#il-15

Just 3 of Illinois's 17 US House members are Republicans. MAGA fringe loony Mary Miller is one of them. Think of her as Marjorie Taylor Greene but without the charisma.

Miller is a rancid bigot, who has at least one point of agreement with Hitler, and thinks climate change is a sham because "God controls climate".

Like many Capitol Hill Republicans she is not keen on town halls. She snubbed a community group in March.

Although IL-15 is ruby red, scores of constituents held a protest outside Miller's office in Quincy (population: 40,000) last spring.

Caitlin Lally at KMOX: 

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) — Illinois GOP Rep. John Shimkus announced Friday on the Mark Reardon Show that he will not run for reelection in 2020.

In his 12th term right now, Shimkus was reelected in 2018 with more than 70% of the vote. He has represented Illinois' 15th Congressional District since 2013, before that he was represented Illinois' 19th Congressional District, since 2003.

He's a lifelong resident of Collinsville, Ill. and earned a bachelor's degree at the United State Military Academy. He then received an M.B.A. from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville after fulfilling his military duty for five years.

Lauren Nelson at Friendly Atheist:

Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that a man who thinks climate change is not a result of human activity and that Donald Trump’s Muslim ban was a good idea might espouse other terrible ideologies, but it was still jarring to see Representative John Shimkus shun the idea of government covered prenatal care.

During a hearing in Congress on the recently introduced and poorly conceived GOP replacement bill for the ACA, Shimkus interrupted Representative Mike Doyle lamenting… wait for it… the fact that men might be required to pay for prenatal care. As Shimkus questioned which “mandates” included in the popularly termed “Obamacare” might be unfair, he had this to say:

WOW. The #GOP’s reason to object to insurance covering prenatal care? “Why should men pay for it?” Watch: #Trumpcare #ProtectOurCare pic.twitter.com/Q55nG1Un8j

— NARAL (@NARAL)

March 9, 2017

Alright. Hold up just a sec. This is a man who likely benefited from prenatal care at some point in his life if we assume he’s not a Stepford-wife style alien plant. Shimkus also has 3 sons, all of whom were, presumably, beneficiaries of prenatal care.

And yet this guy has the gall to stand up in front of Congress and say that children do not deserve the contributions of men (who, btw, HELPED CREATE THESE CHILDREN IN THE FIRST PLACE) because they were birthed by women. As a conservative Chirstian, I’m not sure why that idea is so hard to process for him. Well… no, that’s a lie.

Someone needs to give this guy a biology lesson, STAT. And maybe a human pulse.

1. Antigen optimisation: naturally occuring pathogen peptides will not be highly immunogenic (having evolved for immune escape) --> modify amino acids which contact MHC groove while preserving presented surface --> increase peptide binding affinity (immunogenicity) while stimulating T cell responses to natural peptide

2. Push: boosting quality/quantity of CD8 response

Use of cytokines: GM-CSF promotes broad range of immune responses, induces CTL response by increasing antigen presentation

IL-12 and TNF-alpha upregulate IL-12R expression (synergy with GM-CSF)

IL-15 necessary and sufficient to produce high-avidity, long-lived CTLs - can substitute for CD4 help (e.g. in HIV infection/cancer) - rescues long-term memory response which is absent in CD4 deficiency

APCs (DCs) co-transfected with antigen and IL-15 mimic CD4 help - CD4s induce IL-15 production in DCs

*

Use of TLR-ligands: TLR2/6-L and TLR9-L both synergise with TLR3-L, but not with each other

TLR2 and TLR9 both signal through MyD88, TLR3 signals through TRIF; synergy = unilateral crosstalk to increase IL-12 production (MyD88) but not costimulatory molecule expression (TRIF)

Combination of all 3 TLR-Ls does not further increase magnitude of CD8 response, but does increase proportion (20% --> 100%) of high-avidity CTLs - TLR2 signals through TIRAP as well as MyD88 (why can't TLR2+TLR3 alone achieve this?)

3. Pull: inactivating regulatory elements

Type II NKT cells: cross-regulate with type I NKTs (cf Th1/Th2)

NKTs often first responders in tumour immune landscape

Anti-TGFbeta (produced by type II NKTs, induces/maintains Tregs) can work as single therapy or synergise with vaccines to increase efficacy

Engineered Stem Cels from Human Umbilical Cord Blood Eradicates Pancreatic Tumor

Tissue-specific stem cells called mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a very efficient way to delivery new drugs to cancer sites. One of the reasons these cells do such a good job with cancers in that MSCs have a liking for tumors, and once MSCs are injected into a patient or laboratory animal with tumors, the MSCs make a “B-line” for the tumor and get cozy with it.

Interleukin-15 (IL-15) is a…

Republican Congressman John Shimkus, a notorious climate-change denier who in the pockets of the dirty energy lobby on Capitol Hill, will have to run against an actual Democrat in the 2014 elections.

Eric Thorsland, the chairman of the Champaign County…