Infectious Diseases News and Research

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Astellas' isavuconazole gets FDA orphan drug designation for treatment of invasive candidiasis

Astellas announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted orphan drug designation to isavuconazole for the treatment of invasive candidiasis.

3 Nov 2014

Gates Foundation awards US$156 million to support PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative

In support of a bold quest to rid the world entirely of malaria, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced an award of US$156 million to PATH to support the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) in building new vaccines that will interrupt the cycle of malaria parasite transmission and help realize the "accelerating to zero" agenda. Such vaccines would ensure that parasite reintroduction is prevented by providing what could be called an "immunological bed net."

3 Nov 2014

New, easy-to-use test to accelerate progress toward eliminating onchocerciasis in Africa

A new test will accelerate global progress toward eliminating onchocerciasis, a leading cause of preventable blindness in Africa. PATH, an international nonprofit health organization, today announced the availability of the SD BIOLINE Onchocerciasis IgG4 rapid test, manufactured and distributed by Standard Diagnostics, Inc.

3 Nov 2014

Scientists develop new system to treat a host of genetic conditions

As potential next-generation therapeutics and research tools, few life sciences technologies hold more promise than genome-editing proteins – molecules that can be programmed to alter specific genes in order to treat or even cure genetic diseases.

31 Oct 2014

Profectus BioSciences gets funding to develop VesiculoVax Zaire-Ebola virus vaccine

Profectus BioSciences, Inc., a clinical-stage vaccine company developing novel vaccines for the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases, announced today that the Department of Defense through the Medical Countermeasure Systems-Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program, a subordinate command of the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense, Edgewood, MD, has contracted the manufacture and IND-enabling preclinical testing of the Profectus trivalent Ebola/Marburg vaccine.

31 Oct 2014

Dosing of antiretroviral medication to prevent HIV infection differs by sex

A mathematical model developed by NIH grantees predicts that women must take the antiretroviral medication Truvada daily to prevent HIV infection via vaginal sex, whereas just two doses per week can protect men from HIV infection via anal sex.

31 Oct 2014

WUSM researchers sequence genome of enterovirus D68 samples from patients

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have sequenced the genome of enterovirus D68 sampled from patients treated at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Nationwide, the virus has spread rapidly in recent months and caused severe respiratory illness in young children, with some patients requiring hospitalization.

30 Oct 2014

Researchers examine accuracy of GenoType MTBDRslassay for detection of drug-resistant TB

Researchers from the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group, hosted at LSTM, have conducted an independent review to examine the diagnostic accuracy of the GenoType MTBDRslassay for the detection of resistance to second-line anti-tuberculosis drugs.

30 Oct 2014

QT Medical partners with LA BioMed to identify infants at risk of long QT syndrome

Each year, some 2,000 babies are born in the U.S. with a genetic heart condition, known as long QT syndrome. If not diagnosed in time, babies with long QT syndrome can die from a sudden arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat.

29 Oct 2014

Bortezomib drug effective against chronic GVHD

Researchers at UC Davis have found that the drug bortezomib effectively treats chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a common and debilitating side effect from allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplants.

27 Oct 2014

Johns Hopkins to lead, design interactive Web-based Ebola training program

Johns Hopkins Medicine has been tasked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to lead a group and to design an interactive Web-based learning program that guides health care workers, nurses and physicians through government-approved protocols to aid clinicians as they provide care to patients who may be at risk of contracting the Ebola virus.

27 Oct 2014

Salk Institute scientists identify promising target for HIV/AIDS treatment

Like a slumbering dragon, HIV can lay dormant in a person's cells for years, evading medical treatments only to wake up and strike at a later time, quickly replicating itself and destroying the immune system.

27 Oct 2014

Economic impact of hypoglycaemia: an interview with Dr Klaus Henning Jensen

Hypoglycaemia is the term used to describe a lower than normal blood sugar level. There are a number of things that actually need to be formally defined in order for a hypoglycaemic episode to be diagnosed.

26 Oct 2014

US hospitals lack infection prevention staff, resources to fight Ebola

Only 6 percent of U.S. hospitals are well-prepared to receive a patient with the Ebola virus, according to a survey of infection prevention experts at U.S. hospitals conducted October 10-15 by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).

24 Oct 2014

Human trial of second investigational Ebola vaccine candidate under way

Human testing of a second investigational Ebola vaccine candidate is under way at the National Institutes of Health's Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

23 Oct 2014

Novel approach may help detect invasive aspergillosis

Many different microbes can cause pneumonia, and treatment may be delayed or off target if doctors cannot tell which bug is the culprit. A novel approach—analyzing a patient's breath for key chemical compounds made by the infecting microbe—may help detect invasive aspergillosis, a fungal infection that is a leading cause of mortality in patients with compromised immune systems, according to a proof-of-concept study now online in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

23 Oct 2014

Views on Ebola: America needs to 'calm down'; political criticism is off base

A Texas university refuses to accept students from Nigeria, where there were a couple dozen Ebola cases before the disease was quickly stopped.

21 Oct 2014

New study reveals how cancer becomes drug resistant over time

Like a colony of bacteria or species of animals, cancer cells within a tumor must evolve to survive. A dose of chemotherapy may kill hundreds of thousands of cancer cells, for example, but a single cell with a unique mutation can survive and quickly generate a new batch of drug-resistant cells, making cancer hard to combat.

21 Oct 2014

Pentagon plans 30-person team to tackle Ebola in U.S.

The defense department announced Sunday that it would create a team to assist U.S. doctors responding to new Ebola cases, while the government issued more stringent guidelines for protective garb for health care workers treating Ebola patients. In addition, The Wall Street Journal profiles a biologist who has been working since 1997 on an Ebola vaccine which has been proven to block the disease in monkeys.

20 Oct 2014

Identifying infections rapidly: an interview with Dr. David J. Ecker

Current methods for diagnosing infectious diseases are based on the 150-year-old culture method, where physicians collect a sample of a patient’s tissue, such as blood, mucus or urine, and transfer it onto media bottle to allow the pathogens to grow.

From Abbott Diagnostics 20 Oct 2014