Infectious Diseases News and Research

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Global health community reacts to CIA's faux vaccine operation in Pakistan

After the Guardian broke the story that the CIA organized a fake vaccination program in Pakistan in an effort to confirm the location of Osama bin Laden and obtain DNA from his family members, several writers and health experts reacted to the situation, noting the possible implications for health.

14 Jul 2011

Positive data from Inovio's VGX-3400X Phase I study against H5N1 influenza

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leader in the development of therapeutic and preventive vaccines against cancers and infectious diseases, announced today that significant T cell and antibody responses were generated in its Phase I clinical study of VGX-3400X, a SynCon DNA vaccine for the prevention of avian H5N1 influenza delivered using intramuscular (IM) electroporation.

14 Jul 2011

Five-year research initiative to cure HIV disease

A team of AIDS experts at Johns Hopkins and other institutions have embarked on a joint five-year research initiative to cure HIV disease by finding ways to completely purge the virus from the body in people already successfully suppressing the virus with antiretroviral drug therapy.

14 Jul 2011

New approach for producing human-derived gelatin

Scientists are reporting development of a new approach for producing large quantities of human-derived gelatin that could become a substitute for some of the 300,000 tons of animal-based gelatin produced annually for gelatin-type desserts, marshmallows, candy and innumerable other products.

14 Jul 2011

PharmAthene demonstrates 36 month stability of rPA anthrax vaccine program candidate

PharmAthene, Inc. announced today that it has achieved an important program milestone in its recombinant protective antigen (rPA) anthrax vaccine program and demonstrated 36 month stability of its rPA drug product candidate previously produced at Avecia Biologics Laboratories in the United Kingdom. The stability data were prepared utilizing a variety of analytical methods and a well characterized mouse challenge potency assay.

14 Jul 2011

Adamis receives European patent for novel cell-based cancer vaccine technology

Adamis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, today announced the technology which constitutes the basis of a novel cell-based cancer vaccine, TeloB-VAX, was recently granted a patent in Europe.

14 Jul 2011

Daily pill ‘combo’ prevents HIV transmission: New African study

According two studies in Africa, taking a daily pill containing either one or two anti-HIV drugs can reduce transmission of the virus by as much as three-quarters among heterosexual couples. This is an encouraging finding that could help focus on AIDS prevention. The results were so compelling that the larger study was halted early and the drugs given to all the participants, researchers said Wednesday.

13 Jul 2011

Sexually transmitted diseases more common in women age 40

A Johns Hopkins infectious disease expert is calling for all sexually active American women age 40 and older to get tested for the parasite Trichomonas vaginalis after new study evidence found that the sexually transmitted disease (STD) is more than twice as common in this age group than previously thought.

12 Jul 2011

USPTO issues notice of allowance to MDI's PCR-based technology platform

Molecular Detection Inc. (MDI), a company developing Detect-Ready assays designed to increase the speed and accuracy of infectious disease diagnosis, today announced that it has received a notice of allowance from the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a patent application titled "Methods, Compositions and Kits for Detection and Analysis of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria."

12 Jul 2011

Rapid method can predict immune responses against flu vaccines

Researchers at the Emory Vaccine Center have developed a method for predicting whether someone will produce high levels of antibodies against a flu shot a few days after vaccination.

12 Jul 2011

UNC receives $32 million federal grant to eradicate HIV infection

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have been awarded a $32 million, five-year federal grant to develop ways to cure people with HIV by purging the virus hiding in the immune systems of patients taking antiretroviral therapy.

12 Jul 2011

New research strategy for eradicating HIV from the body

An international team led by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and the nonprofit Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Port St. Lucie, Fla., has received a major grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a strategy to eradicate HIV from the body.

12 Jul 2011

Merck researchers to participate in two new collaborative efforts to study HIV latency

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today announced that company researchers will participate in two new collaborative efforts led by the prominent academic institutions of the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) to develop new approaches towards eradicating HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

12 Jul 2011

Hutchinson Center receives $20M NIH grant to eradicate HIV infection

Whether a stem cell transplant using an HIV-infected person's own genetically modified immune cells can become a cure for the disease is the focus of a new $20 million, five-year research grant award announced today by the National Institutes of Health to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

12 Jul 2011

Enrollment complete in Advaxis ADXS-HPV Phase II CIN study

Advaxis, Inc., a leader in developing the next generation of immunotherapies for cancer and infectious diseases, has completed enrollment of the first 40 subject cohort in the dose-ranging Phase II study of ADXS-HPV, an immunotherapy for Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia.

12 Jul 2011

Drug resistant gonorrhea discovered

Japanese scientists have found a superbug strain of gonorrhea that’s resistant to all available antibiotics. This can pose a threat to public health worldwide, infectious disease experts say.

11 Jul 2011

NIAID awards $14 million a year for new HIV research

Three research teams focused on developing strategies that could help to rid the body of HIV are receiving grants totaling more than $14 million a year, for up to five years, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health announced today.

11 Jul 2011

RyMed's InVision-Plus Intraluminal Protection System effective against catheter-related bloodstream infections

Denise Macklin, BSN, RNC, representing the research team of Dr. Cynthia C. Chernecky Ph.D., RN, AOCN, FAAN, Dr. Jennifer Waller, Ph.D., both from Georgia Health Sciences University; and Dr. William Jarvis M.D., Jason & Jarvis Associates, exhibited a poster at the recent APIC 2011 (Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology) conference in Baltimore, titled "Clinical Comparisons of Split Septum, Positive and Negative Mechanical Valve Intravenous Connectors to an Intraluminal Protection Connector on Infection Rates."

11 Jul 2011

Fibrin key to protection during gram-negative sepsis

New research from the Trudeau Institute may help to explain why anticoagulant therapies have largely failed to extend the lives of patients with sepsis. The study was led by Deyan Luo, a postdoctoral fellow in Stephen Smiley's laboratory. It shows that fibrin, a key product of the blood clotting process, is critical for host defense against Yersinia enterocolitica, a gram-negative bacterium that causes sepsis in humans and experimental mice.

11 Jul 2011

Nurses can help manage S. African's syndemic of TB and HIV

Jason E. Farley, PhD, MPH, CRNP knows the dangers inherent to an increasingly common and hazardous syndemic in South Africa: HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis.

11 Jul 2011