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FDA grants fast track status for ViroPharma's Maribavir

ViroPharma Incorporated has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted fast track designation for maribavir, an oral antiviral drug candidate for the prevention of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in allogeneic bone marrow (stem cell) and solid organ transplant patients.

7 Feb 2006

Hepatitis C recurs rapidly after liver transplant

When a diseased liver is removed from a patient with Hepatitis C (HCV), serum viral levels plummet. However, after receiving a healthy liver transplant, virus levels rebound and can surpass pre-transplant levels within a few days, according to a new study published in the February 2006 issue of Liver Transplantation, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS).

2 Feb 2006

New real-time test for Chlamydia and Gonorrhea

Abbott today announced that a highly sensitive new test for the simultaneous detection of the sexually transmitted pathogens Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) and Neissera gonorrhoeae (NG) has received CE Mark certification, allowing it to be marketed in the European Union.

23 Jan 2006

Lab-on-chip can detect bird flu in humans

European microchip maker STMicroelectronics is planning to market a disposable laboratory microchip that can confirm within about an hour a human case of bird flu.

18 Jan 2006

Genetic fingerprint unmasks microbial vandals

For the first time DNA analysis can identify paper-degrading microorganisms.

16 Jan 2006

DinB DNA polymerase is a key player in DNA repair

A quarter century after they discovered it, researchers have identified the job of one of the most common DNA-damage response proteins. The enzyme has puzzled scientists because it is present in nearly every organism, which suggests that it is crucial to life, and yet, in laboratory experiments, its function has remained a mystery.

11 Jan 2006

DNA polymerase zeta gives cells with damaged DNA a new lease on life

Fortunately, our cells contain many enzymes devoted strictly to detecting and repairing any damage caused by these insults. In fact, failure of these enzymes to make needed repairs to genes can lead to the accumulation of mutations and, eventually, cell death or possibly cancer.

6 Jan 2006

New findings on bacterial vaginosis

Despite being one of the most common infections among women, scientists and doctors know little about the causes of bacterial vaginosis (BV), a usually benign disease that is also linked to serious health problems including pelvic inflammatory disease

3 Nov 2005

New insights into how genetic mutations arise

Researchers at Stanford University have created a larger-than-normal DNA molecule that is copied almost as efficiently as natural DNA.

27 Oct 2005

New whooping cough vaccine for adolescents and adults

In the first study of its kind, researchers at Saint Louis University have demonstrated that immunization with a new vaccine could potentially prevent more than a million cases of pertussis (whooping cough) each year in adolescents and adults.

24 Oct 2005

Spliceosome crucial for processing non-coding RNA

The discovery in 1977 that the coding regions of a gene could appear in separate segments along the DNA won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for Richard J. Roberts and Phillip A. Sharp. The active segments of a gene were termed exons, separated from each other within the gene by inactive introns.

20 Oct 2005

First time a protein serving as a template for DNA synthesis seen

Since the discovery of the structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, the paradigm for DNA replication has stated that the DNA itself codes for the appropriate pairings for replication.

3 Oct 2005

Equine flu virus jumps to dogs

A Cornell University virologist has isolated a highly contagious equine flu virus that is spreading a sometimes-fatal respiratory flu among dogs, and is responsible for a major dog-flu outbreak in New York state. There is no evidence that the virus could infect people.

27 Sep 2005