David Wetzel Livres

Combining impeccable scholarship and literary elegance, David Wetzel depicts the drama of machinations and passions that exploded in a war that forever changed the face of European history.

Vaccination is one of the most effective forms of medical intervention and plays a leading role in preventing infectious diseases in humans and animals. So-called chimeric virus-like particles (VLP) represent a novel and favorable class of subunit vaccines. On the surface of these non-infectious structures, antigenic protein or peptide epitopes derived from theoretically any pathogen can be displayed to improve their immunogenicity. However, finding an efficient production system and a VLP scaffold that allows stable incorporation of diverse, large foreign antigens are major challenges in this field. In this thesis, a versatile platform for chimeric VLP development was established. The small surface protein (dS) of the duck hepatitis B virus was chosen as VLP scaffold and the yeast Hansenula polymorpha as expression host. Recombinant yeast strain generation strategies and analytics were developed and a total of 13 different antigens ranging from 11 kDa to 80 kDa derived from five different pathogens were successfully displayed on the dS-based VLP surface. This versatility is remarkable in the field of chimeric VLP development. As part of this study, it was demonstrated that a downstream process (DSP) approved for hepatitis B VLP vaccine production is principally applicable for the purification of chimeric dS-based VLP displaying different foreign antigens. The last part of this thesis focused on improving the DSP for one type of the developed chimeric VLP. Modification of the individual purification steps in combination with the introduction of a precipitation step led to improved yields and similar product quality compared to the unmodified DSP. Most importantly, the costly and highly manual ultracentrifugation step which represents a common methodology in the field of VLP purification was avoided. This study delivers a platform for chimeric VLP development, solves key challenges of the field and thus should be considered in the development of future vaccine candidates.

Questions of international politics, as they relate to German history, are explored in this authoritative and controversial volume. Of the seven essays that constitute the book, four―those by Schroeder, Lauren, Rupieper, and Abenheim―center on diplomatic history and international politics, while the other three―by Barclay, Chickering, and Post―illuminate related political and cultural transformations. The Afterword by the two editors, Wetzel and Hamerow, deals with the works and philosophy of Gordon Craig, the preeminent historian of Germany to whom the book is dedicated. Craig's achievement has been to bring knowledge and interpretation into narrative history and to show that history is a self-sufficient and self-contained discipline, important for its own sake. These essays are bold and provocative; they can rightly claim originality, new insights, hitherto unrecognized aspects, new techniques of analysis for the subjects they cover; and for these reasons, as much as for any other, they deserve the attention of all those who care about German or international history.

Gemessen an seiner Dauer ist der deutsch-französische Krieg von 1870/71 einer der am meisten untersuchten Kriege der Geschichte. Doch neue Erkenntnisse sind möglich, wie der amerikanische Historiker David Wetzel zeigt. Er stellt die handelnden Personen in den Mittelpunkt und untersucht deren individuelle Motive und Wahrnehmungen im politischen und strategischen Kontext. Wetzel beleuchtet den Konflikt zwischen den außergewöhnlichen Persönlichkeiten Bismarcks und Napoleons III. und entwirft lebendige Porträts der Hauptakteure in Paris und Berlin. So entsteht ein spannendes, neu akzentuiertes Bild des diplomatischen Prozesses von der spanischen Revolution 1868 bis zur Kriegserklärung Frankreichs 1870. Stimmen zur Originalausgabe loben Wetzel für seine Rückkehr zu den faszinierenden Geschichten des Duells zwischen Bismarck und Napoleon III., das von Strukturhistorikern in den Hintergrund gedrängt wurde. Er stellt die richtigen Fragen und zeigt, dass bedeutende Persönlichkeiten einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf die Geschichte haben. Wetzel bietet eine fesselnde Erzählung, die die Bedeutung von Persönlichkeit in der Politik und in Kriegen verdeutlicht. Zudem enthält das Werk einen geistvollen bibliographischen Essay, der einen zusätzlichen Gewinn darstellt.