Supporting Students with Disabilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Perspective of Disability Resource Professionals.

Utilizing national survey data, this paper details the academic and access challenges created by the pandemic for students with disabilities, as perceived by disability resource professionals. Data included in this paper capture disability support service challenges at two unique timepoints during the COVID-19 pandemic-May 2020 [n = 535] and January 2021 [n = 631]. Disability resource professionals reported there was difficulty in the initial months of the pandemic for students to provide documentation of a disability to receive accommodations, use assistive technology in the new remote academic setting, and receive testing accommodations within the remote environment. While access and resources improved for students with disabilities over time, a portion of the surveyed disability resource professionals noted no observed improvement in students' with disabilities communication with instructors as well as a worsening of conditions for students with disabilities throughout the pandemic related to access to counseling and mental health services. In addition to highlighting key obstacles faced by this student group during the pandemic, this paper provides recommendations and implications for institutions to better serve this student group, including how institutions of higher education can coordinate a holistic approach to support student mental health.

International Interdisciplinary Consensus Meeting on the Evaluation of Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip.

In September 2018, an international meeting of doctors of various disciplines, with expertise in the detection and treatment of DDH, was held in Csolyospalos, Hungary. The aim was to achieve consensus on the detection and early treatment of the condition and to develop a standardized system of teaching and training for hip ultrasound. There was strong agreement that US screening is essential. Specifically the Graf technique was selected as the technique of choice. Universal US screening was strongly favored. Screening should be carried out as soon as possible, but not later than the sixth week of age. US screening is cost-effective, does not result in overtreatment, and contributes to a reduction of long-term consequences. The essential principle of treatment is timely application of a device to achieve reduction, retention and maturation, by holding the hips in flexion, and a safe degree of abduction. It was agreed that the effectiveness of any screening policy depends on the correct scanning technique. Therefore, standardization of teaching and training of the Graf technique is mandatory. A unified teaching policy and materials should be developed for this purpose. Certification, re-certification and audit were discussed. The group, which has been formalized as the International Interdisciplinary Consensus Committee On DDH Evaluation (ICODE), will continue to meet and work towards establishing international consensus on DDH, standardizing and developing teaching and training of the Graf technique for hip US, and maintaining standards for detection and management.

A pestivirus DNA vaccine based on a non-antibiotic resistance Escherichia coli essential gene marker.

Antibiotic resistance genes are widely used to produce plasmid DNA vaccines, but risk unwanted exposure to antibiotic residues and the spread of resistance genes. To overcome the limitations of existing selection technologies, we developed an alternative system applying the widely used household biocide triclosan as the selective agent and an endogenous growth essential target gene, fabI, as the plasmid-borne marker in Escherichia coli. The fabI/triclosan system enables efficient, non-antibiotic selection of transformed bacteria, with improved safety and plasmid production features. Here we aimed to evaluate the performance of this non-antibiotic selection system using a plasmid DNA vaccine against bovine viral diarrhoea virus as an example. The new system displayed high-yield plasmid DNA production in a standard E. coli host strain and growth media. Notably, the purified pDNA provided efficient in vitro protein expression and a strong in vivo neutralising antibody response in a mouse model, with measures comparable to that of the parental plasmid DNA based on ampicillin resistance. The fabI/triclosan system requires only low levels of triclosan for selection (1 µM) and residual triclosan in isolated DNA was below the limit of detection (< 20 parts per trillion). The fabI/triclosan selection system provides a simple, non-antibiotic resistance marker for plasmid selection, applicable to DNA vaccines and possibly other recombinant vaccine applications.