Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say that hepatic fibrosis, which involves scarring of the liver that can result in dysfunction and, in severe cases, cirrhosis and cancer, may be as much a consequence of genetics as environmental factors.
Clinical use of next generation sequencing (NGS) was implemented early in cancers and inherited diseases; now, its technology and applications are being applied to infectious diseases.
Stroke is very rare in children, but colds, flu and other minor infections may temporarily increase stroke risk in children, according to a study published in the September 30, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found routine childhood vaccines may decrease the risk of stroke.
The crude annual incidence rates for syphilis among U.S. service members rose 49.1 percent over a health surveillance period from 2010 to 2014, according to a new analysis published in the September issue of the Medical Surveillance Monthly Report from the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center (AFHSC).
A 20-million-year-old flea preserved in amber harbors the likely ancestor of bacteria that caused one of the world’s deadliest plagues.
A new test detects virtually any virus that infects people and animals, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where the technology was developed.
Scientists at Duke Medicine are using transparent fish to watch in real time as Cryptococcal meningitis takes over the brain. The resulting images are worthy of a sci-fi movie teaser, but could be valuable in disrupting the real, crippling brain infection that kills more than 600,000 people worldwide each year.
UCSF-led scientists completed a proof-of-principle study on a real-time blood test based on DNA sequencing that can be used to rapidly diagnose Ebola and other acute infections.
A unique molecule developed at Duke Medicine, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and MacroGenics, Inc., is able to bind HIV-infected cells to the immune system’s killer T cells. It could become a key part of a shock-and-kill strategy being developed in the hope of one day clearing HIV infection.
A study of influenza infection in animals broadens understanding of the immune response to flu virus, showing that the process is more dynamic than usually described. The findings may offer key insights for developing better vaccines.
There is little doubt that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV, is devastating. More than 1.2 million people in the United States are living with HIV and more than 47,000 people are diagnosed annually. Now, University of Missouri researchers have made a discovery in how specialized proteins can inhibit the virus, opening the door for progress in the fight against HIV and for the production of advanced therapeutics to combat the disease.
Researchers have discovered how a tiny viral protein enables the infection of a complex plant, and the finding could lead to understanding viral diseases in other plants, animals and humans, according to a team of Texas A&M AgriLife Research biochemists.
David Kimberlin, M.D., is the vice chair of Pediatrics, co-director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at UAB and a physician at Children’s of Alabama. He is the editor of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Red Book, which establishes which vaccines should be given, when and to whom. He is also the father of three children.
Models suggest that when social isolation and coinfection occur together, diseases can spread faster and further than with either effect alone.
Every year at this time, we hear it's time to get the flu shot. After last year's vaccine missed the mark, how does the Center for Disease Control regain the public's confidence that their predictions will hold up this year? With the facts.
UAB researchers have discovered a novel mechanism for one 1918 flu virus protein that may help explain the virulence of that unusually deadly pandemic. That outbreak killed 50 million to 100 million people.
When an older person gets hospitalized for pneumonia, where’s the best place to care for them? New research findings about deaths and health care costs in such patients fly in the face of conventional wisdom – and could change where doctors decide to treat them.
A deadly parasite that causes Chagas disease is widespread in a common Texas insect, according to a new study by University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) researchers. The finding suggests that the risk of Texans contracting the disease may be higher than previously thought.
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has added four Xenex Germ-Zapping Robots to its team. Each uses UV-C light to disinfect rooms and destroy pathogens, including Clostridium difficile, norovirus and MRSA.
Researchers have silenced genes within human cells to induce immunity to the parasite E. histolytica, demonstrating the effectiveness of a new approach to protecting people from infectious diseases.
The authors monitored the social and foraging behaviors of wild flocks of house finches, a common backyard songbird, and the spread of a naturally-occurring bird disease called Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis, which is similar to "pink eye" in humans but cannot be contracted by humans.
Reports of a super strain of head lice have many parents concerned as kids head back to the classrooms for the new school year. The dreaded “lice letter” that comes home in backpacks when lice is found in a classroom is causing even greater anxiety this year, as the bugs are becoming more resistant to over-the-counter shampoos and medications. A lice infestation is about as common as a cold, but trying to rid your life of them is even more of a head-scratcher than the disgusting bugs themselves.
Bacteria aren’t the only nonhuman invaders to colonize the gut shortly after a baby’s birth. Viruses also set up house there, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study is one of the first surveys of viruses that reside in the intestine, providing a first look at a healthy gut virome.
Three antibiotics that, individually, are not effective against a drug-resistant staph infection can kill the deadly pathogen when combined as a trio, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They have killed the bug — methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) — in test tubes and laboratory mice, and believe the same strategy may work in people.
Virginia Tech researchers have discovered a new group of antibiotics that may provide relief to some of the more than 2 million people in the United States affected by antibiotic resistance.
Researchers at NYU have conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies characterizing the incidence of the sexual transmission of HCV among HIV-positive MSM. The high reinfection rates and the attributable risk analysis suggest the existence of a subset of HIV-positive MSM with recurring sexual exposure to HCV. Approaches to HCV control in this population will need to consider the changing epidemiology of HCV infection in MSM.
An emerging class of drugs called Smac mimetics may lead to a safe and effective treatment to eradicate HIV.
New research led by NYU Langone Medical Center has uncovered why a particular strain of Staphylococcus aureus -- known as HA-MRSA -- becomes more deadly than other variations. These new findings open up possible new pathways to vaccine development against this bacterium, which the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions says accounts for over 10,000 deaths annually, mostly among hospital patients.
A new University of Kentucky study in the journal mBio shows that tissue cysts of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, long thought to be dormant, are quite active.
Among women in a malaria-endemic region in Kenya, daily iron supplementation during pregnancy did not result in an increased risk of malaria, according to a study in the September 8 issue of JAMA. Iron supplementation did result in increased birth weight, gestational duration, neonatal length, and a decreased risk of low birth weight and prematurity.
Multi-institutional, multidisciplinary study looks past antibiotics and sanitation to a third strategy to control infectious disease: Adjusting the landscape of the human body to remove the mechanism that allows pathogens to cause disease.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers say they have discovered a new way that the most prevalent disease-causing fungus can thwart immune system attacks.
Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have documented the accuracies of three new tests for more rapidly diagnosing drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB), which are much harder and more expensive to treat and which, experts say, represent a major threat to global public health.
The bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease has been found in the water system of a South Bronx apartment building.
Scientists have discovered that wild blueberry extract could help prevent dental plaque formation.
Vaccines to protect against an avian influenza pandemic as well as seasonal flu may be mass produced more quickly and efficiently using technology described today (Sept. 2) by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the journal Nature Communications.
Researchers at the University of Warwick’s School of Engineering are using imaging technologies, that are normally applied to automotive engines and sprays, to image thousands of mosquitoes to help develop better netting and physical protection against the malaria spreading insect.
A new study led by a UC San Francisco sleep researcher supports what parents have been saying for centuries: to avoid getting sick, be sure to get enough sleep.
The fungus Cryptococcus causes meningitis, a brain disease that kills about 1 million people each year. It’s difficult to treat because fungi are genetically quite similar to humans, so compounds that affect fungi tend to have toxic side effects for patients. Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified 18 proteins that play a role in spore formation and germination. The findings raises the possibility of preventing the disease by blocking the spores’ germination.
Study will explore safety, ability of vaccine to generate immune response
Compared with routine medical care, probiotics administered to critically ill patients in intensive care units showed no benefit in preventing the colonization of drug-resistant microbes in the intestinal tract, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Asian tiger mosquitoes can drive down yellow fever mosquito populations when the female chooses the wrong male with which to mate, UF/IFAS scientists say. Both insects transmit chikungunya and dengue, dangerous diseases affecting millions of people worldwide.
In 2006 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that most doctors should automatically screen all their patients, including older adults, for HIV even if they don't exhibit any symptoms. New research finds that despite this recommendation, testing among older adults has largely fallen over time.
An oral cholera vaccine that is in short supply could treat more people and save more lives in crisis situations, if one dose were dispensed instead of the recommended two, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.
Animals, including dogs and horses, can contract pythiosis from swimming spores. About 10 cases of humans getting sick from this disease have also been reported in the U.S.
By teasing apart the structure of an enzyme vital to the parasites that cause toxoplasmosis and malaria, Whitehead Institute scientists have identified a potentially ‘drugable’ target that could prevent parasites from entering and exiting host cells.
A bacterial infection turns non-farming social amoebae into farmers Washington University evolutionary biologists report in the August 24 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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