immunity News and Research

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Urgent action required to increase pandemic influenza vaccine supply

A set of activities identified in the World Health Organization's (WHO's) new Global pandemic influenza action plan to increase vaccine supply requires immediate and sustained action and funding, if the world is to be prepared for an influenza pandemic to which there would be almost universal susceptibility.

23 Oct 2006

Important first step towards designing new therapies for shingles

A team of scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has identified a human protein that helps varicella-zoster virus, the cause of chickenpox and shingles, spread from cell to cell within the body.

20 Oct 2006

Vaccine that protects mice against 1918 influenza virus developed

Federal scientists have developed a vaccine that protects mice against the killer 1918 influenza virus. They also have created a technique for identifying antibodies that neutralize this virus, a tool that could help contain future pandemic flu strains.

17 Oct 2006

Updates on pandemic flu vaccine trials to be presented at 44th Annual IDSA meeting

Preliminary results from clinical trials testing two different pandemic flu vaccine approaches - one a prime-boost strategy using different subtypes of H5N1 vaccines, the other an H5N1 vaccine delivered into the skin (intradermal) rather than the muscle - will be presented at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

16 Oct 2006

Dengue epidemic threatens India's capital

An outbreak of Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF) in Delhi, India has authorities concerned that they may be seeing the start of an epidemic.

2 Oct 2006

Protein linked to heart disease found to be more prevalent in low-income people, minorities and women

Low-income adults are more likely to have very high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a risk factor for heart disease, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Southern California.

21 Sep 2006

FDA approves Noxafil (posaconazole) to prevent invasive fungal infections

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Noxafil (posaconazole) to prevent fungal infections caused by certain molds and yeast-like fungus called Aspergillus and Candida.

19 Sep 2006

Live H5N1 avian flu vaccines show promise

When tested in mice and ferrets, experimental vaccines based on live, weakened versions of different strains of the H5N1 avian influenza virus were well-tolerated and protected the animals from a deadly infection with naturally occurring H5N1 flu viruses.

13 Sep 2006

First step to developing effective therapy against Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis virus

Biomedical researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) have taken an important early step toward developing effective drug therapies against Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis (VEE) virus, a potential bioterrorist weapon.

12 Sep 2006

Live H5N1 avian flu virus vaccines show protection in animal studies

12 Sep 2006

Weakened immune response resulting from HIV infection can lead to trouble when it comes to treating malaria

"Our study demonstrates that HIV-1 infected patients with suppressed immunity represent, next to children and pregnant women, an additional vulnerable group for malaria," says Jean-Pierre Van geertruyden, MD, MSc, lead author of the article.

7 Sep 2006

The B7 family of co-regulatory ligands is implicated again in the pathogenesis of renal cell carcinoma progression

Previous reports from the group at Mayo Clinic have demonstrated that B7-H1 expression by renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a marker of poor prognosis in both localized and metastatic RCC.

6 Sep 2006

Induction of potent antitumor immunity by intratumoral injection of IL-23 transduced dendritic cells

One therapy for treating brain tumors alerts the immune system to the presence of foreign material. A second therapy enhances the first and prolongs the immune system's response.

4 Sep 2006

Vaccine for severe malaria

The most severe form of malaria hits pregnant women and children the hardest.

1 Sep 2006

China comes up with first AIDS vaccine

According to Chinese authorities, preliminary tests of its first AIDS vaccine indicate it could protect people against the HIV virus.

20 Aug 2006

Natural HIV immunity

An international, multi-institutional research consortium is seeking to discover how a few HIV-infected individuals are naturally able to suppress replication of the virus.

16 Aug 2006

AIDS vaccine still long way off

Researchers are optimistic about a potential HIV/AIDS vaccine, even though none of the vaccines in development is likely to completely protect people from HIV transmission, participants at the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto said at a news conference Tuesday, Reuters reports.

16 Aug 2006

Elite suppressors of HIV to change how scientists monitor spread of disease

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have found that 1 percent to 2 percent of those infected with HIV in Baltimore apparently suppress the virus to nearly undetectable levels on their own, confounding public health efforts to accurately monitor the pandemic's spread, now in its 20th year.

15 Aug 2006

Scientists find new lead in hunt for a SARS vaccine

SARS coronavirus protein called "nsp1" causes the breakdown of biochemical messages that normally prompt the production of a protein critical to defending the body against viruses.

8 Aug 2006