Infectious Diseases News and Research

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Cooperation 'essential' to fight diseases that easily cross borders

"Cooperation is essential to combat diseases that cross national borders," Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy and a research scholar and lecturer at Princeton University, and Bryan Grenfell and Petra Klepac of Princeton University write in a SciDev.Net opinion piece.

29 Jun 2012

Gates Foundation plans to invest in biotech companies to improve global access to treatments, vaccines for infectious diseases

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation "plans to take equity stakes in up to a dozen biotech companies this year, signaling a shift towards a 'venture capital' approach at the world's biggest philanthropic organization" and "marking a further move away from its traditional approach of grant-giving and towards a more business-oriented way to support the development of treatments and vaccines for infectious diseases affecting the world's poor," the Financial Times reports.

29 Jun 2012

Inhibiting immune response during initial multi-drug therapy could speed TB treatment time

Inhibiting a key immune response in mice during initial multi-drug treatment for tuberculosis could - paradoxically - shorten treatment time for the highly contagious lung infection according to new research from Johns Hopkins Children's Center and the Center for TB Research.

29 Jun 2012

RapidChek- SELECT Salmonella highly sensitive to the presence of S. Typhi vaccine in stool

Salmonella Typhi (S. Typhi) is the causative agent of typhoid fever, a serious health threat resulting in some 22 million new cases yearly and approximately 217,000 fatalities. A number of novel vaccine candidates using live attenuated strains of Salmonella are being developed, but care must be taken to ensure the bacteria are not excreted into the environment following vaccination.

29 Jun 2012

Medivir, Bristol-Myers Squibb to initiate TMC435 and daclatasvir phase II combination study in HCV

Medivir AB, the research-based pharmaceutical company focused on the development of high-value treatments for infectious diseases, announces that a phase II combination study with the investigational compound TMC435 and Bristol-Myers Squibb's investigational compound daclatasvir will start in July.

29 Jun 2012

Swine-flu deaths far greater than reported

The true number of deaths from the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic may be 15 times higher than the number confirmed by laboratory testing and previously reported to the World Health Organization, study findings indicate.

28 Jun 2012

Surgical injury is increasing dialysis use

Acute dialysis use in patients who experience kidney injury while undergoing major elective surgery has increased substantially over the past 14 years, report researchers in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

28 Jun 2012

UCLA Heart Transplant Program performs 2,000th heart transplant surgery

The UCLA Heart Transplant Program performed its 2,000th heart transplant surgery earlier this month, becoming the first program in the western United States and only the second in the world to achieve this remarkable milestone.

28 Jun 2012

LUHS among select group of hospitals nationwide to improve breastfeeding rates

Loyola University Health System (LUHS) is among a select group of 90 hospitals nationwide that have been asked to participate in Best Fed Beginnings, a first-of-its-kind initiative to significantly improve breastfeeding rates in states where they are the lowest.

28 Jun 2012

UTMB researchers improve existing experimental vaccine for Rift Valley fever virus

University of Texas Medical Branch researchers have significantly improved an existing experimental vaccine for Rift Valley fever virus, making possible the development of a more effective defense against the dangerous mosquito-borne pathogen.

28 Jun 2012

Miriam Hospital receives NIH renewal grant to support growth of Lifespan/Tufts/Brown CFAR

The Miriam Hospital has received an $8.5 million, five-year renewal grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support the continued growth of the Lifespan/Tufts/Brown Center for AIDS Research (CFAR).

28 Jun 2012

U of S training program receives $1.65 million over six years from NSERC

A new University of Saskatchewan training program that will produce future leaders in food safety, infectious disease control and public policy has been awarded $1.65 million over six years through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council's Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) program.

28 Jun 2012

Senior Taliban commander bans polio vaccination efforts in Southern region of Pakistan

"A senior Taliban commander has effectively banned polio eradication in one of the most troubled areas of the Pakistan frontier in an effort to force the U.S. to end drone strikes," the Guardian reports. "Leaflets distributed in South Waziristan on behalf of Mullah Nazir, the leader of the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (Fata), accused health workers who administer anti-polio drops of being U.S. spies" and "questioned the sincerity of international efforts to tackle the highly infectious disease," the newspaper adds.

28 Jun 2012

TB research finds body’s own response helps TB bacteria survive

Inhibiting a key immune response in mice during initial multi-drug treatment for tuberculosis could — paradoxically — shorten treatment time for the highly contagious lung infection according to new research from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and the Center for TB Research. Shorter duration of drug therapy is key, researchers say, to increase treatment compliance for the growing global health threat posed by the disease.

28 Jun 2012

Health Canada approves AutoGenomics’ INFINITI PGx testing system

AutoGenomics, a leader in providing automated, molecular microarray testing solutions, announced today that they have received their first Health Canada Medical Device Class III approvals for their automated INFINITI Pharmacogenomic (PGx) testing system.

28 Jun 2012

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island to participate in Best Fed Beginnings

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island has been selected to participate in Best Fed Beginnings, a first-of-its-kind national effort to significantly improve breastfeeding rates in states where rates are currently the lowest. Rhode Island ranks 35th in the nation for breastfeeding initiation. Women & Infants is the only hospital in New England to be selected for this collaborative.

27 Jun 2012

New York Times examines bird flu studies, history of controversy

The New York Times examines several studies published in the journals Nature and Science looking at how the H5N1 bird flu virus could mutate to become more virulent among humans and outlines the history of controversy surrounding the studies.

27 Jun 2012

Number of fatalities from 2009 swine flu pandemic might have been 15 times higher than reported deaths, study says

In a study published on Monday in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic likely killed about 284,500 people worldwide between August 2009 and August 2010, a number 15 times higher than the 18,500 deaths reported to the WHO, Bloomberg News reports.

27 Jun 2012

Majority of rhinovirus infections are asymptomatic

Asymptomatic human rhinovirus infections outnumber symptomatic infections by a factor of four to one, Canadian researchers report.

26 Jun 2012

Having antibodies for cutaneous HPV and sun exposure can act synergistically in BCC, SCC

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the University of South Florida and the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg have found that having antibodies for cutaneous types of human papillomavirus (HPV), coupled with sun exposure (ultraviolet radiation) or poor tanning ability, can act "synergistically" in the development of non-melanoma skin cancers such as basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).

26 Jun 2012

Infectious Diseases News and Research

Cooperation 'essential' to fight diseases that easily cross borders

Gates Foundation plans to invest in biotech companies to improve global access to treatments, vaccines for infectious diseases

Inhibiting immune response during initial multi-drug therapy could speed TB treatment time

RapidChek- SELECT Salmonella highly sensitive to the presence of S. Typhi vaccine in stool

Medivir, Bristol-Myers Squibb to initiate TMC435 and daclatasvir phase II combination study in HCV

Swine-flu deaths far greater than reported

Surgical injury is increasing dialysis use

UCLA Heart Transplant Program performs 2,000th heart transplant surgery

LUHS among select group of hospitals nationwide to improve breastfeeding rates

UTMB researchers improve existing experimental vaccine for Rift Valley fever virus

Miriam Hospital receives NIH renewal grant to support growth of Lifespan/Tufts/Brown CFAR

U of S training program receives $1.65 million over six years from NSERC

Senior Taliban commander bans polio vaccination efforts in Southern region of Pakistan

TB research finds body’s own response helps TB bacteria survive

Health Canada approves AutoGenomics’ INFINITI PGx testing system

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island to participate in Best Fed Beginnings

New York Times examines bird flu studies, history of controversy

Number of fatalities from 2009 swine flu pandemic might have been 15 times higher than reported deaths, study says

Majority of rhinovirus infections are asymptomatic

Having antibodies for cutaneous HPV and sun exposure can act synergistically in BCC, SCC

Industry Focus eBook - Infectious Diseases (3rd Edition) eBook

The Critical Role of Sample Storage in Drug Discovery and Development

Advancing Neuroscience Research Through Collaboration and Patient-Centered Innovation

The impact of vibration on microscopy

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