rica, promote conservation and identify chemical compounds and genetic material present in living organisms that could be used by industries such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics or others.The institute has a collection of over three million insects representing tens of thousands of species all recorded in Atta, a computer database that contains all of the data such as exact location (including GPS coordinates), date of collection, name of the collector and method of collection.Due to impending insolvency, in March 2015, the INBio's biodiversity collection and database will be taken over by the state (and returned to the Natural History Museum, from which much of it was taken when INBio was founded), and its theme park converted to government operation. INBio will move forward as a "think tank" type institute with money raised from transfer of most of its assets to the government..
Oral immunotherapy (OIT) can be effective and relatively safe for the treatment of food allergies, especially when started early in life. Grocery store foods used in OIT protocols are often heterogeneous in allergen potency and display product-to-product, lot-to-lot, and unit-to-unit variations, due to raw material variability and processing. This variability complicates dosing and poses a potential risk of anaphylaxis and/or subtherapeutic efficacy for patients. To improve practice, a ‘gradient of standardization’ framework is proposed, comprising four product categories: products assumed to contain the allergens of interest, products known to contain the allergens but in unknown amounts, partially quantified products, and fully standardized preparations. Based on verified allergen content rather than protein amount, this classification would help clinicians weigh safety and efficacy against feasibility and move toward greater conformity and standardization, supporting evidence-based dosing and probably improving patient outcomes. Ideally, foods as medicines for OIT should be well-described, minimally processed, and, preferably, with defined allergen content. Precise dosing, consistent procedures, neutral vehicles, and validated allergen quantification tools could potentially ensure reproducibility, reduce risk, strengthen clinical effectiveness, and facilitate meaningful comparisons across clinical trials and research studies. We suggest that standardized “pharmaceutical grade” products, while not always a practical option, should be preferred when available.
BACKGROUND:Oral immunotherapy (OIT) is a promising approach for treating IgE-mediated food allergy, but safety concerns limit its use. Heat-denaturation of food allergens may reduce allergic reactions by lowering IgE binding. Here, we examined how heat-induced structural changes in egg allergens affected basophil activation in egg-allergic patients. METHODS:Gal d 1 and Gal d 2 were subjected to heat treatment and analyzed for structural changes using SDS-PAGE, ELISA, NanoDSF, and circular dichroism. Peripheral blood samples were obtained from a cohort of 42 patients with egg allergy. Patients' sensitization status was determined, and basophils were isolated and incubated with native or heat-denatured egg allergen preparations. Basophil activation was assessed by measuring leukotriene release as a marker of degranulation. RESULTS:Heat-denaturation induced time- and temperature-dependent structural changes in both Gal d 1 and Gal d 2, resulting in reduced IgE binding capacity. In functional assays, heat-denatured allergens elicited weaker basophil degranulation responses compared to native allergens, but the effect varied depending on individual IgE sensitization profiles. Among patients who reacted to heat-denatured allergens, egg-white IgE levels tended to be higher, although requiring higher doses to trigger leukotriene release. CONCLUSION:Heat-denaturation of egg allergens reduces IgE-binding and basophil activation, although residual reactivity persists in patients with higher sensitization profiles. Importantly, higher allergen doses were needed to trigger basophil degranulation compared to native allergens, indicating a reduction in allergenic potency. These findings highlight the potential of heat-denatured egg allergens as safer starting materials for OIT, particularly within personalized, stepwise desensitization protocols, warranting further clinical investigation.
Climate and atmospheric changes are impacting forest function and structure worldwide, but their effects on tropical forest diversity are unclear. Nowhere is the scientific challenge greater than in the Andes and the Amazon, which together include the world’s most diverse forests. Here, using 406 permanent plots spanning four decades of intact lowland and montane forest dynamics, we test for long-term change in species richness and assess the influence of climate and other variables. We show that, at a continental scale, species richness appears stable, but this masks substantial regional variation. Species richness increased in Northern Andean and Western Amazon plots, yet declined in the Central Andes, Guyana Shield and Central-Eastern Amazon. Overall, warmer, drier and more seasonal forests lost species, while those at higher elevations, in less fragmented areas and with faster rates of tree turnover experienced increases. Region-specific drivers, particularly precipitation seasonality and demographic factors, modulated these trends. The results highlight the diverse ways in which Amazon–Andes forests are changing and underscore the critical need to preserve large-scale ecosystem integrity to maintain local tree diversity. By doing so, Northern Andean forests in particular could serve as an important refuge for species increasingly displaced by climate change. This study examines long-term changes in species richness across tropical forests in the Andes and Amazon. Hotter, drier and more seasonal forests in the eastern and southern Amazon are losing species, while Northern Andean forests are accumulating species, acting as a refuge for climate-displaced species.
A formação de professores tem sido amplamente discutida ao longo dos anos por pesquisadores de diferentes áreas de atuação. Nesse sentido, destacamos a área do ensino de ciências, que, neste caso, é o nosso objeto de interesse e pesquisa. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa e do tipo documental. Foi analisado o Projeto Pedagógico do Curso de Licenciatura em Ciências Biológicas de uma universidade pública federal, na modalidade presencial. Foram analisadas as alterações na oferta da disciplina de Paleontologia do referido curso, como sua carga horária, ementas e bibliografias sugeridas para os acadêmicos. Em nossa análise, são oferecidos 6 conteúdos na ementa de 2023, enquanto para a ementa de 2026 são oferecidos 9 tópicos de conteúdos, embora em análise, são convergentes em relação ao que se propõe o conteúdo de cada tópico, o que gera certa preocupação, foi a retirada de um tópico que aborda sobre os fósseis do estado do MS, o que, a nosso ver, gera uma perda de aquisição de conhecimentos relacionados aos fósseis presentes no nosso estado.
