Pathogen News and Research

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Rutgers AIDS researchers progress toward vaccine

Rutgers AIDS researchers Gail Ferstandig Arnold and Eddy Arnold may have turned a corner in their search for a HIV vaccine.

12 Mar 2009

Researchers probe mechanisms of infection

A newly discovered receptor in a strain of Escherichia coli might help explain why people often get sicker when they're stressed.

10 Mar 2009

Breakthrough improves effectiveness of tuberculosis vaccine

A breakthrough strategy to improve the effectiveness of the only tuberculosis vaccine approved for humans provided superior protection against the deadly disease in a pre-clinical test, report scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in Nature Medicine 's Advance Online Publication March 1.

8 Mar 2009

Hendra and Nipah viruses shown to be susceptible to chloroquine

Two highly lethal viruses that have emerged in recent outbreaks are susceptible to chloroquine, an established drug used to prevent and treat malaria, according to a new basic science study by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in the Journal of Virology.

5 Mar 2009

Tuberculosis breakthrough could lead to stronger vaccine

3 Mar 2009

New protein identified in bacterial arsenal

Nearly a billion years ago, bacteria evolved an insidious means of infecting their hosts - a syringe-like mechanism able to inject cells with stealthy hijacker molecules. These molecules, called virulence factors, play a sophisticated game of mimicry, imitating many of the cells' normal activities but ultimately co-opting them to serve the bacteria's needs.

3 Mar 2009

Instant immunity through chemically programmable vaccination and covalent self-assembly

The experiments, thus far performed only in mice, appear to overcome a major drawback of vaccinations - the lag time of days, or even weeks, that it normally takes for immunity to build against a pathogen.

2 Mar 2009

Epstein-Barr virus may be associated with progression of multiple sclerosis

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the pathogen that causes mononucleosis, appears to play a role in the neurodegeneration that occurs in persons with multiple sclerosis, researchers at the University at Buffalo and the University of Trieste, Italy, have shown.

2 Mar 2009

Scientists manipulate bacteria into generating their own vaccine

Scientists have developed a way to manipulate bacteria so they will grow mutant sugar molecules on their cell surfaces that could be used against them as the key component in potent vaccines.

23 Feb 2009

Meningitis bacteria dress up as human cells to evade our immune system

The way in which bacteria that cause bacterial meningitis mimic human cells to evade the body's innate immune system has been revealed by researchers at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London.

20 Feb 2009

Statistical analysis could yield new drug target for multiple sclerosis

An elaborate statistical analysis of genes from more than 7,000 individuals has identified an amino acid that appears to be a major risk factor for multiple sclerosis, a devastating autoimmune disorder that afflicts 2.5 million people worldwide.

15 Feb 2009

Novel blood test for hepatitis C

A novel blood test could bring a breakthrough in the battle against the dangerous hepatitis-C virus.

15 Feb 2009

Long-sought protein structure may help reveal how ‘gene switch’ works

The bacterium behind one of mankind's deadliest scourges, tuberculosis, is helping researchers at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) move closer to answering the decades-old question of what controls the switching on and off of genes that carry out all of life's functions.

10 Feb 2009

Scientists identify protein key to Lyme disease

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a protein that may help give Lyme disease its bite.

9 Feb 2009

Long-sought protein structure may help reveal how 'gene switch' works

8 Feb 2009

Discovery of direct link between vitamin D and MS susceptibility 'gene'

Researchers have found evidence that a direct interaction between vitamin D and a common genetic variant alters the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS).

8 Feb 2009

New genetic clues on molecular evolution of Q fever pathogen

Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Texas A&M Health Center, and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech have uncovered genetic clues about why some strains of the pathogen Coxiella burnetii are more virulent than others.

2 Feb 2009