Feature Channels: Infectious Diseases

• share
• favorite_border

Tuberculosis (TB) is responsible for more than 1.8 million deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization, yet there has been little significant improvement in therapies in the past 20 years. This chronic disease is systemic, meaning it affects not only the lungs but also other organs, such as the lymph nodes and spleen. But a promising new treatment may be on the horizon.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

For people living with sickle cell disease, chronic pain becomes an all too familiar part of everyday life. The UT Physicians Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center is working to help change that.

• share
• favorite_border

November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. With the discovery that most pancreatic cancer cases are resistant to chemotherapy, researchers at the University of Notre Dame are looking for better ways to treat patients.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from the University of Toronto have discovered that mice infected with the common gut parasite Tritrichomonas muris are at an increased risk of developing inflammatory colitis. Their findings, which have been published online in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, expand the type of gut-resident microorganism that can affect the health of their host and suggest that related parasites may cause gastrointestinal disease in humans.

• share
• favorite_border

• Individuals with constipation had a 13% higher likelihood of developing chronic kidney disease and a 9% higher likelihood of developing kidney failure compared with individuals without constipation. • More severe constipation was linked with an incrementally higher risk for both chronic kidney disease and kidney failure.

• share
• favorite_border

Typhoid fever remains a serious global problem: it kills almost a quarter of a million people annually. To help promote typhoid vaccines, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given a $36.9 million grant to the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Vaccine Development (CVD). The project is a partnership with the Oxford Vaccine Group and PATH.

• share
• favorite_border

A rare neurological disease has recently taken center stage in the United States. Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) has been identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as the cause of eight hospitalizations in the Seattle-area alone, all of which involved children with polio-like symptoms. As of September 2016, 89 people in 33 states were confirmed to have AFM, with the CDC expressing concern about the sharp spike in cases in recent months.

• share
• favorite_border

A study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), in collaboration with scientists at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V., one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson and Gilead Sciences, Inc., has demonstrated that combining an experimental vaccine with an innate immune stimulant may help lead to viral remission in people living with HIV. In animal trials, the combination decreased levels of viral DNA in peripheral blood and lymph nodes, and improved viral suppression and delayed viral rebound following discontinuation of anti-retroviral therapy (ART). The research team’s findings appeared online today in the journal Nature.

• share
• favorite_border

In this preclinical study, 100 percent of the animal models were protected from Zika after vaccination followed by a challenge with the Zika virus. In addition, they were protected from degeneration in the cerebral cortex and hippocampal areas of the brain, while the other cohort showed degeneration of the brain after Zika infection.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Johns Hopkins report they have laid the foundation to develop novel antibiotics that work against incurable, antibiotic-resistant bacteria like tuberculosis by targeting an enzyme essential to the production and integrity of bacterial cell walls.

• share
• favorite_border

The tiny fruit fly can help humans investigate the genetic and neural bases of detecting painful or harmful cold stimuli and offer intriguing, potential implications for human health, according to a new study.

• share
• favorite_border

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) recently awarded $596,533.00 to Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (CPI) to initiate a partnership with Texas Biomedical Research Institute aimed at repurposing an antimalarial for use against the Ebola virus.

• share
• favorite_border

A new report finds some progress in combatting pneumonia and diarrhea among young children in the nations most severely impacted by the two diseases, but they remain responsible for hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths around the world.

• share
• favorite_border

Antibody VRC01 proves safe for individuals infected with HIV-1 but only modestly controls the virus in participants who stop receiving antiretroviral therapy.

• share
• favorite_border

Traditional leather manufacturing requires the use of several toxic chemicals, such as halogenated flame retardants or organic antimicrobial solvents, which cause pollution. Now, a team of researchers led by Robert Franz of the Montanuniversität in Leoben, Austria are testing an eco-friendly alternative: silver-titanium nanoparticles.

• share
• favorite_border

Baylor Scott & White Research Institute will be home to one of four new Centers of Research Translation, or CORTs. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases will fund $8.5 million over five years toward the center’s research, which aims to better understand the development of severe lupus in children and could ultimately lead to new personalized treatments.

• share
• favorite_border

During the AVS 63rd International Symposium and Exhibition being held November 6-11, 2016, in Nashville, Tennessee, Stephane Evoy, an applied physicist from the University of Alberta, will explain how the team recognized the limited reliability of antibodies in providing bacteria detection with specificity. Instead they used phage-derived proteins, proteins developed from the bacteria-invading viruses, for detection of pathogenic bacteria to address this deficiency. This work has implications not only in disease diagnosis, but also in food and water safety.

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins University received a $10 million grant from the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation to explore Lyme disease and develop potential new therapies to address the illness. Johns Hopkins is the only institution in the nation to receive multiple Lyme disease grants from the foundation.

• share
• favorite_border

University of California, Irvine and MIT researchers have developed a new strategy to immunize against microbes that invade the gastrointestinal tract, including Salmonella, which causes more foodborne illness in the United States than any other bacteria.

• share
• favorite_border

“Pneumonia is the top infection-linked killer of children globally,” says Roomi Nusrat, MD, a member of the American Thoracic Society’s Pneumonia Working Group and Allergy, Immunology and Inflammation Assembly. “It is responsible for more than 50,000 deaths each year in the U.S.”

• share
• favorite_border

Outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease chikungunya appear to be driven by infections centered in and around the home, with women significantly more likely to become ill, suggests new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Institut Pasteur in Paris and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b).

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at Duke Health and Zhejiang Chinese Medical University have developed a strategy to stop the uncontrollable itch caused by urushiol, the oily sap common to poison ivy, poison sumac, poison oak and even mango trees. The team found that by blocking an immune system protein in the skin with an antibody, they could halt the processes that tell the brain the skin is itchy.

• share
• favorite_border

For the first time, scientists have prevented urinary tract infections in mice by vaccinating them with tiny molecules that UTI bacteria usually use to grab iron from their host and fuel the growth of bacteria in the bladder.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Houston Methodist researchers have discovered a set of immune proteins that facilitate long-lasting immunity against malaria. In a study recently published in Immunity (online Oct. 25), researchers reported that elevated production of specific proteins regulating the immune system within 24 hours of infection was required for a resilient and sustained anti-malaria immunity in mice.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine have identified a human antibody that prevents, in pregnant mice, the fetus from infection and the placenta from damage. The antibody also protects adult mice from Zika disease.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, have isolated a human monoclonal antibody that in a mouse model "markedly reduced" infection by the Zika virus.

• share
• favorite_border

Two researchers at the UNC School of Medicine have been named to a global consortium for Zika research and vaccine development.

• share
• favorite_border

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk of developing bladder cancer, according to a systematic review of seven studies presented today at the Society for Endocrinology annual conference in Brighton. Though further clinical studies are needed to confirm the findings, the study adds to a growing body of evidence on the importance of maintaining adequate vitamin D levels.

• share
• favorite_border

Some patients with rare primary immunodeficiency disorders may be at risk for infection by rubella virus, and possibly serious skin inflammation, after receiving the rubella vaccine, usually administered as part of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. Although the vaccine for rubella (German measles) has an established record of safety and effectiveness in the general population, patients with severe deficiencies in their immune defenses may be susceptible to side effects from the vaccine.

• share
• favorite_border

Exercise during pregnancy may be as effective in protecting the next generation from age-related health risks as efforts made during the offspring's own adulthood. Researchers from the University of Kentucky think that short-term lifestyle changes during pregnancy may have a long-lasting effect on future generations. Findings will be presented at the Integrative Biology of Exercise 7 meeting.

• share
• favorite_border

In the unlikely event of the zombie apocalypse, it would take less than two months for the undead to take control of the city, says a new study by researchers at Argonne National Laboratory.

• share
• favorite_border

Few treatments exist for bacteria-caused intestinal inflammation that leads to diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps. But University of California, Irvine microbiologists have demonstrated a new approach that may lead to more effective remedies.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study co-led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) suggests that Ebola virus gained a genetic mutation during the 2013–16 epidemic that appears to have helped it better target human cells.

• share
• favorite_border

Today’s release of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 14th Report on Carcinogens includes seven newly reviewed substances, bringing the cumulative total to 248 listings.

• share
• favorite_border

The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences’ International Medicine Programs and Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine are co-sponsoring a two-day scientific research summit with the Instituto Butantan and Universidade de São Paulo focused on Zika virus.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at the Center for Global Health & Diseases at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and international colleagues, have provided the first of its kind comprehensive assessment of the current status of malaria in Madagascar, laying the groundwork for the 2018-2022 national strategic plan for eliminating malaria in the island nation off the southeast coast of Africa.

• share
• favorite_border

Mayo Clinic nephrologists have uncovered a connection between first-time kidney stone formers and chronic kidney disease. In a paper published today in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers announce a persistent decline in kidney functioning following an individual’s first case of kidney stones.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have developed an experimental vaccine to battle melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. It’s an example of cutting-edge immunotherapy, the harnessing of the immune system’s power to battle disease. But it also represents a fulfillment of potential UVA recognized 25 years ago. In 1991, with financial support from businessman Beirne B.

• share
• favorite_border

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a complex condition that requires a lifetime of care and increases a person's cancer risk. But its origins are still a mystery. Now, a team of researchers have created a new culture model of the human intestine where living tissue from a patient biopsy can be preserved and studied for days. They describe their work in this week’s Biomicrofluidics.

• share
• favorite_border

The real issue, as assistant professor Joy Rumble found in her newly published study, is that few Floridians bother to find out the safest ways to prevent food-borne illnesses. And it’s not that they don’t care, said Rumble, an assistant professor in agricultural education and communication. “They’ve just never had a reason to care. They don’t know they are doing something wrong, or they’ve never knowingly gotten sick from something they made.”

• share
• favorite_border

ISPOR offered an issue panel, "Valuing Transformative Medicines in Rare Diseases: Methods and Madness," at the Society’s 19th Annual European Congress in Vienna, Austria.

• share
• favorite_border

Implanted medical devices like catheters, surgical mesh and dialysis systems are ideal surfaces on which bacteria can colonize and form hard-to-kill sheets called biofilms. Known as biofouling, this contamination of devices is responsible for more than half of the 1.7 million hospital-acquired infections in the United States each year.

• share
• favorite_border

Unique technology saves life of healthy 54-year-old who nearly dies after contracting aggressive, H1N1, flu strain. A former non-believer, he now promotes regular flu shots as prevention

• share
• favorite_border

The delay between the time when a disease outbreak becomes possible and when it actually happens depends chiefly on how frequently infection is introduced to the population and how quickly the number of cases caused by a single individual increases, according to new research from the University of Georgia.

• share
• favorite_border

Center will educate health care personnel on how to best treat people with highly infectious diseases such as Ebola

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City have identified a possible mechanism behind the fibrosis that occurs in scleroderma – a mechanism that may one day lead to a treatment for the disease.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study (www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(16)30688-5/fulltext) from the University of Chicago Medicine examines the use of social media platforms to inform young physicians about proper use of antimicrobial agents such as antibiotics. Currently, as much as 50 percent (www.cdc.gov/getsmart/healthcare) of all antibiotic use is inappropriate, leading to such unintended consequences such as antibiotic toxicity and increased antimicrobial resistance. Ensuring optimal use of antibiotics continues to be a central public health concern, and medical residents are a central focus of efforts to improve education in this field. But the question remains as to the best way to reach them.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study shows that Zika targets the male reproductive system, at least in mice. Three weeks after Zika infection, male mice had shrunken testicles, low levels of sex hormones and reduced fertility. The results suggest that Zika infection may interfere with men’s ability to have children.