Feature Channels: Infectious Diseases

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NMSU researchers to trap and map Zika-carrying mosquitoes with a grant award from the New Mexico Department of Health

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African study finds genes that double the chance of developing bacteraemia when infected with the Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria.

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Drexel scientists have discovered an unusual mechanism for how two antimalarial drugs kill Plasmodium parasites. Amidst growing concerns about drug resistance, these findings could help to develop more effective drugs against the disease.

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Scientists at the University of Utah, ARUP Laboratories, and IDbyDNA, Inc., have developed ultra-fast, meta-genomics analysis software called Taxonomer that dramatically improves the accuracy and speed of pathogen detection. In a paper published today in Genome Biology, the collaborators demonstrated the ability of Taxonomer to analyze the sequences of all nucleic acids in a clinical specimen (DNA and RNA) and to detect pathogens, as well as profile the patient’s gene expression, in a matter of minutes.

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Click to go to the Sex and Relationships News Source

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Known as a definitive source for health care providers, "The Vaccine Handbook" is now available as an app.

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A new three-year $1.1 million grant from NASA is helping several organizations fine-tune current red tide forecasts in the Gulf of Mexico with the goal of offering public health managers, coastal residents and visitors a forecast that better reflects coastal conditions on more localized scales.

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Additional immune-system-modulatory approaches may help reduce risk of cardiovascular disease.

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The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum hijacks an immune system process to invade red blood cells, according to a study led by researchers at Penn State College of Medicine. Understanding how malaria invades the cells could lead to a more effective vaccine.

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Researchers from Brazil and Stanford University report on an ocular case study of three Brazilian infants with microcephaly presumed to be caused by Zika virus. Findings will appear in Ophthalmology, journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

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A relatively unknown molecule that functions like the engine of the cell and regulates metabolism could be the key to boosting an individual’s immunity to the flu – and potentially other viruses.

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In a study appearing in the May 24/31 issue of JAMA, Jiang He, M.D., Ph.D., of the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, and colleagues evaluated more than 3,500 participants with chronic kidney disease (CKD), examining the association between urinary sodium excretion and clinical cardiovascular disease (CVD) events.

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Environmental toxicology expert Steven Presley is testifying in front of the House Science Committee about his work with mosquito-borne illnesses and how to combat Zika.

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Researchers at the University of Southampton are to study the use of Chinese Herbal Medicines in treating recurrent urinary tract infections (RUTIs), in the first clinical trial of its kind in the UK.

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New Mexico State University researchers are testing the efficacy of commercially available wearable mosquito repellent devices.

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A study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases presents a cost-effectiveness tool that can help guide decisions regarding resource allocation to fund interventions targeted at curtailing the ongoing Zika virus outbreak. Analyses using the tool suggest that proposed funds to combat Zika in the US and other countries would be cost-effective, based on quantification of the serious health conditions associated with Zika infection.

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Action needs to be taken now in order to avert a global catastrophe, according to noted experts reporting in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

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In a review article, researchers from Virginia Tech, Yale University, and the National Institutes of Health study viral evolution with the aim of finding knowledge that might help prevent disease.

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Harvard researchers have created a new, greatly simplified, platform for antibiotic discovery that may go a long way to solving the crisis of antibiotic resistance.

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Vibrio cholerae infects roughly four million people annually, worldwide, causing severe diarrheal disease, and killing an estimated 140,000 people. Its success as a pathogen belies the challenges this bacterium faces. The waters this bacterium inhabits when it's not infecting H. sapiens can be 40 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than our normal body temperature. Now a team of investigators from the University of California, Santa Cruz provides new insights into how different temperatures in the bacterium's environment control expression of genes required for life at those temperatures. The research is published ahead of print May 20, 2016 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

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Immunology – and the idea that many diseases can best be addressed by boosting the body’s own immune response – is one of the hottest areas in medical research and clinical treatment. University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Chiba University School of Medicine in Japan have announced a new collaborative research center to investigate the most promising aspects of immunology, especially the area of mucosal immunology, and to speed development of clinical applications.

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A project by UT Southwestern Medical Center students is being recognized at a White House ceremony today for their outstanding commitment to increasing hepatitis awareness as part of the annual National Hepatitis Testing Day observance.

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Georgetown’s Lawrence O. Gostin, a public health law expert, says the U.S. House Zika bill on emergency funding at $622 million falls dramatically short of what is needed, and the delay in Congressional action has “compromised the ability of state health departments to prepare for Zika.”

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By studying the rare person — about one in a million — who can fight off viral infections more effectively than everyone else, investigators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed a strategy to help the rest of us achieve this enhanced anti-viral state.

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IBM's World Community Grid and scientists from Brazil, the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California San Diego, and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School have launched OpenZika, a project to find drug candidates to treat Zika, a fast spreading virus that the World Health Organization has declared a global public health emergency.

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A new skin test for tuberculosis infection has proven safe, easy to administer and accurate in two Phase III clinical trials, according to research presented at the ATS 2016 International Conference.

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An international team of researchers has shed light on the potential impact of new drugs for hepatitis C virus (HCV).

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Currently, production of vaccines and diagnostic systems for infectious diseases have failed to provide a systematic vision that merges state-of-the-art technologies with industry to provide an effective commercial solution. Infectious and rapidly transmitted diseases, such as Ebola and influenza, should be a focus of interest for these prospects.

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For the first time, researchers were able to demonstrate that children diagnosed with sickle cell disease showed improvement in lung function after treatment with hydroxyurea, a treatment that is underused despite its demonstrated benefits. The study was presented at the ATS 2016 International Conference.

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Why people on immunosuppressant drugs for autoimmune conditions have a higher incidence of an often-fatal brain disease may be linked to a mutation in a common virus, according to researchers at Penn State College of Medicine.

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Meilan Han, M.D., an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan and the medical director of the U-M Women’s Respiratory Health Program, is the lead author on a new report that set out to provide a comprehensive view of COPD care in the U.S.

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High levels of a digestive hormone called secretin may play an important role in the management of certain chronic liver diseases, according to new research published in the journal Hepatology.

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A streamlined approach to tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis requiring a single sputum sample and providing rapid, accurate results to patients proved feasible in rural Uganda, according to research presented at the ATS 2016 International Conference.

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Injections of the soil bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae promote stress resilience and improve coping behaviors in mice, according to a new study led by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and University of Colorado Boulder. The researchers also found that M. vaccae prevented stress-induced colitis, a typical symptom of inflammatory bowel disease, suggesting that immunization with the bacteria may have wide-ranging health benefits.

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A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that smokers, who wouldn’t typically be diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, are still showing symptoms consistent with the diagnosis.

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In a study of nearly 500,000 individuals in 22 countries, researchers could not find any evidence that these programs had an impact on changing individual behavior.

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Depressed Moms Not ‘in Sync’ with Their Kids, Children with ADHD Sleep Both Poorly and Less, Yeast Infection Linked to Mental Illness, and more in the Mental Health News Source

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Building on their groundbreaking research, Temple University scientists make another breakthrough in a potential cure for HIV.

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Antibiotic-resistant bacteria most often are associated with hospitals and other health-care settings, but a new study indicates that chicken coops and sewage treatment plants also are hot spots of antibiotic resistance.

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Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues in Brazil and Senegal, have described the first “direct experimental proof” that the Brazilian strain of Zika virus can actually cause severe birth defects. The findings are published in the May 11 online issue of Nature.

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Two mouse models of Zika virus infection in pregnancy have been developed by a team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In them, the virus migrated from the pregnant mouse’s bloodstream into the placenta and then to the brains of the developing pups.

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More comprehensive approaches to care needed, according to a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

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A study from the Department of Population Health at NYULMC and New York University's Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR), led by Scheidell, is the first to examine the association between borderline personality disorder (BPD) and the risk for HIV and other STIs in an adult male criminal justice population.