Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

DARPA awards fourth milestone payment of $3.56M to Medicago

Medicago USA Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Medicago Inc., a biotechnology company focused on developing highly effective and competitive vaccines based on proprietary manufacturing technologies and Virus-Like Particles (VLPs), today announced it has received the fourth milestone payment of US$3.56 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

13 Feb 2012

OncoSec to commence OMS ElectroImmunotherapy Phase II trial in MCC

OncoSec Medical Incorporated, which is developing its advanced-stage OncoSec Medical System (OMS) ElectroOncology therapies to treat solid tumor cancers, today announced that physicians at the University of Washington and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in conjunction with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, have treated several patients in an open-label Phase II clinical trial evaluating OncoSec's OMS ElectroImmunotherapy for the treatment of Merkel cell carcinoma.

13 Feb 2012

SAMHD1 protein cuts off raw material that HIV needs to create DNA and replicate

A protein that protects some of our immune cells from the most common and virulent form of HIV works by starving the virus of the molecular building blocks that it needs to replicate, according to research published online in Nature Immunology.

13 Feb 2012

Study reveals how SAMHD1 works to protect dendritic cells from HIV virus

A novel discovery by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and colleagues reveals a mechanism by which the immune system tries to halt the spread of HIV. Harnessing this mechanism may open up new paths for therapeutic research aimed at slowing the virus' progression to AIDS. The study appears online ahead of print today in Nature Immunology.

12 Feb 2012

Scientists discover ferocity of immune system after viral infection

A scientific team led by researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Charité Berlin Medical University has made a completely unprecedented discovery showing how much our immune system is provoked into action when confronted by viral intruders.

10 Feb 2012

Gene therapy to promote remyelination in mouse model of MS

Our bodies are full of tiny superheroes-antibodies that fight foreign invaders, cells that regenerate, and structures that ensure our systems run smoothly. One such structure is myelin-a material that forms a protective, insulating cape around the axons of our nerve cells so that they can send signals quickly and efficiently. But myelin, and the specialized cells called oligodendrocytes that make it, become damaged in demyelinating diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS), leaving neurons without their myelin sheaths.

10 Feb 2012

New cERD method can detect RNAi activity in biological fluids

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that its scientists have discovered a novel method for monitoring RNAi activity in blood samples, representing a potential major advance for future development of RNAi therapeutics, other therapeutic modalities, and diagnostics.

10 Feb 2012

Gene therapy succeeds in the second blind eye for three patients

Three people have now have reported a dramatic improvement in vision after having gene therapy in both eyes after having lost their eyesight as children.

9 Feb 2012

NewsOne examines HIV in Caribbean

NewsOne examines HIV in the Caribbean, where one percent of the population is infected with the virus, "small in comparison to numbers found in the global scheme but significant enough to distinguish it as the second-highest region with HIV/AIDS outside of sub-Saharan Africa."

9 Feb 2012

Readministration of gene therapy improves vision in three patients with LCA

Gene therapy for congenital blindness has taken another step forward, as researchers further improved vision in three adult patients previously treated in one eye.

9 Feb 2012

Study implicates 'arms race' between genes and germs

Biologists have found new evidence of why mice, people and other vertebrate animals carry thousands of varieties of genes to make immune-system proteins named MHCs--even though some of those genes make vertebrate animals susceptible to infections and to autoimmune diseases.

9 Feb 2012

Four options for resolving bird flu research debate

In this Scientific American opinion piece, author and former staff writer at Scientific American John Horgan examines "a bitter debate" among scientists over the publication of controversial H5N1 research, writing, "Research involving the bird-flu virus H5N1 poses an especially knotty dilemma, in which scientists' commitment to openness -- and to reducing humanity's vulnerability to potential health threats -- collides with broader security concerns."

8 Feb 2012

GSK launches Medivir's Xerclear for OTC use in Europe

Medivir AB, the research-based specialty pharmaceutical company focused on infectious diseases, announces that its unique cold sore product Xerclear, which Medivir developed in-house, is now being launched for over-the-counter (OTC) use by its partner GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Europe.

8 Feb 2012

Elan fourth quarter total revenue increases 18% to $271.0 million

Elan Corporation, plc today reported its fourth quarter and full-year 2011 financial results.

8 Feb 2012

Forum for Collaborative HIV Research suggests new approach for conducting Phase 3 HIV clinical trials

As the war on HIV/AIDS begins its fourth decade, medical researchers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, patient advocates and government regulators face a new and unexpected scientific challenge: how to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of promising new antiretroviral drugs when the two traditional study designs – the superiority trial and the non-inferiority trial – are no longer useful in showing improvements in both "treatment experienced" patients and those who have never received drug therapy (treatment-naive patients).

7 Feb 2012

Antiretroviral therapy does not increase severity of psychiatric disorders

A study of more than 300 children and adolescents with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) revealed no association between specific antiretroviral therapy and the severity of psychiatric disorders.

7 Feb 2012

U.N. supporting yellow fever vaccination campaigns in Cameroon, Ghana

Following an outbreak of the mosquito-borne yellow fever virus in Cameroon that has infected at least 23 people and killed at least seven people, U.N. and local officials are working to vaccinate "1.2 million people considered at high risk of contracting yellow fever, which has no cure," the U.N. News Centre reports.

7 Feb 2012

BPS Annual Meeting to be held Feb. 25 - 29 in San Diego

The latest news and discoveries in medicine, physics, environmental science, and interdisciplinary fields will be featured at the 56th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society (BPS), held Feb. 25 - Feb. 29, 2012, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Calif. With more than 4,000 poster presentations, 200 exhibits, 20 symposia, and 6,000 research scientists in attendance each year, the BPS Annual Meeting is the largest meeting of biophysicists in the world.

7 Feb 2012

Positive data from Chimerix CMX001 Phase 2 study on CMV disease

Chimerix, Inc., a biotechnology company developing novel antiviral therapeutics, today announced positive results from CMX001 Study 201, a Phase 2 study evaluating CMX001 for the prevention of cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT) recipients.

6 Feb 2012

Asian bird flu update for Ferbruary 2012

Health workers in Nepal are to cull thousands of chickens following the discovery of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in the southeastern part of the Himalayan country.

6 Feb 2012