A new tissue culture model using human white blood cells shows how people with a latent – or symptom-free – tuberculosis infection are protected from active disease by a critical early step in their immune response, researchers say.
Most children with HIV who have low levels of a key immune cell eventually recover levels of this cell after they begin treatment.
Antibiotic resistance is poised to spread globally among bacteria frequently implicated in respiratory and urinary infections in hospital settings, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Children with Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), a common virus that infects the lungs and breathing passageways, has been on the rise across the nation for the last several years. Though it may only produce minor cold symptoms in adults, it can lead to serious illness in young children and those with compromised immune systems.
Research led by scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has identified key molecules that trigger the immune system to launch an attack on the bacterium that causes tularemia. The research was published online March 16 in Nature Immunology.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA), the equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has approved the use of the hollow fiber system for the development of drugs to treat and prevent tuberculosis (TB). The hollow fiber system model of TB was developed about 12 years ago by Tawanda Gumbo, MD, investigator at Baylor Research Institute.
Half a century ago, a concentrated global effort nearly wiped a disfiguring tropical disease from the face of the earth. Now, says Case Western Reserve’s James W. Kazura, MD, it’s time to complete the work.
In a groundbreaking study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Michigan State University’s Dr. Terrie Taylor and her team discovered what causes death in children with cerebral malaria, the deadliest form of the disease.
Faisal Shuaib, M.D., Dr.P.H., who led successful Ebola containment efforts in Nigeria, has been appointed to a six-man independent expert committee.
University of Utah biologists report how a disposable molecular ruler or tape measure determines the length of needles bacteria use to infect cells. The findings have potential applications for new antibiotics and anticancer drugs and for helping people how to design nanomachines.
Findings by a Saint Louis University researcher parallel earlier results: Adding a strain of influenza B could improve effectiveness of an influenza vaccine.
Case Western Reserve researchers are part of an international team that has discovered that Valacyclovir reduces HIV-1 levels — even when patients do not have herpes. Results were published online in Clinical Infectious Disease.
An international study involving the University of Southampton suggests there could be a rise in measles cases of 100,000 across the three countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa due to health system disruptions.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers say that major disruptions in the health care systems in West Africa caused by the Ebola crisis have led to significant decreases in vaccinations for childhood diseases, increasing susceptibility to measles and other vaccine-preventable illnesses.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have analyzed a key protein from two influenza strains that recently began causing sporadic infections among people in China and Taiwan. The analyses suggest the flu viruses have not acquired changes allowing them to infect people easily.
Using a specially selected library of different hepatitis C viruses, a team of researchers led by Johns Hopkins scientists has identified tiny differences in the pathogens’ outer shell proteins that underpin their resistance to antibodies. The findings, reported in the January 2015 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, suggest a reason why some patients’ immune systems can’t fend off hepatitis C infections, and they reveal distinct challenges for those trying to craft a successful vaccine to prevent them.
The new vaccine was found to be effective against the two most common forms of herpes that cause cold sores (HSV-1) and genital ulcers (HSV-2). Both are known to infect the body’s nerve cells, where the virus can lay dormant for years before symptoms reappear. The new vaccine is the first to prevent this type of latent infection.
Chlorine, a disinfectant used in most wastewater treatment plants, may be failing to eliminate pharmaceuticals from wastes. As a result, trace levels get discharged from the treatment plants into waterways. Now, scientists are reporting that chlorine treatment may encourage the formation of new, unknown antibiotics that could enter the environment, potentially contributing to the problem of antibiotic resistance. They will present the research at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
Since HIV emerged in the ‘80s, drug “cocktails” transformed the deadly disease into a manageable one. But the virus is adept at developing resistance to drugs, and treatment regimens require tweaking that can be costly. Now scientists at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society are announcing new progress toward affordable drugs that could potentially thwart the virus’s ability to resist them.
Salk scientists re-engineered the bacterial defense system CRISPR to recognize HIV inside human cells and destroy the virus, offering a potential new therapy.
Armed with a microscope capable of zooming in on organisms measured in billionths of a meter, scientists report they are the first to observe one of the tiny molecular machines that bacteria use to infect host cells. Findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The focus will be on Ebola genomics and the study of the next generation of DNA sequencing technologies used to study the disease.
Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have designed a new type of vaccine that could be the first-ever for preventing genital herpes—one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases, affecting 500 million people worldwide. Using a counterintuitive approach, researchers were able to prevent both infections caused by herpes simplex virus type 2, which causes genital herpes. Findings from the research, conducted in mice, were published today in the online journal eLife.
Why do we shake hands? Why do animals smell each other? These actions apparently serve the same evolutionary purpose. A study by Prof. Noam Sobel’s lab at the Weizmann Institute shows that after shaking someone’s hand, we subconsciously sniff our own hands twice as much as we normally do –which hand we sniff depends on the other person’s gender.
To help the public better understand how measles can spread, an NIH-funded team of infectious disease computer modelers at the University of Pittsburgh has launched a free, mobile-friendly tool that lets users simulate measles outbreaks in cities across the country.
Two of the four known groups of human AIDS viruses (HIV-1 groups O and P) have originated in western lowland gorillas, according to an international team of scientists.
The cascade of events leading to bacterial infection and the immune response is mostly understood. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the immune response to the bacteria that causes tuberculosis have remained a mystery — until now. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have now uncovered how a bacterial molecule controls the body’s response to TB infection and suggest that adjusting the level of this of this molecule may be a new way to treat the disease. The report appears this week as an advance online publication of Nature Medicine.
An aggressive campaign to reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics has helped cut the rate of infection with a dangerous drug-resistant bacteria at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ, by nearly 40 percent.
Sexual biology may be the key to uncovering why Anopheles mosquitoes are unique in their ability to transmit malaria to humans, according to researchers at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and University of Perugia, Italy.
New research that focuses on the mechanism by which Ebola virus infects a cell and the discovery of a promising drug therapy candidate is being published February 27, 2015, in the journal Science.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and The Scripps Research Institute for the first time have shown how human antibodies can neutralize the Marburg virus, a close cousin to Ebola.
The Scripps Research Institute scientists have captured the first images showing how immune molecules bind to a site on the surface of Marburg virus and have described an antibody that binds to both Marburg and Ebola viruses, pointing to new antibody treatments to fight an entire family of viruses.
To investigate specific causes of childhood CAP, University of Utah Health Sciences and other institutions collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the largest study of its kind, the Etiology of Pneumonia in the Community (EPIC). Among children under age 18, 73 percent of those with pneumonia had viral infections and 15 percent had bacterial infections. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) was the most commonly detected pathogen. The results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Respiratory viruses, not bacterial infections, are the most commonly detected causes of community-acquired pneumonia in children, according to new research released Feb. 26 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) affects North American elk and deer, but has not been observed in humans. Using a mouse model that expresses an altered form of the normal human prion protein, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have determined why the human proteins aren’t corrupted when exposed to the elk prions. Their study identifies a small loop in the human prion protein that confers resistance to chronic wasting disease.
A doctor’s recommendation and a patient’s race may influence flu vaccination rates, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Researchers found that 90 percent of patients received vaccination if their physician advocated for it compared to 58 percent of patients whose physician did not.
A pivotal international phase 2/3 clinical trial involving Moffitt Cancer Center faculty demonstrated that vaccination with Gardasil 9 protects against nine HPV types, seven of which cause most cases of cervical, vulvar, and vaginal disease. The trial data indicate that if populations are vaccinated with Gardasil 9 approximately 90 percent of all cervical cancers worldwide can be prevented.
By staying up for two days straight, researchers have figured out for the first time exactly how Clostridium difficile wreaks havoc on the guts of animals in such a short time. The findings could help prevent or treat severe diarrhea and life-threatening disease in humans.
Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine used algae as a mini-factory to produce a malaria parasite protein. The algae-produced protein, paired with an immune-boosting cocktail suitable for use in humans, generated antibodies in mice that nearly eliminated mosquito infection by the malaria parasite. The method is the newest attempt to develop a vaccine that prevents transmission of the malaria parasite from host to mosquito.
In a remarkable new advance against the virus that causes AIDS, scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have announced the creation of a novel drug candidate so potent and universally effective, it might work as part of an unconventional vaccine.
Antibodies that protect against H7N9 avian flu, which emerged in China in 2013 and sparked fears of a global pandemic, have been isolated in individuals who received seasonal flu vaccinations and appear to broadly neutralize H7 viruses.
New research from UAB suggests that Fusobacterium necrophorum more often causes severe sore throats in young adults than streptococcus — the cause of the much better known strep throat. The findings, suggest physicians should consider F. necrophorum when treating severe sore throat in young adults and adolescents that worsens.
Researchers discover that the accepted theory of how Yersinia pestis microbes travel from fleabite to lymph node is off base. Most bacteria get trapped in a bottleneck and never make it to the lymph node, where infection takes root. Finding out why could lead to new ways to stop the pathogen.
Experience with the Ebola outbreak highlights local health departments' essential role in responding to global health threats posed by infectious diseases, according to a special article in the March/April issue of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
Each year nearly 600,000 people—mostly children under age five and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa—die from malaria, caused by single-celled parasites that grow inside red blood cells. The most deadly malarial species—Plasmodium falciparum—has proven notoriously resistant to treatment efforts. But thanks to a novel approach developed by scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and described in the January 20 online edition of ACS Chemical Biology, researchers can readily screen thousands of drugs to find those potentially able to kill P. falciparum.
A Georgia State University expert is available to discuss the measles outbreak in the United States.
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