Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

Bristol-Myers Squibb signs definitive agreement to acquire ZymoGenetics

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and ZymoGenetics, Inc. announced today that the companies have signed a definitive agreement providing for the acquisition of ZymoGenetics by Bristol-Myers Squibb, for $9.75 per share in cash.

8 Sep 2010

Researchers develop new RNA molecule approach to kill cancer cells

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have engineered a fundamentally new approach to killing cancer cells. The process developed by Niles Pierce, associate professor of applied and computational mathematics and bioengineering at Caltech, and his colleagues uses small RNA molecules that can be programmed to attack only specific cancer cells then, by changing shape, those molecules cause the cancer cells to self destruct.

8 Sep 2010

Teleflex partners with Access Scientific to distribute The PICC WAND vascular access device

Teleflex has partnered with Access Scientific Incorporated, San Diego, California to become the U.S. distributor of The PICC WAND™ Safety Introducer with ARROW® peelable sheath. This new, all- in-one vascular access device provides clinicians a faster, safer, simpler way to insert a peel away sheath for PICC or Midline catheter placements.

7 Sep 2010

Idenix Pharmaceuticals receives clinical hold order from FDA for IDX184, IDX320 programs

Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of drugs for the treatment of human viral diseases, today announced that the company received verbal notice on Friday, September 3, 2010 from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the IDX184 and IDX320 programs have been placed on clinical hold.

7 Sep 2010

University of Maryland School of Medicine orders AVANCE III 950 US2 NMR spectrometer from Bruker

Bruker Corporation announces a major order from the University of Maryland School of Medicine for its ultra-high field AVANCE III 950 US2 NMR spectrometer. The 950 MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance magnet and spectrometer will help University of Maryland researchers to unravel the mysteries of molecules and develop new agents to treat cancer, AIDS and other diseases.

7 Sep 2010

Researchers to develop new treatment strategy for cancer

Cancer is a difficult disease to treat because it's a personal disease. Each case is unique and based on a combination of environmental and genetic factors. Conventional chemotherapy employs treatment with one or more drugs, assuming that these medicines are able to both "diagnose" and "treat" the affected cells. Many of the side effects experienced by chemotherapy patients are due to the fact that the drugs they are taking aren't selective enough.

7 Sep 2010

New blood signature test to diagnose, treat respiratory infections

Coughing and wheezing patients could someday benefit from quicker, more accurate diagnosis and treatment for respiratory infections such as flu, through a simple blood test, according to scientists.

7 Sep 2010

Human endogenous retroviruses may provide insight evidence to HIV diagnosis

Why is it so hard to isolate and purify human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).Why has no one been able to see, by electron microscopy, a single HIV particle in the blood of AIDS patients, even those who have a "high viral load" Why does HIV seem to mutate with startling rapidity. AIDS researchers have not been able to come up with answers to these questions.

4 Sep 2010

Research provides new framework for quantifying risk of avian-borne diseases

In 2005 an outbreak of the H5N1 'bird flu' virus in South East Asia led to widespread fear with predictions that the intercontinental migration of wild birds could lead to global pandemic.

4 Sep 2010

Researchers complete INX-189 clinical trials for Hepatitis C virus

The first clinical trials on a new investigational drug being developed to treat infections caused by Hepatitis C virus have been successfully completed.

3 Sep 2010

Tibotec submits MAA for investigational HIV drug TMC278 to European Medicines Agency

Tibotec Pharmaceuticals today announced its submission of a Marketing Authorisation Application (MAA) to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for TMC278 (rilpivirine, as hydrochloride), an investigational non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) for the treatment of HIV. The proposed indication would make TMC278 available for once-daily use with other antiretroviral agents in treatment-naive HIV-1-infected adults.

3 Sep 2010

WHO revises treatment protocols for HIV patients

Prompted by clinical research into the early initiation of antiretroviral therapies for HIV performed at the GHESKIO clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the World Health Organization (WHO) has revised its treatment protocols for HIV patients.

3 Sep 2010

Researchers find role of Vpr protein in HIV infection

Dr. Éric A. Cohen, Director of the Human Retrovirology research unit at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), and his team published yesterday, in the online open-access journal PLos Pathogens, the results of their most recent research on the role of the Vpr protein in HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infection and AIDS (acquired autoimmune deficiency syndrome).

3 Sep 2010

New TB diagnostic test effective in first large-scale field trial

Research assessing the effectiveness of a new diagnostic test for the detection of tuberculosis (TB) is featured in the Sept. 1 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

3 Sep 2010

Researchers clear hurdle on path toward gene-therapy treatment for disease

One of the most difficult aspects of working at the nanoscale is actually seeing the object being worked on. Biological structures like viruses, which are smaller than the wavelength of light, are invisible to standard optical microscopes and difficult to capture in their native form with other imaging techniques.

2 Sep 2010

Promega to provide FuGENE HD Transfection Reagent throughout life science market

Promega Corporation announces it will provide FuGENE HD Transfection Reagent throughout the life science market. The comprehensive, direct use offering from Promega means any life scientist can utilize FuGENE technology with no licensing requirements. FuGENE HD enables the transfection of DNA into many cell types with high efficiency and little-to-no toxicity.

2 Sep 2010

Abbott RealTime HBV assay receives marketing approval from FDA

Abbott announced today it has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market the Abbott RealTime HBV assay for measuring viral load or the amount of hepatitis B virus in a patient's blood. It is the first and only approved test capable of automating HBV viral load testing from sample extraction to final results.

2 Sep 2010

Quidel's RapidVue hCG lateral flow pregnancy immunoassay granted FDA 510(k) clearance

Quidel Corporation, a leading provider of rapid diagnostic testing solutions, announced today that it has received 510(k) clearance from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the sale of Quidel's RapidVue® hCG test, a lateral flow pregnancy immunoassay for the qualitative detection of human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG).

2 Sep 2010

Also in Global Health News: China's first HIV discrimination case; Congo mass rape; S. Sudan flooding; Kenya's population growth; Family planning in the Philippines

"A municipal court in central China has accepted the country's first lawsuit alleging work discrimination because of HIV status, state media reported Tuesday," the Associated Press reports (8/31). "The lawsuit alleges city officials denied the plaintiff, a recent college graduate, a teaching job after a medical screening revealed he had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS," Agence-France-Presse reports (8/31).

2 Sep 2010

HaloSource signs agreement to use HaloPure disinfection cartridges in Bajaj water purification products

HaloSource, a leading clean water company, has signed an agreement with Bajaj Electricals Ltd, the Indian home appliance products company, for the use of HaloSource's revolutionary HaloPure disinfection cartridges in Bajaj water purification products.

31 Aug 2010