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Malaria's characteristic cycle of fever and chills is a result of parasite's own influence

Scientists from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research joined partners at Duke University, Florida Atlantic University and Montana State University to publish a study providing clear evidence that malaria's characteristic cycle of fever and chills is a result of the parasite's own influence--not factors from the host.

15 May 2020

Low albumin levels could predict poor outcome in COVID-19

A Spanish study has revealed that COVID-19 patients who have a low level of albumin have a poorer outcome compared to those with normal levels of blood albumin. The study titled, “Low albumin levels are associated with poorer outcomes in a case series of COVID-19 patients in Spain: a retrospective cohort study,” was released prior to peer-review on the open-access preprint server site Medrxiv*.

13 May 2020

More selective elimination of leukemic and hematopoietic stem cells

Acute myeloid leukemia is an aggressive cancer of the blood-forming system. It affects the hematopoietic stem cells, or blood stem cells, of various white blood cells and of the red blood cells and platelets.

8 May 2020

Innovative device could help treat babies with blood disorders

With severe blood disorders, such as leukemia, doctors often rely on leukapheresis, a procedure in which large machines extract whole blood from patients to separate white blood cells from the rest of the blood, which is then returned back to the patient.

8 May 2020

New antibiotic fights drug-resistant bacteria without notable toxic side-effects

Through serendipity, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health considerably reduced the toxicity of a potential antibiotic against the most feared drug-resistant bacteria, while also improving its stability in fighting infections.

4 May 2020

Long-lasting, low toxicity antimicrobial peptide fights 'superbug' lung infections

Researchers considerably reduced the toxicity of a potential antibiotic against the most feared drug-resistant bacteria.

1 May 2020

New light-activated drug delivery method helps confine arthritis treatments to the joints

Although today's rheumatoid arthritis treatments can reduce symptoms, they often come with serious side effects. Results from a new mouse study suggest that a new light-activated drug delivery method helps confine treatments to the joints, which could reduce whole-body side effects.

27 Apr 2020

Rice University wins prestigious grant to develop new therapies for sickle cell disease

A Rice University lab has won a prestigious National Institutes of Health grant to pursue gene-editing research it hopes will lead to a cure for sickle cell disease (SCD).

25 Apr 2020

Study identifies a promising new strategy for combating malaria

Researchers have discovered a promising new strategy for combating malaria, a mosquito-borne parasite that claims nearly a half-million lives each year.

22 Apr 2020

Have we found a new malaria vaccine?

A new study published in the journal Nature in April 2020 reports on a malaria protein antibody that appears to protect resistant children from severe disease, showing promise in the fight against malaria, a new study found. Almost 500,000 people die of malaria every year.

22 Apr 2020

Researchers uncover how cancer cells don their invisibility cloaks

Immunotherapy drugs that target a protein called programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) on the surface of cancer cells have quickly become a mainstay to treat many forms of cancer, often with dramatic results. But exactly how cancer cells turn on this protein was not completely understood.

22 Apr 2020

Ultrasound-assisted molecule delivery looks to preserve blood for years

Researchers have demonstrated using ultrasound to create pores in blood cells, preventing degradation when dried for preservation.

21 Apr 2020

Screening blood samples for COVID-19 using artificial intelligence

A promising new study published in the preprint online journal medRxiv in April 2020 shows the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) for developing a patient classifier that can separate patients likely to be negative for COVID-19 from among a pool of suspected patients visiting an emergency room (ER).

15 Apr 2020

Study looks into how malaria parasite evades the immune system

The parasite causing the most severe form of human malaria uses proteins to make red blood cells sticky, making it harder for the immune system to destroy it and leading to potentially fatal blood clots. New research at the Crick has identified how the parasite may control this process.

13 Apr 2020

Personalized biohybrid microswimmers for therapeutic cargo delivery

Tiny biohybrid robots on the micrometer scale can swim through the body and deliver drugs to tumors or provide other cargo-carrying functions. The natural environmental sensing tendencies of bacteria mean they can navigate toward certain chemicals or be remotely controlled using magnetic or sound signals.

7 Apr 2020