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EPO doping drug can reduce cerebral malaria related deaths

Almost 3.3 billion people, half of the world's population, risk being infected with malaria. Despite having effective means against malaria, the WHO reports 250 million cases of malaria each year and more than 700,000 related deaths. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have now discovered that EPO, the doping drug known from professional cycling, can significantly reduce cerebral malaria related deaths.

22 Apr 2011

WSU researcher develops potential vaccine for Chlamydia

A Wayne State University School of Medicine researcher has developed a potential first ever vaccine for Chlamydia, the world's most prevalent sexually transmitted disease and the leading cause of new cases of blindness.

21 Apr 2011

LMP1 viral protein needs TRAF6 cellular protein to promote B cell activation signaling pathways: Study

By identifying a surprising association of two intracellular proteins, University of Iowa researchers have laid the groundwork for the development of new therapies to treat B cell lymphomas and autoimmune disease.

20 Apr 2011

Nerve disorder expert Jack Griffin passes away

Jack Griffin, an internationally acclaimed and admired expert on diseases of the peripheral nervous system, founding director of the Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute, and former director of Hopkins School of Medicine's Department of Neurology, died Saturday, April 16, after a long battle with bladder cancer. He was 69.

18 Apr 2011

Study: Borna disease virus does not contain exact copies of genomic RNAs

Like bacteria, viruses have their own genome. The ends or termini of a viral RNA are especially interesting for virologists because they play an important role in reproduction and in the reaction of the innate immune system to the virus.

18 Apr 2011

Drug resistant bug plaguing the meat industry: Study

It has been found that nearly half of the meat and poultry (47 percent) sold in U.S. grocery stores is contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus (“Staph”), a bacteria linked to a wide range of human diseases, and this bacteria is resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics in more than half (52 percent) of contaminated samples. This comes from a nationwide study by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) published this week in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

17 Apr 2011

Study finds 47% of meat and poultry samples contaminated with S. aureus

Drug-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria linked to a wide range of human diseases, are present in meat and poultry from U.S. grocery stores at unexpectedly high rates, according to a nationwide study by the Translational Genomics Research Institute.

15 Apr 2011

African genital herpes strains are more infectious than the U.S. virus

Strains of genital herpes in Africa are far more virulent than those in the United States, researchers at Harvard Medical School report, a striking insight into a common disease with important implications for preventing HIV transmission in a region staggered by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

15 Apr 2011

Women consume more non-prescribed drugs than men

Approximately 20% of Spaniards take non-prescribed medication and women are the group most inclined towards this practice. This is the conclusion of a research study carried out by experts from the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, which also links this habit to nationality, income level and alcohol and tobacco consumption amongst the population.

15 Apr 2011

New research confirms high-fat diet can contribute to type 2 diabetes

A diet high in saturated fat is a key contributor to type 2 diabetes, a major health threat worldwide. Several decades ago scientists noticed that people with type 2 diabetes have overly active immune responses, leaving their bodies rife with inflammatory chemicals.

12 Apr 2011

Scientists develop new method to detect virus presence in cells

Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory Center for Bio-Molecular Science and Engineering have developed a method to detect the presence of viruses in cells and to study their growth.

12 Apr 2011

Viral infection likely to encourage pneumonia spread

Bacteria that cause pneumonia and meningitis are only able to spread when individuals are infected with flu, says a scientist reporting at the Society for General Microbiology's Spring Conference in Harrogate. The work could have implications for the management of influenza pandemics and could help reduce incidence of pneumococcal infections in very young children, who are more susceptible to disease.

11 Apr 2011

GeoVax Labs to update its HIV/AIDS vaccine status at World Vaccine Conference

Harriet Robinson, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at GeoVax Labs, Inc., will provide an update on the status of the Company's therapeutic and preventative HIV vaccines at the 2011 World Vaccine Conference at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center in Washington DC on Thursday, April 14.

8 Apr 2011

Bruker receives Health Canada approval for IVD MALDI Biotyper

At the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, the companies i2A Canada and Bruker Ltd. announced together that they have met the relevant Health Products and Food Branch of Health Canada regulations for the Bruker IVD MALDI Biotyper, and that this product is now available for sale as a Class 1 Medical Device to all clinical microbiology sites in Canada.

8 Apr 2011

Cosmic radiation can increase risk of atherosclerosis in astronauts

Astronauts anticipate more trips to the moon and manned missions to Mars. But exposure to cosmic radiation outside the Earth's magnetic field could be detrimental to their arteries, according to a study by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers published April 6, 2011, online in the journal Radiation Research.

8 Apr 2011

Experts welcome World Health Day on antibiotic resistance as timely

The European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) welcomes the focus on drug resistance for this year’s World Health Day as it is an issue that the Society has been proactively working on for the past 25 years.

6 Apr 2011

GERONTOSHIELD project receives 2.6 Million Euro fund for ageing research

Our society gets older, people live longer. The price we pay: infectious diseases can easier overcome the immune system. Like all organs, the immune system does not function flawlessly in old age. A new collaboration of university and non-university research institutes and two companies is investigating why our immune defence is getting weaker when we become old.

5 Apr 2011

Catheter Connections presents DualCap device clinical data against CRBSI at SHEA meeting

In the ongoing fight against costly and potentially fatal catheter related bloodstream infections, landmark clinical data presented at the 21st Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America demonstrates that both the exposed end of IV administration sets and catheter luer access valves are colonized by the microbes that cause CRBSI.

4 Apr 2011

Scientists develop new experimental diagnostic test to distinguish infection from disease

A potential new experimental diagnostic test able to quickly distinguish individuals with active tuberculosis from those with latent TB infection has been developed. If the preliminary results of the study will be confirmed in a larger population sample, the new diagnostic system could allow more effective strategies to control the spread of the re-emerging pathology.

1 Apr 2011

Study: Pseudokinases can play a crucial role in pathogen-based disease

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Stanford University discovered that a supposedly inactive protein actually plays a crucial role in the ability of one the world's most prolific pathogens to cause disease, findings that suggest the possible role of similarly errant proteins in other diseases.

1 Apr 2011