Chikungunya News and Research

RSS

Experts develop tools to educate people about health risks associated with global travel

More than 30 million people in the United States travel to resource-limited areas of the world each year. This global mobility may contribute to the spread of infectious diseases such as influenza, measles, and meningitis and may also put individual travelers at risk for malaria, typhoid, dengue fever and hepatitis.

4 Nov 2010

Inviragen receives two grants to develop dengue and chikungunya vaccines

Inviragen, a biotechnology company developing vaccines to protect against infectious diseases worldwide, announced today that it has received two grants totaling $488,958 through the United States government's Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program.

3 Nov 2010

CSL to distribute Cerus' INTERCEPT Blood System in Australia, New Zealand

Cerus Corporation announced today that it has entered into an agreement with CSL Limited, Biotherapies division to distribute Cerus' INTERCEPT Blood System for platelets in Australia and New Zealand. The INTERCEPT Blood System is designed to provide increased protection from a broad range of transfusion-transmitted pathogens, including bacteria and emerging pathogens such as the dengue and chikungunya viruses.

13 Oct 2010

NIH awards MacroGenics $9.8 million grant for three projects

MacroGenics, Inc, a privately held biotechnology company that develops immunotherapeutics to treat autoimmune disorders, cancer and infectious diseases, today announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the company three new grants representing total funding of $9.8 million.

15 Jul 2010

Bacteria that will kill Dengue bearing mosquitoes on the way

Dengue is a deadly viral fever spread by mosquito bites that kills thousands around the world each year. Now researchers from James Cook University and University of Queensland are working on a bacterium called Wolbachia that can stop the spread of this virus.

6 Jul 2010

Inovio Pharmaceuticals first-quarter net loss attributable to common stockholders decreases to $2.3M

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today reported financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2010.

18 May 2010

A*STAR's BMRC and SIgN award grants for twelve research projects on infectious diseases and immunology

Twelve research projects on infectious diseases and immunology have been awarded grants by A*STAR's Biomedical Research Council (BMRC) and Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) this year.

21 Apr 2010

Inovio Biomedical's total revenue increased to $2.6M for quarter ended December 31, 2009

Inovio Biomedical Corporation today reported financial results for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2009.

29 Mar 2010

Chikungunya: Experimental vaccine successfully tested in monkeys

Imagine a mosquito-borne virus that has already infected millions of people in recent outbreaks in South and Southeast Asia, the islands of the Indian Ocean, Africa and northern Italy. Although seldom fatal, it causes highly painful arthritis-like symptoms that can linger for months or even years. It's capable of adapting to spread through a mosquito species common in much of North America. And no vaccine or treatment exists to protect humans from its effects.

5 Mar 2010

Study could help in developing therapeutic strategies for Chikungunya virus infection

A study published online on February 1 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (www.jem.org) shows that antiviral proteins called type I interferons (IFNs) are needed to fend off infection with an exotic mosquito-borne virus called Chikungunya virus.

2 Feb 2010

Experimental vaccine protects mice and monkeys against chikungunya virus

An experimental vaccine developed using non-infectious virus-like particles (VLP) has protected macaques and mice against chikungunya virus, a mosquito-borne pathogen that has infected millions of people in Africa and Asia and causes debilitating pain, researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found.

29 Jan 2010

Inovio Biomedical expands existing license agreement with the University of Pennsylvania

Inovio Biomedical Corporation, a leader in DNA vaccine design, development and delivery, announced today that it has expanded its existing license agreement with the University of Pennsylvania, adding exclusive worldwide licenses for technology and intellectual property for novel DNA vaccines against pandemic influenza, Chikungunya, and foot-and-mouth disease.

11 Jan 2010

Also in global health news: Aid in S. Somalia; virus-resistant mosquitoes; composting toilets in Haiti; U.S. Congressional Group visits India

The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) announced Tuesday that it has been forced to halt "aid distribution to about 1 million people in southern Somalia because of attacks against staff and demands by armed groups that aid groups remove women from their teams," the Associated Press reports.

5 Jan 2010

Infecting mosquitoes with Wolbachia bacteria increases their resistance to human disease-causing viruses

Earlier this year, researchers showed that they could cut the lives of disease-carrying mosquitoes in half by infecting them with a bacterium they took from fruit flies. Now, a new report in the December 24th issue of Cell, a Cell Press publication, suggests that their strategy might do one better: The Wolbachia bacteria also makes the mosquitoes more resistant to infection by viruses that are a growing threat to humans, including those responsible for dengue fever and Chikungunya.

28 Dec 2009

SynCon Chikungunya virus DNA vaccine induces protective neutralizing antibody responses in animal model

Inovio Biomedical Corporation, a leader in DNA vaccine design, development and delivery, announced today that the company's SynCon™ Chikungunya virus DNA vaccine induced protective neutralizing antibody responses in a preclinical non-human primate model.

18 Nov 2009

Experts gather to outline the latest creative applications of DNA barcoding

The scientific ability to quickly and accurately identify species through DNA "barcoding" is being embraced and applied by a growing legion of global authorities - from medical and agricultural researchers to police and customs authorities to palaeontologists and others.

7 Nov 2009

Calbiotech awarded a SBIR contract to develop analyte specific reagents for the diagnosis of Dengue virus

Calbiotech, Inc. announced today that it has been awarded a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I contract by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material command. Under terms of the agreement, Calbiotech will develop analyte specific reagents (ASRs) for the diagnosis of Dengue virus.

6 Nov 2009

Widely used ssqPCR assay is not reliable, say researchers

In the course of doing research on the mosquito-borne pathogens chikungunya virus (CHIKV) and o' nyong-nyong virus (ONNV), Virginia Tech researchers have discovered an inconvenient truth about an assay, strand-specific quantitative real-time PCR (ssqPCR), increasingly being used to detect and measure replicating viral RNA in infected cells and tissues. The method most labs are using for ssqPCR is unreliable.

22 Oct 2009

Inviragen, SingVax merge their complementary vaccine pipelines

Inviragen and SingVax have merged their complementary vaccine pipelines and their international product development capabilities to create a company that is developing a wide range of vaccines for infectious diseases prevalent in emerging economies.

6 Oct 2009

New consortium to tackle African sleeping sickness and Leishmaniasis

A new consortium has been formed to boost drug development for the treatment of two deadly diseases, African sleeping sickness and Leishmaniasis, which affect millions of people worldwide.

17 Aug 2009