Giving insecticide-treated bed nets to nearly 18,000 mothers at prenatal clinics in the Democratic Republic of Congo prevented an estimated 414 infant deaths from malaria, a study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers concludes.
Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have discovered a key mechanism behind the survival instinct of tuberculosis. TB is the leading cause of death in the world from a single bacterial infection, and it kills 1.5 million people per year.
Patients infected with a particular subtype of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are more likely to develop dementia than patients with other subtypes, a study led by Johns Hopkins researchers shows. The finding, reported in the September Clinical Infectious Diseases, is the first to demonstrate that the specific type of HIV has any effect on cognitive impairment, one of the most common complications of uncontrolled HIV infection.
A vaccine to prevent infections with pneumococcal bacteria is helping to reduce the rate of ear tube placement for chronic middle ear infections in Australian children, suggests a report in the September issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.
Researchers at Burnham Institute for Medical Research, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and University of Maryland have demonstrated that an enzyme that is essential to many bacteria can be targeted to kill dangerous pathogens. In addition, investigators discovered chemical compounds that can inhibit this enzyme and suppress the growth of pathogenic bacteria. These findings are essential to develop new broad-spectrum antibacterial agents to overcome multidrug resistance.
One-half of all infants are infected with RSV during the first year of life. Researchers at West Virginia University have discovered what makes RSV such a severe and persistent illness. The team discovered that RSV prompts the release of a molecule that keeps the invaded cells alive despite the infection.
Whitehead Institute researchers have shown definitively that mutations associated with prion diseases are sufficient to cause a transmissible neurodegenerative disease. Deciphering the origins of prion diseases could help determine how best to control a prion disease outbreak in livestock and to prevent prion transmission to humans.
Infection with an antimicrobial-resistant strain of typhoid fever among patients in the United States is associated with international travel, especially to the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh), according to a study in the August 26 issue of JAMA. The study also shows an increase in certain strains of typhoid fever that are resistant to the most commonly used medications for treatment.
Smoking is a risk factor for active tuberculosis (TB) disease, according to a new study on TB incidence in Taiwan.
Research reported in Nature Immunology points toward potential immune therapies for individuals at high risk for RSV and flu, two common respiratory viruses. This could benefit infants, children, the elderly and persons with compromised immune systems.
Immunology researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that bacteria present in the human gut help initiate the body’s defense mechanisms against Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis.
Researchers at the University of Virginia Health System mapped out a three-dimensional structure of the enzyme protein BA2930, which is produced by the bacteria responsible for anthrax, Bacillus anthracis. They did so by using X-ray crystallography, a technique that provides a three-dimensional snapshot of the arrangement of atoms in a protein.
With the help of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and molecular engineering, researchers have designed synthetic protein-like mimics convincing enough to interrupt unwanted biological conversations between cells.
The grant enables investigators to focus, expand their research goals and explore new ideas through collaboration and shared resources available to HIV teams. The UAB CFAR supports research on disease prevention and treatment in AIDS patients and also strengthens the capacity for HIV research in developing countries such as Africa, said the center director.
Working with researchers in China, biologists at UC San Diego have discovered how a Chinese drug effective in killing parasitic roundworms works.
University of Utah scientists developed a new kind of "molecular condom" to protect women from AIDS in Africa and other impoverished areas. Before sex, women would insert a vaginal gel that turns semisolid in the presence of semen, trapping AIDS virus particles in a microscopic mesh so they can't infect vaginal cells.
A new type of blood test for tuberculosis has important limitations for use in children"”especially very young children and those with abnormal immune function, reports a study in the August issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.
A team of researchers from The Wistar Institute has identified a protein that could serve as a target for reprogramming immune system cells exhausted by exposure to chronic viral infection into more effective "soldiers" against certain viruses like HIV, hepatitis C, and hepatitis B, as well as some cancers, such as melanoma.
Pneumonic plague expert available for interview at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Genetic detective work by UMass Amherst's Stephen Rich and international colleagues reveals the unexpected finding that the parasite causing the deadliest form of malaria jumped from wild African chimpanzees to humans as recently as 10,000 years ago, much more recently than thought possible.
The latest drug regimens, vaccines and diagnostic tools under development to combat tuberculosis could have a potentially large impact on the disease once they become available, according to research findings published in the Aug. 3 early edition online of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The typical dose of a medication considered pivotal in treating tuberculosis effectively is much too low to account for modern-day physiques, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers said.
According to an editorial in response to a research study in the August 15 issue of JAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) should be the new standard treatment for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in poor countries.
A team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have solved the mystery of why some children are more susceptible to malaria infection and anemia. These novel findings suggest that some children who are exposed to Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum) malaria before birth become tolerant to the malaria parasites, or their soluble products.
Six University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) students and two students from other universities are using satellite imagery to identify possible habitats in Alabama for the black-legged tick that carries and transmits Lyme disease.
African-American adolescents have some of the highest rates of HIV infection in the United States, and efforts to educate them about preventing the disease must include the help of their adolescent peers, new research suggests.
Results of a long-awaited study of 3,070 American adults at Johns Hopkins and 118 other U.S. medical centers show that treatment with either of the two standard antiviral drug therapies is safe and offers the best way for people infected with hepatitis C to prevent liver scarring, organ failure and death.
Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a novel way to monitor in real time the behavior of the TB bacterium in mouse lungs noninvasively pinpointing the exact location of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The new monitoring system is expected to speed up what is currently a slow and cumbersome process to test the safety and efficacy of various TB drug regimens and vaccines in animals. Plans are already under way for developing a similar system to monitor TB disease in humans.
New research from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia sheds light on the role of cell receptors in acting as gatekeepers for infectious viruses. By using mice genetically engineered to lack a particular receptor in heart and pancreas cells, the study team prevented infection by a common virus (Group B coxsackievirus) that causes potentially serious diseases in humans.
Giving daily antiretroviral syrup to breastfeeding infants or treating their HIV-infected mothers with highly active antiretroviral drugs is safe and effective in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission through breast milk, a study led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill investigators has found.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute have for the first time produced a malarial protein (Pfs48/45) in the proper conformation and quantity to generate a significant immune response in mice and non-human primates for use in a potential transmission-blocking vaccine. Antibodies induced by Pfs48/45 protein vaccine effectively blocked the sexual development of the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium, as it grows within the mosquito.
With MRSA and VRS seriously compromising treatment options, dressing wounds with honey provides an alternative, according to a recent paper published in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiological Infectious Diseases.
Researchers have uncovered the first cases in which HIV almost certainly was transmitted from mothers other caregivers to children through pre-chewed food.
A team of researchers from The Wistar Institute and the University of Pennsylvania reports new evidence refuting a popular hypothesis about the highly publicized failure in 2007 of the Merck STEP HIV vaccine study that cast doubt on the feasibility of HIV-1 vaccines. The findings were published on-line July 20 in Nature Medicine.
A protein in influenza virus that helps it multiply also damages lung epithelial cells, causing fluid buildup in the lungs, according to new research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Southern Research Institute . Publishing online this week in the journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the researchers say the findings give new insight into how flu attacks the lungs and provides targets for new treatments.
Yiping Han, associate professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine, aims to understand how to build roadblocks for a common bacterium that's harmless in a mother's mouth but can turn deadly when it reaches an unborn child.
A research team led by the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology has identified the specific gene which triggers the body to produce disease-fighting antibodies -- a seminal finding that clarifies the exact molecular steps taken by the body to mount an antibody defense against viruses and other pathogens. The finding, published online today in the prestigious journal Science, has major implications for the development of new and more effective vaccines.
A University of Maryland-led team of scientists has sequenced the genome of the parasite that causes intestinal schistosomiasis, a devastating tropical disease that afflicts more than 200 million people in the developing world. Their work is published in the July 16, 2009 edition of Nature and featured on the journal's cover.
Prolonged use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) to treat people infected with both HIV and hepatitis B (HBV) helps to better control the hepatitis B infection and could delay or prevent liver complications, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
Condom use is associated with a reduced risk of contracting herpes simplex virus 2, according to a report based on pooled analysis of data from previous studies in the July 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Group B Streptococcus (GBS), a bacterial pathogen that causes sepsis and meningitis in newborn infants, is able to shut down immune cell function in order to promote its own survival, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Their study, published online July 13 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, offers insight into GBS infection.
The Institute for Good Medicine at the Pennsylvania Medical Society features Lyme Disease on its web show 'Good Medicine.' Volunteer doctors explain what Lyme Disease is and things viewers can do to avoid it.
New research published in Journal of Infectious Diseases highlights a new lab test that better predicts microbicide safety. Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine explains why several once-promising microbicides have failed.
A new Cochrane review of nine studies has found that NSAIDs are effective in reducing many cold symptoms. It is important to note, however, that NSAIDs can relieve symptoms of the common cold "“ not prevent or treat the illness.
Existing drugs used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease could be repositioned for use in the treatment of extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis, which kills about 2 million people each year, according to a study led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego. The rise of these strains of TB throughout the world, including industrialized countries, poses a great threat to human health.
The rate of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in U.S. neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) has more than tripled in recent years, reports a study in the July issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.
Tuberculosis (TB) experts at Johns Hopkins have evidence from a four-year series of experiments in mice that anti-inflammatory drugs could eventually prove effective in treating the highly contagious lung disease, adding to current antibiotic therapies.
A recent study led by Blossom Damania, Ph.D., associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, focuses on the intersection of these two scientific puzzles, resulting in new discoveries about how one herpesvirus known to cause cancer may reactivate when the infected cell senses another type of virus entering it.
Scientists at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in San Antonio have for the first time constructed a genetic map of the parasite that causes schistosomiasis, a chronic intestinal infection that can damage internal organs and, in children, impair growth and cognitive development.
A Vanderbilt chemist and a biomedical engineer have teamed up to develop a respiratory virus detector that is sensitive enough to detect an infection at an early stage, takes only a few minutes to return a result and is simple enough to be performed in a pediatrician's office.
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