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Scientists determine chemical features of DHPS enzyme's active site

More than 70 years after the first sulfa drugs helped to revolutionize medical care and save millions of lives, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have determined at an atomic level the mechanism these medications use to kill bacteria. The discovery provides the basis for a new generation of antibiotics that would likely be harder for bacteria to resist and cause fewer side effects.

2 Mar 2012

Researchers confirm how food poisoning bacteria hijack cell's sense of direction

Working in the emerging field of systems biology, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers mathematically predicted how bacteria that cause food poisoning hijack a cell's sense of direction and then confirmed those predictions in living cells.

2 Mar 2012

Europe conference to discuss on new HIV indicator diseases

Today, heterosexuals in Europe are at particular risk of carrying HIV for so long that they remain undiagnosed until their immune system starts to fail and they become ill. An international study under the leadership of the HIV in Europe initiative has now revealed that a number of diseases, including herpes zoster and certain forms of cancer, should be on the list of indicators for having HIV - and thus serve to prompt health care professionals to suggest an HIV-test to their patients.

2 Mar 2012

CDC official speaks about HIV, TB work in Africa, Haiti

As part of its series of interviews with CDC staff working on global HIV and tuberculosis (TB) research and development, the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog spoke with Jordan Tappero, "who is currently serving as director for the Health Systems Reconstruction Office in the Center for Global Health, an office opened in response to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti."

2 Mar 2012

Longer looks: Romney's evolution on abortion; The birth of the HIV epidemic

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney began his political career as a pro-choicer. In the story he tells, he had an epiphany, a flash of insight, and committed himself thereafter to protecting life. But that isn't what happened. The real story of Romney's conversion - a series of tentative, equivocal, and confused shifts, accompanied by a constant rewriting of his past - paints a more accurate picture of who he is.

2 Mar 2012

Robotic surgery effective in treating oropharyngeal cancer in patients with HPV

Over the past few decades, doctors have noted a surprising trend in cancer of the tonsils and base of the tongue. Though oral cancer previously appeared predominantly in elderly patients with a history of tobacco and alcohol use, it's increasing in younger patients: 30- to 50-year-old nonsmokers with the human papillomavirus.

2 Mar 2012

March issue of WHO Bulletin available online

The March issue of the WHO Bulletin features an editorial on global shortages of medicines; a public health round-up; an article on breast cancer awareness; a research paper on interventions for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa; and a paper on the global burden of cholera.

2 Mar 2012

Inexpensive test, treatment for syphilis could save nearly 1M infants annually

An inexpensive test and single-dose treatment could help save the lives of nearly one million infants annually if pregnant women in low-income countries were offered rapid tests for syphilis, experts from the Global Congenital Syphilis Partnership said on Thursday, Reuters reports.

2 Mar 2012

Kenya's ability to diagnose, treat MDR-TB questioned after mismanagement of patient's case

"The Kenyan government's recent failure to adequately treat a patient with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has some civil society organizations questioning whether the country's TB program is equipped to diagnose and treat such patients," PlusNews reports.

2 Mar 2012

Campaign to elicit donations for health projects from airline travelers winds down amid funding woes

The Switzerland-based Millennium Foundation, a UNITAID-funded campaign to solicit donations for health projects from airline travelers, "is being wound down after spending nearly $20 million to generate less than $300,000 over the past four years," the Financial Times reports.

2 Mar 2012

U.S. panel may re-evaluate bird flu research after scientists present new data about risks to humans

Speaking at the American Society for Microbiology's (ASM) Biodefense and Emerging Diseases Research meeting in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Ron Fouchier, the leader of the team at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands that genetically altered the H5N1 bird flu virus, making it transmissible among ferrets and "touching off public fears of a pandemic, said that the virus he created was neither as contagious nor as dangerous as people had been led to believe, prompting the United States government to ask that the experiments be re-evaluated by a government advisory panel that recommended in December that certain details of the work be kept secret and not published," the New York Times reports.

1 Mar 2012

Research into disease fighting foods at UL receives funding boost

Food and health related research led by Professor Dick FitzGerald at the University of Limerick (UL) recently received a funding boost at the Science Foundation Ireland Technology Innovation Development Award (TIDA) programme announced by Minister for Research and Innovation, Seán Sherlock.

1 Mar 2012

CD4 T cells can directly kill HIV-infected cells

A subpopulation of the immune cells targeted by HIV may play an important role in controlling viral loads after initial infection, potentially helping to determine how quickly infection will progress. In the February 29 issue of Science Translational Medicine, a team of researchers from the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), MIT and Harvard describe finding a population of HIV-specific CD4 T cells - cells traditionally thought to direct and support activities of other immune cells - that can directly kill HIV-infected cells.

1 Mar 2012

New portable device can quickly diagnose infectious disease

Infectious diseases can spread very rapidly, so quickly identifying them can be crucial to stopping an epidemic. However, current testing for such diseases can take hours and days. But not for much longer.

1 Mar 2012

Drawing lessons from emerging economies on increasing access to medicines for NTDs

"At present, the prevailing strategy for improving access to medicines for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) is drug donation programs, which, despite providing some of the highest economic returns of public health programs ... have uncertain sustainability," Francesca Holt of St. John's College at the University of Cambridge and colleagues write in this PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases opinion piece.

1 Mar 2012

China's AIDS Action Plan calls for education, condom distribution to stem spread of HIV

China's State Council, or cabinet, on Wednesday "published the country's AIDS Action Plan for the 12th Five-Year Program period (2011-2015) on the website of the Chinese government," Xinhua/China.org.cn reports.

1 Mar 2012

Ugandan official expresses concern over rise in TB, emergence of drug-resistant strains

In an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday, Francis Adatu, head of the national leprosy and tuberculosis (TB) program in Uganda, warned that TB "remains a major public health problem" and that multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) has emerged in the country, the news service writes.

1 Mar 2012

Typhoid outbreak spreading in Zimbabwe; Officials working to improve sanitation, drug supply

"A typhoid outbreak that began in Harare last year is steadily spreading across Zimbabwe with more than 3,000 cases reported although only one death due to the disease has been reported so far, health officials have said," ZimOnline reports.

1 Mar 2012

Republican presidential candidate Santorum could be beneficial to global health programs if elected president

In the Republican campaign for the presidential nomination, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), "the most religiously conservative candidate, surprisingly, is the most fervent advocate for U.S. global health diplomacy," Jack Chow, former U.S. ambassador on global HIV/AIDS and former assistant director-general of WHO on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, writes in a Foreign Policy opinion piece.

1 Mar 2012

NKT cells may reduce monocytes accumulation, prevent lung injury in severe flu

While some scientists report engineering a super virulent strain of the H5N1 influenza virus, which could potentially wipe out a significant percentage of the human population, another group of researchers from the United Kingdom now reports a discovery that may one day help mitigate the deadly effects of all flu strains.

1 Mar 2012

Disease/Infection News

Scientists determine chemical features of DHPS enzyme's active site

Researchers confirm how food poisoning bacteria hijack cell's sense of direction

Europe conference to discuss on new HIV indicator diseases

CDC official speaks about HIV, TB work in Africa, Haiti

Longer looks: Romney's evolution on abortion; The birth of the HIV epidemic

Robotic surgery effective in treating oropharyngeal cancer in patients with HPV

March issue of WHO Bulletin available online

Inexpensive test, treatment for syphilis could save nearly 1M infants annually

Kenya's ability to diagnose, treat MDR-TB questioned after mismanagement of patient's case

Campaign to elicit donations for health projects from airline travelers winds down amid funding woes

U.S. panel may re-evaluate bird flu research after scientists present new data about risks to humans

Research into disease fighting foods at UL receives funding boost

CD4 T cells can directly kill HIV-infected cells

New portable device can quickly diagnose infectious disease

Drawing lessons from emerging economies on increasing access to medicines for NTDs

China's AIDS Action Plan calls for education, condom distribution to stem spread of HIV

Ugandan official expresses concern over rise in TB, emergence of drug-resistant strains

Typhoid outbreak spreading in Zimbabwe; Officials working to improve sanitation, drug supply

Republican presidential candidate Santorum could be beneficial to global health programs if elected president

NKT cells may reduce monocytes accumulation, prevent lung injury in severe flu

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