Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

Legionnaires’ disease scare in Bali: Australian tourists warned

Commonwealth chief medical officer Jim Bishop has warned Australians who have returned from Bali on an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease on the popular Indonesian resort island. The Australian health authorities knew of 11 cases of Legionnaires’ disease detected in Victorians and Western Australians after holidays in the Kuta area of Bali between August 2010 and January 2011.

19 Jan 2011

Jayex launches online healthcare media library

Jayex, the healthcare digital display system specialist, today announces the launch of Med-Extranet; its online healthcare media library. Med-Extranet offers hospitals, clinics, and GP surgeries online access to educational videos, digital posters and public service announcements that can be displayed on patient waiting room screens.

19 Jan 2011

Transplant surgeons routinely use fewer organs from high-risk donors

As a response to a 2007 episode in which four patients in Chicago were transplanted with organs from a single donor unknowingly infected with HIV — the only such episode in 20 years — one-third of transplant surgeons in the United States "overreacted" and began routinely using fewer organs from high-risk donors, new research from Johns Hopkins finds.

19 Jan 2011

Collaborative study may lead to improved influenza vaccine and vaccines for other respiratory virus infections

A collaborative project between researchers at the Trudeau Institute and their colleagues at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., offers new insights that may lead to an improved strategy to protect against the influenza virus and other viruses that infect the respiratory tract.

19 Jan 2011

MD Anderson experts create plan to guide women on healthy behaviors

"A woman's life changes at every decade and so does her body," says Therese Bevers, M.D., medical director of MD Anderson's Cancer Prevention Center. "And, just as a woman sets personal and work-related milestones, she also should set health goals for every stage of life."

19 Jan 2011

Convalescent plasma therapy may reduce mortality rate in patients with H1N1 infection: Study

A study published in the February 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases suggests that convalescent plasma may reduce the death rate in patients severely ill with this type of influenza.

19 Jan 2011

Meganucleases used to prevent HSV-1 infection

Cellectis, announced today that scientists from Cellectis therapeutics, the French National Center For Medical Research (CNRS) and Institut de la Vision (Paris) have used its proprietary meganucleases to successfully prevent infection of cultured cells by a Herpes Simplex virus (HSV-1).

19 Jan 2011

WHO Director-General opens executive board session with calls for reform

Kicking off a nine-day annual WHO executive board meeting Monday, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan called for the board to consider areas where the agency can redirect resources in a more targeted manner so as to achieve greater outcomes, Reuters reports.

19 Jan 2011

Research provides new insight into how HIV protein's structural changes may alter viral infection into healthy cells

The UK's National Physical Laboratory with the University of Edinburgh and IBM's TJ Watson Research Center have published new research about the structure of an HIV-1 protein that could help to develop new drugs to stop the virus infecting healthy cells.

19 Jan 2011

UQAM student identifies gene linked to B-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia

Cyndia Charfi, a Ph. D student in biology at Universit- du Qu-bec - Montr-al (UQAM), supported by her thesis supervisors, Professor -ric Rassart, and Adjunct Professor Elsy Edouard, UQAM, Department of Biological Sciences and BIOMED Research Centre, made a major breakthrough in research on B-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia, a disease that occurs most commonly in children.

19 Jan 2011

UMMS begins MBL-HCV1 Phase 2 trial to prevent hepatitis C virus infection in liver transplant patients

Following a successful Phase 1 study for safety, researchers at MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School today announced the beginning of a Phase 2 clinical trial testing the ability of a human monoclonal antibody they developed to prevent hepatitis C virus infection of a donor liver in transplant patients.

19 Jan 2011

iBio grants commercial, royalty-bearing license to Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos for new yellow fever vaccine

iBio, Inc. today announced the grant of a commercial, royalty-bearing license to Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos of Brazil to develop, manufacture and sell certain vaccines based upon iBio's proprietary technology. Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos will invest more than $6 million to bring the first product - a new yellow fever vaccine - through Phase I clinical trials.

18 Jan 2011

Harbor Biosciences signs development agreements for HE2000, HE3235 and HE3286 with CIPI

Harbor BioSciences, Inc., a leader in the development of a proprietary class of adrenal steroid hormones as novel pharmaceuticals, announced it has licensed the research and development and commercialization rights for three of its products, exclusively in the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong, to China State Institute of Pharmaceutical Industry (CIPI).

18 Jan 2011

Scientists create GM chicken that does not spread bird flu to other chickens

"Scientists have developed genetically modified [GM] chickens that don't transmit bird flu [H5N1] to other chickens," HealthDay News/Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

18 Jan 2011

Clinical studies by expert HIV clinicians suggest that HIV-TRePS may have clinical and economic benefits

Two multinational clinical studies indicate that the RDI’s system for predicting how HIV and AIDS patients will respond to different drugs could be a useful tool with potential clinical and economic benefits. The studies, published in the January issue of AIDS Patient Care and STDs, involved highly experienced physicians in the USA, Canada and Italy who used the system to help them select the optimum combination of HIV drugs for patients whose therapy was failing.

18 Jan 2011

New study reveals measles viral gene plays key role in development of PD

A gene from the measles virus plays a key role in the development of Paget's disease of bone, according to a team of researchers led by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

18 Jan 2011

FDA clears Nanosphere's RV+ test for detection of respiratory viruses

Nanosphere, a leader in the development and commercialization of advanced molecular diagnostics systems, announced today FDA 510(k) clearance for the Verigene Respiratory Virus Plus Nucleic Acid Test on the Verigene System.

14 Jan 2011

New research shows enzyme-armed oncolytic virus may help fight brain tumors

New research shows that oncolytic viruses, which are engineered to destroy cancer cells, might be more effective in treating deadly brain tumors if equipped with an enzyme that helps them penetrate the tumor.

13 Jan 2011

Chicks that don’t pass on bird flu

Influenza from birds, commonly known as H5N1 avian flu, has killed at least 306 people during the past seven years and innumerable birds and poultry. Now a team of scientists in Britain have developed a way to breed poultry that are genetically resistant to H5N1 or any other avian flu virus. The study by Scientists from Cambridge and Edinburgh universities was reported in the Jan. 13 issue of Science.

13 Jan 2011

BioCryst reports positive results from peramivir Phase 3 study in influenza

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced top-line results from one of its two Phase 3 studies of intravenous (i.v.) peramivir for the treatment of patients hospitalized with influenza, and provided an update regarding its peramivir program.

13 Jan 2011