Host immunological characteristics and disease experience in past human populations

生物人类学家依靠骨骼数据来了解生物学和文化如何在过去的人类种群中相互作用，特别是当历史记录有偏见，有限或完全缺失时。在这个项目中，研究人员将研究慢性压力，年龄，健康状况和免疫状态如何与一些有记录的骨骼样本中梅毒的轨迹和严重程度相关。该项目将增进人们对过去影响疾病脆弱性的因素以及健康和疾病在塑造人类经历方面的作用的了解。研究结果还可以为现代梅毒病例的筛查和诊断提供临床指南，以更准确地识别可能与持续感染相关的宿主特征。结合该项目，K-12和公共科学推广和教育活动将由研究小组在肯塔基州，南卡罗来纳州和密西西比进行。该项目还将通过在密西西比州立大学科布考古研究所的公共考古博物馆建立两个永久性展览，加强公共和K-12科学教育基础设施。由于博物馆每年有数千名公众和K-12参观者，这些展览将支持扩大STEM领域的访问和参与的努力。该项目由生物人类学和刺激竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）计划共同资助，在该项目中，研究团队将调查与疾病早期后梅毒感染消退相关的人类宿主特征（初级，次级）和那些与持续到晚期有关的（三级）感染，其引起破坏性和使人衰弱的症状，并且有时是致命的。研究人员将联合收割机收集美国博物馆收藏的300多具代表死亡前被诊断患有梅毒的人的骨骼数据，以：1）确定慢性压力，营养状况，年龄和共病状况是否与持续的梅毒有关; 2）检查是否有过度炎症（高炎症反应/表型（HIP））对抗其他致病因子，特别是引起牙周病的那些，与晚期梅毒有关;以及3）为梅毒的生物考古学研究开发一个多阶段的解释模型，该模型将能够重建人类宿主在感染早期的免疫状态，以及在感染晚期的炎症反应。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Biological anthropologists rely on skeletal data to understand how biology and culture have interacted in past human populations, especially when historical records are biased, limited, or entirely absent. In this project, the investigators will examine how chronic stress, age, health conditions, and immune status relate to the trajectory and severity of syphilis in a number of documented skeletal samples. The project will advance knowledge about factors that influence vulnerability to disease in the past, as well as the role of health and disease in shaping the human experience. The research findings may also inform clinical guidelines for the screening and diagnosis of modern cases of syphilis to more accurately identify host characteristics that are likely associated with persistent infection. In conjunction with the project, K-12 and public science outreach and education activities will be conducted by the research team in Kentucky, South Carolina, and Mississippi. The project will also enhance public and K-12 science education infrastructure through the creation of two permanent exhibits in the public Archaeology Museum of the Cobb Institute of Archaeology, Mississippi State University. As the museum has thousands of public and K-12 visitors each year, the exhibits will support efforts to broaden access to and participation in STEM fields. This project is jointly funded by the Biological Anthropology and Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) programs.In this project, the research team will investigate human host characteristics that are associated with the resolution of syphilis infection after the early stage of the disease (primary, secondary) and those that are associated with persistence into late stage (tertiary) infection, which causes destructive and debilitating symptoms and is sometimes fatal. The investigators will combine data for over 300 skeletons in U.S. museum collections representing individuals who were diagnosed with syphilis prior to their deaths to: 1) determine whether chronic stress, nutritional status, age, and co-morbid disease conditions are associated with persistent syphilis; 2) examine whether excessive inflammation (hyper-inflammatory response/phenotype (HIP)) against other disease causing agents, specifically those which cause periodontal disease, is associated with late stage syphilis; and 3) develop a multi-stage interpretive model for bioarchaeological studies of syphilis that would enable the reconstruction of a human host’s immune status during early-stage infection, as well as their inflammatory response during late-stage infection.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.