Feature Channels: Infectious Diseases

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Study explores why some people react altruistically to news about an Ebola outbreak while others do not.

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A well-known ‘superbug’ which was thought to have been a static or non-motile organism has been observed showing signs of active motility by scientists at The Universities of Nottingham and Sheffield.

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Plants are able to predict when infections are more likely to occur and regulate their immune response accordingly, new research has found. Led by the University of Warwick, the researchers discovered that a plants’ molecular clock is connected to their immune system to increase levels of resistance to infection at dawn – the time at which fungal infections appear most likely to occur, with plants unable to maintain the highest level of resistance at all times of day.

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Researchers have discovered how immune cells triggered by recurrent Strep A infections enter the brain, causing inflammation that may lead to autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders in children. The study, performed in mice, found that immune cells reach the brain by traveling along odor-sensing neurons that emerge from the nasal cavity, not by breaching the blood-brain barrier directly. The findings could lead to improved methods for diagnosing, monitoring, and treating these disorders.

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New research could lead to new treatments to prevent blockages and urinary tract infections experienced by many long-term catheter users.

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Increasing state alcohol taxes could help prevent sexually transmitted infections, such as gonorrhea, according to University of Florida Health researchers, who found that gonorrhea rates decreased by 24 percent in Maryland after the state increased its sales tax on alcohol in 2011.

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Team of scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute among those who combined large genomic and proteomic datasets to identify novel host targets to treat flu

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When we get cold sores, the reason is likely related to stress. For the first time, researchers discovered a cellular mechanism that allows the herpes simplex virus to reactivate. They also found how brain cells are duped into allowing this to happen so that the virus can cause disease.

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In newly published research, scientists at The Wistar Institute show that continued semen exposure in sex workers sustains changes in the cervical and vaginal microenvironment that may actually increase HIV-1 resistance. This information may lead the way to better preventative strategies that block the transmission of the virus and improved designs for future HIV vaccine studies that can monitor the described changes when recruiting sex workers into vaccine trials.

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Within weeks, flu will start spreading. Multiple national recommendations urge all healthcare workers to get the influenza vaccination, to reduce the chances they will pass the virus on to their patients. But a new study finds that more than half of hospitals still don’t require this.

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Researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health, in collaboration with the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, have identified a molecule expressed by Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi) that may facilitate the parasite’s evasion of the host’s immune system.

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Gene therapy can safely rebuild the immune systems of older children and young adults with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-X1), a rare inherited disorder that primarily affects males, scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have found. NIAID's Suk See De Ravin, M.D., Ph.D., is scheduled to describe the findings at the 57th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

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Scientists have discovered new details about how "cloaking" proteins protect the toxin that causes botulism, a fatal disease caused most commonly by consuming improperly canned foods. That knowledge and the cloaking proteins themselves might now be turned against the toxin -- the deadliest known to humankind.

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Yale Cancer Center researchers have developed a vaccine strategy that reduces the risk of flu infections in cancer patients at highest risk for influenza. The findings were presented Dec. 6 at the 57th annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology in Orlando, Florida.

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Epstein-Barr virus and Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus can infect and replicate in cultured and primary neurons.

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Investing in simple diagnostic tests could save lives and end disease epidemics in the developing world, say researchers in a supplement in the journal Nature.

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While balancing all their obligations is a challenge, these Sycamores say their athletic training makes them more focused in their research to learn why bacteria becomes resistant to antibiotics.

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Loyola offers HIV testing to all ED patients. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), of the 1.2 million Americans living with AIDS, one in eight do not know they are infected. To raise awareness for the importance of this potentially deadly infectious disease, December 1 is World AIDS Day.

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In a study into the prevention of HIV transmission, people who took the antiretroviral drug Truvada were 86% less likely to contract the disease than those who took a placebo, report the researchers who led the study.

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A reusable microfluidic device for sorting and manipulating cells and other micro/nano meter scale objects will make biomedical diagnosis of diseases cheaper and more convenient.

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A large multi-center clinical trial has found that a combination of antiviral medications can eradicate hepatitis C infection in more than 90 percent of patients with advanced liver disease.

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A larger portion of Africa is currently at high risk for malaria transmission than previously predicted, according to a new University of Florida mapping study.

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A novel class of antimicrobials that inhibits the function of a key disease-causing component of bacteria could be effective in fighting methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), one of the major drug-resistant bacterial pathogens, according to researchers at Georgia State University.

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The mosquito-borne virus chikungunya may lead to severe brain infection and even death in infants and people over 65, according to a new study that reviewed a chikungunya outbreak on Reunion Island off the coast of Madagascar in 2005-2006. The study is published in the November 25, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Many cases have occurred in the United States in people who acquired the virus while traveling, but the first locally transmitted case in the U.S. occurred in Florida in July.

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International nurse volunteers responding to the Ebola outbreak in West African encountered death on nearly every shift and worked under conditions that challenged their ingenuity in providing even basic care. That is according to one nurse's account in American Journal of Nursing, published by Wolters Kluwer, which provides a rare glimpse of the realities clinicians and patients with Ebola faced inside one Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU).

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A group of people with fatal H1N1 flu died after their viral infections triggered a deadly hyperinflammatory disorder in susceptible individuals with gene mutations linked to the overactive immune response, according to a study in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

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It is worthwhile to give patients expensive new drugs that can cure their hepatitis C much earlier than some insurers are now willing to pay for them, according to a UC San Francisco study that models the effects of treating the disease early versus late in its development.

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Vitamin D supplements do not reduce the number or severity of colds in asthma patients, according to a new study published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

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However commonplace it may be in human life, the sneeze remains somewhat of an enigma to science, and we are still a long way from understanding the simple sneeze in all its phlegm-flam glory. This month during APS’s DFD 2015 Meeting, researchers will present new work that shows how droplets are formed within a high-propulsion sneeze cloud -- a critical piece of the puzzle that has so far been missing.

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Certain strains of dengue virus, the agent of dengue fever, can progress into a severe infection called dengue hemorrhagic fever, killing about 5 percent of the people who develop it. To further research into dengue virus transmission, New Mexico State University received $400,000 from the NIH.

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According to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rates of sexually transmitted diseases like chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis climbed considerably in the U.S. in 2014. The center called the increases "alarming." The new data also show that among the more than 3,000 counties in the nation, Los Angeles County had the most cases of all three diseases in 2014.

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Study results just published in the New England Journal of Medicine have found that a new drug combination may simplify hepatitis C treatment for both patients and physicians.

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A new study from researchers at Tufts University found that coconut oil controlled the overgrowth of a fungal pathogen called Candida albicans in mice. In humans, high levels of C. albicans in the gastrointestinal tract can lead to bloodstream infections, including invasive candidiasis. The research suggests that it might be possible to use dietary approaches as an alternative to antifungal drugs in order to decrease the risk of infections caused by C. albicans.

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Chagas Disease, all a deadly bug-borne infection, Is spreading in Texas. Chagas is transmitted via the "kissing bug."

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A University of Georgia researcher has found that low levels of vitamin D may limit the effectiveness of HIV treatment in adults.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have new weapons in the fight against HIV. Their new study describes four prototype antibodies that target a specific weak spot on the virus.

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In a substantial number of cases—some two billion, in fact—the tuberculosis bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) isn’t active at all. Now, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered several first-in-class compounds that target these hidden infections.

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In children whose colds tend to progress and lead to severe wheezing and difficulty breathing — such that they are given oral corticosteroids as rescue therapy — researchers have shown that giving a common antibiotic at the first sign of cold symptoms can reduce the risk of the episode developing into a severe lower respiratory tract illness. The new study, led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, appears online Nov. 17 in JAMA.

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Researchers at the Toronto Western Hospital (TWH) Liver Clinic have found that a simple drug regimen delivered over 1​2 weeks achieved sustained eradication of several genotypes of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in 99 per cent of the trial's patients.

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Researchers from the University of Birmingham have, for the first time, identified how Salmonella infections that have spread to our blood and organs can lead to life-threatening thrombosis.

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Scientists have shown how a parasitic worm infection common in the developing world increases susceptibility to tuberculosis. The study raises the possibility of using inexpensive and widely available anti-parasitic drugs as a preventive measure in places where the parasite and TB are common — stopping infection with the parasite and reducing susceptibility to TB and the risk of a latent TB infection progressing to disease.

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The CDC’s Get Smart campaign involves a number of initiatives to prevent antibiotic resistance, manage existing antibiotics to preserve their effectiveness and help healthcare providers and families understand when prescribing an antibiotic is appropriate — and when it is not.

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Appropriate use of antibiotics is a critical step toward controlling the ongoing epidemic of health care-related Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), according to a special article in the November issue of Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice. The journal, affiliated with the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), the journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

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Johns Hopkins Children’s Center specialists report they have successfully treated and put in remission a 2-year-old, now age 5, with a highly virulent form of tuberculosis known as XDR TB, or extensively drug-resistant TB.

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A new study strengthens growing evidence that Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) is a sexually transmitted infection (STI). The findings are recently published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.