Taxonomic and ecological interest in squat lobsters has grown considerably over the last two decades. A checklist of the 870 current valid species of squat lobsters of the world (families Chirostylidae, Galatheidae and Kiwaidae) is presented. The compilation includes the complete taxonomic synonymy and geographical distribution of each species plus type information (type locality, repository and registration number). The numbers of described species in the world’s major ocean basins are summarised.

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Determining immune protection-inducing protein structures (IMPIPS) involves defining the stereo-electron and topochemical characteristics which are essential in MHC-p-TCR complex formation. Modified high activity binding peptides (mHABP) were thus synthesised to produce a large panel of IMPIPS measuring 26.5 ±3.5Å between the farthest atoms fitting into Pockets 1 to 9 of HLA-DRβ1* structures. They displayed a polyproline II-like (PPIIL) structure with their backbone O and N atoms orientated to establish H-bonds with specific residues from HLA-DRβ1*-peptide binding regions (PBR). Residues having specific charge and gauche+ orientation regarding p3χ1, p5χ2, and p7χ1 angles determined appropriate rotamer orientation for perfectly fitting into the TCR to induce an appropriate immune response. Immunological assays in Aotus monkeys involving IMPIPS mixtures led to promising results; taken together with the aforementioned physicochemical principles, non-interfering, long-lasting, protection-inducing, multi-epitope, multistage, minimal subunit-based chemically-synthesised peptides can be designed against diseases scourging humankind.

As microbes use many mechanisms for avoiding immunological pressure, new strategies must be developed to bypass the immunological code of silence of conserved, functionally-important amino acid sequences, such as those involved in high activity binding peptides' (HABPs) attaching to their host cells. Hundreds of experiments in large numbers of Aotus monkeys revealed that this immunological code of silence could be broken by shifting the polarity of some critical host cell binding residues in these HABPs by substituting F for R and vice versa, Y<-->W, L<-->H, I<-->N, P<-->D, M<-->K or E, C<-->T, V<-->N or S; there are special rules for A, G and S. (1)H-nuclear magnetic resonance of these modified, immunogenic, protection-inducing HABPs and molecular modelling revealed that such modifications induced appropriate fitting into specific HLA-DRbeta1 Pockets, suggesting the presence of new pockets and a haplotype- and allele-specific conscious TCR. A highly immunogenic and protection-inducing anti-malarial vaccine can thus be produced.