Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Anthrax most commonly occurs in wild and domestic lower vertebrates (cattle, sheep, goats, camels, antelopes, and other herbivores), but it can also occur in humans when they are exposed to infected animals or tissue from infected animals.
Anthrax is most common in agricultural regions where it occurs in animals. These include South and Central America, Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. When anthrax affects humans, it is usually due to an occupational exposure to infected animals or their products. Workers who are exposed to dead animals and animal products from other countries where anthrax is more common may become infected with B. anthracis (industrial anthrax). Anthrax outbreaks occur in the United States on an annual basis in livestock and wild game animals such as deer.
Anthrax infection can occur in three forms: cutaneous (skin), inhalation, and gastrointestinal. B. anthracis spores can live in the soil for many years, and humans can become infected with anthrax by handling products from infected animals or by inhaling anthrax spores from contaminated animal products. Anthrax can also be spread by eating undercooked meat from infected animals. It is rare to find infected animals in the United States.
The advanced development of a novel next-generation anthrax vaccine and a new type of anthrax antitoxin have received support through new contracts funded the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
PharmAthene, Inc. announced today that it has achieved significant progress in the development of its second generation anthrax vaccine, SparVax.
Elusys Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing biodefense countermeasures, announced today that it has been awarded the first U.S. Government contract to develop an anti-toxin for pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) use via intramuscular injection.
Response Biomedical Corporation today announced that Roche Diagnostics has terminated, effective September 30, 2011, the sales and distribution agreement between Roche and Response dated June 25, 2008. Under the terms of that agreement and related agreements, Roche Diagnostics had agreed to distribute Response's cardiovascular point-of-care (POC) tests on the RAMP® 200 Reader in the US.
In the evolutionary blink of an eye, a bacterium that causes mild stomach irritation evolved into a deadly assassin responsible for the most devastating pandemics in human history. How did the mild-mannered Yersinia pseudotuberculosis become Yersinia pestis, more commonly known as the Plague?
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. announced today that results from a Phase 1a clinical trial evaluating an investigational anthrax vaccine, Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed with CPG 7909 Adjuvant mixed at bedside, have been published in Vaccine, a leading medical journal on vaccines and immunology.
NanoBio Corporation announced today that data from recent animal studies of its NanoStat-based intranasal respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine have been published in PLoS One, an international peer-reviewed online publication.
Although outbreaks are rare, Ebola virus, the cause of Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), is one of the deadliest known viruses affecting humans. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 1,850 EHF cases with more than 1,200 deaths have been documented since the virus was identified in 1976.
Employing technology that reads the entire DNA code, researchers led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have pinpointed the source of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that killed more than 6,000 people and sickened 300,000.
NanoBio Corporation today announced a licensing agreement with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that represents a significant step forward in developing the first vaccine to protect against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections.
NanoBio Corporation announced today that data from its ferret influenza vaccine study of NB-1008 have been published in the July 2011 issue of Clinical Vaccine Immunology by the American Society of Microbiology.
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.
Researchers from the Smiley lab at the Trudeau Institute have now identified a single component of the plague causing bacterium that can be used as a vaccine. This single "subunit" could potentially be used to create a safer form of a T cell-stimulating plague vaccine. The new data is featured in the July issue of The Journal of Immunology.
Anthrax, septicemia and meningitis are some of the planet's most deadly infections. In part because doctors lack basic insights to prevent and cure diseases caused by so called Gram-positive bacteria. Now, a chemist from the University of Copenhagen has revealed the mechanism behind these deadly infections.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the first generic versions of Levaquin, an antibiotic approved to treat certain infections in people ages 18 and older.
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have uncovered how the body's immune system launches its survival response to the notorious and deadly bacterium anthrax.
Aradigm Corporation today announced positive top line data from its recently concluded Phase 2b study (Once-Daily Respiratory Bronchiectasis Inhalation Treatment - ORBIT-1) with Aradigm's ciprofloxacin for inhalation (CFI, ARD-3100, LipoquinTM) in patients with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis (BE).
Response Biomedical Corporation announced that it has received a notification from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that its NTproBNP Assay did not meet the criteria to obtain a waiver under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988.
PharmAthene, Inc., a biodefense company developing medical countermeasures against biological and chemical threats, announced today that it has entered into subscription agreements with certain institutional investors to sell approximately $6.5 million of its common stock and warrants in a registered direct offering.
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. announced today that its investigational anthrax vaccine, NuThrax, has been granted Fast Track Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
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