Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

Researchers create super-sensor that can detect even single samples of viruses

By affixing nanoscale gold spheres onto a microscopic bead of glass, researchers have created a super-sensor that can detect even single samples of the smallest known viruses. The sensor uses a peculiar behavior of light known as "whispering gallery mode," named after the famous circular gallery in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, where a whisper near the wall can be heard around the gallery.

24 Aug 2012

Scientists develop reliable method to convert adult blood cells into iPSCs

Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a reliable method to turn the clock back on blood cells, restoring them to a primitive stem cell state from which they can then develop into any other type of cell in the body.

24 Aug 2012

New disease causes AIDS-like symptoms but not spread through virus

"Researchers have identified a mysterious new disease that has left scores of people in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms even though they are not infected with HIV," the Associated Press reports.

24 Aug 2012

The Wistar Institute, MSKCC partner to publish first annotated atlas of Epstein-Barr virus genome

Researchers from The Wistar Institute and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) have teamed to publish the first annotated atlas of the Epstein-Barr virus genome, creating the most comprehensive study of how the viral genome interacts with its human host during a latent infection. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which is thought to be responsible for one percent of all human cancers, establishes a latent infection in nearly 100 percent of infected adult humans.

24 Aug 2012

Influenza virus can change microRNA expression to control immune responses in human lung cells

When you are hit with the flu, you know it immediately -- fever, chills, sore throat, aching muscles, fatigue. This is your body mounting an immune response to the invading virus. But less is known about what is happening on the molecular level.

24 Aug 2012

Antibiotics: do they affect contraceptives?

NPS MedicineWise has released information for consumers about taking antibiotics when also using hormonal contraceptives, explaining that there are only two antibiotics that affect how hormonal contraceptives work.

23 Aug 2012

Mosquitoes in the U.S. can be infected with Chikungunya virus from Asia

New research from SRI International finds that mosquitoes commonly found in the United States can be infected with a disease-causing virus from Asia. The research findings are from a recent study that modeled how mosquito-borne infections can become introduced.

23 Aug 2012

New results describe development of DC cancer vaccine with enhanced immunogenic potential

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading RNAi therapeutics company, and collaborators at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in the Netherlands announced today that they have published new pre-clinical results in the journal Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy describing the development of a dendritic cell (DC) cancer vaccine with enhanced immunogenic potential.

23 Aug 2012

Study identifies how RNA viruses hijack a host cell to multiply

By discovering how certain viruses use their host cells to replicate, UC Irvine microbiologists have identified a new approach to the development of universal treatments for viral illnesses such as meningitis, encephalitis, hepatitis and possibly the common cold.

23 Aug 2012

Link between specific weather conditions and dengue fever outbreaks

Dengue fever, transmitted by the Aedes mosquito, affects hundreds of millions of people in around one hundred tropical countries and causes 25 000 deaths per year. In the absence of a vaccine, determining the factors that influence epidemics to predict them better is a real public health challenge. One scientific study, conducted in New Caledonia, demonstrates the essential role of the local climate in epidemic dynamics. IRD researchers and their New Caledonian colleagues analysed epidemiological and climatological data gathered in Noumea over forty years.

23 Aug 2012

Spicy solution for viral infection

Curcumin, the main compound in the spice turmeric, prevents replication of mosquito-borne Rift Valley Fever virus in infected cells, report researchers.

22 Aug 2012

Blood cells returned to stem cell state by Johns Hopkins researchers

22 Aug 2012

New PrescribeWellness initiative aims to increase flu vaccination rates in the U.S.

PrescribeWellness today launched its "A Million More" Flu Shot Initiative with the goal of increasing the influenza vaccination rate by one million more Americans.

22 Aug 2012

RNA switches can better equip and regulate viruses for many therapeutic applications

Numerous viruses are used in the service of science today. They serve as gene taxis to transfer therapeutic genes into body cells or as therapeutic viruses targeted to infect and destroy cancer cells. For such applications, the viruses are often equipped with additional genes, such as for immune mediators or for proteins inducing programmed cell death. However, these gene products can harm the body if they are released at the wrong moment or at excessive levels.

22 Aug 2012

Musical memory organized at least partially independent of the hippocampus

Together with his team, Prof. Christoph Ploner, director of the Department of Neurology at the Virchow campus, examined a professional cellist who suffered from encephalitis caused by a herpes virus. As a result of the inflammation, the patient developed serious disturbances in memory. Both his memory for the past (retrograde amnesia), as well as the acquisition of new information (anterograde amnesia) were affected.

22 Aug 2012

International community must redouble efforts to ensure 'many' AIDS-free generations

A Lancet editorial discusses the agenda of the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) in Washington last month and asks how the success of the conference will be judged at the XX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2014), to be held in Melbourne, Australia.

22 Aug 2012

NIAID announces 14 grants for basic research to identify new HIV vaccine approaches

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded 14 grants totaling $7.8 million in first-year funding for basic research to identify new approaches for designing a safe and effective HIV vaccine.

22 Aug 2012

Vitamin D may help fight childhood acute respiratory infections

Supplementation with vitamin D, particularly in winter, appears to reduce a child’s risk for contracting acute respiratory infections by almost 50%, show results from a Mongolian study.

21 Aug 2012

Sore throat treatment should be individually tailored

Throat discomfort may have a variety of causes and a range of symptoms, all of which should be considered before decisions about treatment are made, report researchers.

21 Aug 2012

Declining circumcision rates in the US raise healthcare costs and disease risk

A team of disease experts and health economists at Johns Hopkins warns that steadily declining rates of U.S. infant male circumcision could add more than $4.4 billion in avoidable health care costs if rates over the next decade drop to levels now seen in Europe.

21 Aug 2012