Heather B. Jaspan

The paper develops a cost-effective and sensitive method for detecting microchimerism using custom genotyping and qPCR assays, validated in two populations.

This study shows milk urea increases during lactation, is conserved across mammals, and supports infant gut microbiome establishment through urea-metabolizing bacteria.

The paper analyzes Gardnerella prophages and their endolysins, finding clustering of prophage sequences by bacterial species within the genus.

This paper benchmarks virus identification tools on vaginal metagenomes, finding geNomad excels in overall classification, VIBRANT minimizes false positives, ViraLM detects short contigs and eukaryotic viruses, and VirSorter2 performs well on VLP-enriched assemblies.

The paper characterizes vaginal Lactobacillus isolates from South African women to identify biotherapeutic candidates that can optimize the vaginal microbiome and reduce HIV risk.

This study examines circulating T cell immunity to Chlamydia trachomatis in South African adolescents and young women, finding that immune response magnitude and quality correlate with infection clearance and mucosal inflammation.

The paper links low placental Factor XIIIA1 expression with preterm birth in pregnant people living with HIV on long-term ART, suggesting ART may disrupt placental vascularization.

The paper examines how HIV exposure in infants affects maternal microchimeric T cells, finding reduced levels in CD8+ T cells among HIV-exposed uninfected infants.

This paper develops a non-invasive method using menstrual discs to sample immune cells from the female genital tract, demonstrating consistent T cell populations across days within individuals.

The paper investigates crAssphage transmission and genomic evolution in South African mother-infant dyads, finding evidence of vertical transmission and positive selection in phage genes correlated with bacterial abundance.