Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

TSRI researchers have new weapons to combat HIV

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have new weapons in the fight against HIV. Their new study, published November 17, 2015 as the cover article of the journal Immunity, describes four prototype antibodies that target a specific weak spot on the virus. Guided by these antibodies, the researchers then mimicked the molecular structure of a protein on HIV when designing their own potential HIV vaccine candidate.

18 Nov 2015

Positive data from AbbVie's HCV clinical development program presented at The Liver Meeting of AASLD

AbbVie, a global biopharmaceutical company, today announced data from the SURVEYOR studies of its investigational HCV regimen, ABT-493, an NS3/4A protease inhibitor, and ABT-530, an NS5A inhibitor, that show high rates of sustained virologic response at 12 weeks post-treatment (SVR 12) in non-cirrhotic patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.

17 Nov 2015

Scientists show how absence of microbiota has remarkable effect against obesity

In the past few years, research on gut microbiota (that is, all microorganisms, mainly bacteria, inhabiting our gut) has started to unravel its tremendous role in our body, and how it symbiotically affects the functioning of our organs. In particular, microbiota has also an impact on the way calories are absorbed and how fat cells develop.

17 Nov 2015

Improved gene therapy treatment shows promise in mice with cystic fibrosis

An improved gene therapy treatment can cure mice with cystic fibrosis (CF). Cell cultures from CF patients, too, respond well to the treatment. Those are the encouraging results of a study presented by the Laboratory for Molecular Virology and Gene Therapy at KU Leuven, Belgium.

17 Nov 2015

New cancer control interventions may decrease cancer burden in low- and middle-income countries

In low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), where 5.5 million of the world’s 8 million cancer deaths occur each year, most people with cancer have little or no access to treatment and many die in severe pain for lack of inexpensive opioid pain medicine.

17 Nov 2015

UC Irvine Health researchers develop one-step test to detect HCV infections

UC Irvine Health researchers have developed a cost-effective one-step test that screens, detects and confirms hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections. Dr. Ke-Qin Hu, director of hepatology services, will present findings at the Annual Meeting of American Association for the Study of Liver Disease in San Francisco, Nov. 14-16. Current blood-based HCV testing requires two steps and can be expensive, inconvenient and is not widely available or affordable globally.

15 Nov 2015

FixHepC Buyers Club exposes weakness in Australian healthcare, assists patients to import life saving medication

In one of the greatest advances in medicine in decades, Hepatitis C is now largely curable. Over 200,000 Australians suffer from Hepatitis C. However the US manufacturer, Gilead Sciences Inc is attempting to charge the PBS $84,000 for a 12 week course of medication that costs under $200 dollars to manufacture.

13 Nov 2015

CHOP researchers delay symptoms, extend lifespan in animal model of Batten disease

Researchers have taken a significant step forward in developing gene therapy against a fatal neurodegenerative disease that strikes children. By delivering a working version of a gene to produce a key enzyme that is lacking in Batten disease, the scientists delayed symptoms and extended lifespan in dogs with a comparable disease.

12 Nov 2015

Discovery could offer clues to how some viruses control expression of genetic material

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Michigan have produced the first image of an important human protein as it binds with ribonucleic acid (RNA), a discovery that could offer clues to how some viruses, including HIV, control expression of their genetic material.

12 Nov 2015

Montefiore and Einstein researchers awarded $14 million PCORI grant for hepatitis C research

A research team at Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine led by Alain Litwin, M.D., was awarded $14 million by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to determine how best to treat hepatitis C among people who inject drugs (PWID), a group with a high rate of infection.

11 Nov 2015

Dengue-infected patients with few or no symptoms transmit virus to mosquitoes

Scientists at the Institut Pasteur in Cambodia, the Institut Pasteur in Paris and the CNRS provided proof that people infected by dengue virus but showing no clinical symptoms can actually infect mosquitoes that bite them.

11 Nov 2015

Simple self-rating of health accurately predicts susceptibility to common cold

New research from Carnegie Mellon University psychologists shows that a simple self-rating of health accurately predicts susceptibility to the common cold in healthy adults aged 18-55 years. Published in Psychosomatic Medicine, the study - led by CMU's Sheldon Cohen - indicates that low self-rated-health is associated with poorer immune system competence.

10 Nov 2015

European regulator concludes that evidence does not support a causal relationship between human papillomavirus vaccines and CRPS or POTS

The European Medicines Agency’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) has completed a detailed scientific review of the evidence surrounding reports of two syndromes, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) in young women given human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines.

10 Nov 2015

New funding for Centenary's life saving research

The Centenary Institute has welcomed the Federal Government’s announcement of funding for 9 new and innovative medical research projects via the latest round of NHMRC grant rounds funding, officially confirmed today.

9 Nov 2015

WHO praises Sierra Leone for stopping Ebola transmission

The World Health Organization declares that Ebola virus transmission has been stopped in Sierra Leone. Forty-two days, that is two Ebola virus incubation cycles, have now passed since the last person confirmed to have Ebola virus disease had a second negative blood test.

9 Nov 2015

Nightstar announces $35 million Series B financing round

NightstaRx Ltd, a biopharmaceutical company specialising in developing gene therapies for inherited retinal dystrophies, announces a $35 million Series B financing round. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates, one of the world's leading venture capital firms.

9 Nov 2015

Combatting viral and bacterial lung infections with volatile anesthetics: an interview with Dr Chakravarthy

Inhaled anesthetics are fairly common all over the world for minor and extensive surgical procedures in patients of all age groups. In the olden days when anesthesia was first developed, ether was the first inhaled anesthetic. That has been replaced, with the more recent discoveries of sevoflurane, isoflurane, and desflurane.

9 Nov 2015

MPP announces expansion of mandate to hepatitis C and TB medicines

The Medicines Patent Pool, the world's only voluntary licensing mechanism in public health, announced an expansion of its mandate today to hepatitis C and tuberculosis medicines. The UNITAID Executive Board, meeting November 4-5 in Geneva, approved the MPP's proposals to improve access to both life-saving direct acting antivirals (DAAs) to treat hepatitis C and new and re-purposed medicines for tuberculosis.

6 Nov 2015

Viralytics enters into clinical trial collaboration agreement with MSD

Viralytics Limited announced today that it has entered into a clinical trial collaboration agreement through subsidiaries of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, New Jersey, U.S.A. (known as MSD outside the United States and Canada) to evaluate the combination of Viralytics' investigational cancer immunotherapy CAVATAK, with MSD's KEYTRUDA, an anti-PD-1 (programmed death receptor-1) therapy.

6 Nov 2015

Researchers successfully test new method for rapid diagnosis of Ebola in Guinea

An international team of researchers, including Ahmed Abd El Wahed, scientist at the University of Göttingen and the German Primate Center, has tested a new method for rapid diagnosis of Ebola in a field trial in Guinea. The test procedure was carried out using a portable suitcase laboratory. The mobile suitcase lab is operated with solar power and enables simple on-site diagnostics in remote areas without the need of an equipped laboratory.

6 Nov 2015