Infectious Diseases News and Research

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Health experts to discuss innovative breakthroughs to solve health issues in poor communities

New ideas, systems and technologies are emerging to solve numerous health challenges facing the world’s poorest communities. Some of the foremost experts on global health will discuss these and the prospects for health breakthroughs in the developing world at a media briefing at the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Symposium at 2:30 pm on Monday, September 21.

19 Sep 2009

Partnership between Wellcome Trust and Merck & Co

The Wellcome Trust and Merck & Co., Inc. today announced the creation of the MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories (www.hillemanlaboratories.in), the first of its kind research and development joint venture with a not-for-profit mission to focus on developing affordable vaccines to prevent diseases that commonly affect low-income countries.

18 Sep 2009

National Institutes of Health funds for thymus research

The National Institutes of Health have awarded, as part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, a two-year, $2 million grant to a University of Georgia genetics researcher and her colleagues for studies on the thymus, the organ in humans that produces disease-fighting T-cells.

18 Sep 2009

Juvaris BioTherapeutics completes first close on Series B equity financing

Juvaris BioTherapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company developing adjuvanted vaccines for infectious diseases, announced that it has completed the first close on its Series B equity financing of up to $25 million led by SV Life Sciences (SVLS) along with existing investor, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB).

18 Sep 2009

NIDDK awards $1.2 million grant to Bolder BioTechnology for long-acting EPO analog program

Bolder BioTechnology, Inc. announced today that it has been awarded a $1.2 million Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, entitled "Long-Acting EPO Analog for Treating Anemia Associated with Chronic Kidney Disease," from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of The National Institutes of Health (NIH). Receipt of the entire grant award is contingent upon the achievement of certain research milestones.

18 Sep 2009

Book on the effects of antibiotic-resistant microbes

In RISING PLAGUE: THE GLOBAL THREAT FROM DEADLY BACTERIA AND OUR DWINDLING ARSENAL TO FIGHT THEM (Prometheus Books, $26), Dr. Brad Spellberg-an infectious diseases specialist and member of a national task force charged with attacking antibiotic resistant infections-tells the story of this potentially grave public health crisis.

18 Sep 2009

WHO in talks with developed countries about sharing H1N1 vaccine with developing nations

The recent news that a single dose of H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine can protect adults against the virus has sparked conversations between the WHO and developed countries about sharing their vaccine stockpiles with developing countries, Bloomberg reports.

From Baxter International Inc. 18 Sep 2009

Merck, Wellcome Trust to launch vaccine center in India to produce vaccines for developing countries

Pharmaceutical company Merck and the Wellcome Trust have joined together to create a non-profit, £90-million (about $150 million) research center in India to facilitate the development of new vaccines, "including [those for] neglected diseases for which inadequate or no vaccines exist," Nature News reports.

18 Sep 2009

NIH to fund grants for epigenetic research

The National Institutes of Health announced today that it will fund 22 grants on genome-wide studies of how epigenetic changes -- chemical modifications to genes that result from diet, aging, stress, or environmental exposures -- define and contribute to specific human diseases and biological processes.

17 Sep 2009

TOWN HALL Los Angeles hosts panel discussion on H1N1 outbreak preparedness

"Hand Washing, Not Hand-Wringing: Preparing for H1N1" is the subject of a panel discussion hosted by TOWN HALL Los Angeles on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in downtown Los Angeles.

17 Sep 2009

Biomagnetics and U.S. Government laboratory continue contract negotiations

Biomagnetics Diagnostics Corp., (PINK SHEETS:BMGP) a developer of revolutionary diagnostic systems and technology for HIV, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and malaria detection, today announced the Company is in continuing contract negotiations to acquire the rights to Integrated Optical Biosensor System (IBOS) technology developed by one of the U.S. Government’s top national security research institutions.

17 Sep 2009

Findings may lead to drugs that destroy TB in dormant stage of lifecycle

Attempts to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) are stymied by the fact that the disease-causing bacteria have a sophisticated mechanism for surviving dormant in infected cells. Now, a team of scientists led by researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College has identified compounds that inhibit that mechanism -- without damaging human cells.

17 Sep 2009

Researchers investigate individual's ability to get rid of Hepatitis C

More than seventy percent of people who contract Hepatitis C will live with the virus that causes it for the rest of their lives and some will develop serious liver disease including cancer. However, 30 to 40 percent of those infected somehow defeat the infection and get rid of the virus with no treatment. In this week's Advanced Online Publication at Nature, Johns Hopkins researchers working as part of an international team report the discovery of the strongest genetic alteration associated with the ability to get rid of the infection.

17 Sep 2009

Study: Antiretroviral drugs may prevent HIV infection in women

Hopeful that some of the same antiretroviral (ARV) drugs used to treat HIV infection can also prevent it, researchers from the Microbicide Trials Network have enrolled the first participants into a new, large-scale clinical trial testing two approaches of the strategy in women.

17 Sep 2009

HIRC investigates the impact of infrastructure on pathogens and micro-organisms

The spread of swine flu and other infectious diseases could be dramatically reduced by revolutionising the way that the places we live in are designed and built.

17 Sep 2009

VOICE clinical study for testing the efficacy of two HIV prevention strategies

A new, large-scale clinical trial is examining whether antiretroviral medications normally used to treat HIV infection can also prevent HIV infection in women when applied as a vaginal gel or taken as oral tablets once daily.

16 Sep 2009

Inovio’s novel platform for developing DNA based vaccines to be discussed at EmTech

Inovio Biomedical Corporation, a leader in DNA vaccine design, development and delivery, announced today that Dr. J. Joseph Kim, CEO, has been invited to present at EmTech, the Emerging Technologies Conference hosted by MIT and produced by MIT’s Technology Review magazine. The conference will take place September 22nd - 24th on the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA.

16 Sep 2009

CEL-SCI to commence its LEAPS-H1N1 clinical trial following FDA approval

CEL-SCI Corporation (NYSE Amex: CVM), a developer of vaccines and therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases and a late-stage oncology company, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has indicated that the Company can proceed with its first clinical trial to evaluate the effect of its investigational LEAPS-H1N1 treatment on the white blood cells of hospitalized H1N1 patients.

16 Sep 2009

Decision Resources forecasts sales of Rituxan/MabThera, Erbitux and Herceptin

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, forecasts that U.S. and European (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and U.K.) sales of Roche/Biogen Idec's Rituxan/MabThera, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Merck's Erbitux and Roche's Herceptin will peak at almost $16 billion in 2014, before falling to roughly $10 billion in 2018.

16 Sep 2009

Pan American Health Organization calls for preventing sickness to curtail health care costs

According to every major health organization, many costly and disabling conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic infectious diseases are linked by common preventable risk factors -- smoking, poor dietary habits, physical inactivity and poor hygiene.

16 Sep 2009