Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

Swiss HIV Cohort Study identifies simple method to determine time of infection

Identifying the time of HIV infection. Researchers of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study have identified a simple method to establish when a patient contracted the virus causing . The time of infection can be of importance for the treatment of the illness and it contributes to the understanding of the course of the epidemic.

20 Jan 2011

New research: HIV individuals are more likely to have stroke

New research suggests that people infected with human immunodeficiency virus may be up to three times more likely to have a stroke compared to those not affected with HIV. The study is published in the January 19, 2011, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

20 Jan 2011

Findings could speed use of RNA nanotechnology for treating disease

Scientists are reporting an advance in overcoming a major barrier to the use of the genetic material RNA in nanotechnology - the field that involves building machines thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair and now is dominated by its cousin, DNA. Their findings, which could speed the use of RNA nanotechnology for treating disease, appear in the monthly journal ACS Nano.

20 Jan 2011

Small molecules may inhibit entry of Ebola into human cells

Ebola, a virus that causes deadly hemorrhagic fever in humans, has no known cure or vaccine. But a new study by University of Illinois at Chicago scientists has uncovered a family of small molecules which appear to bind to the virus's outer protein coat and may inhibit its entry into human cells.

20 Jan 2011

Scientists determine protein structure that delivers genetic material of HIV to human cells

A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of Virginia has determined the structure of the protein package that delivers the genetic material of the human immunodeficiency virus to human cells.

19 Jan 2011

Study finds link between public transport and risk of catching ARI

You are six times more likely to end up at the doctors with an acute respiratory infection if you have recently used a bus or tram — but those who use buses or trams daily might well be somewhat protected compared with more occasional users.

19 Jan 2011

Legionnaires’ disease scare in Bali: Australian tourists warned

Commonwealth chief medical officer Jim Bishop has warned Australians who have returned from Bali on an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease on the popular Indonesian resort island. The Australian health authorities knew of 11 cases of Legionnaires’ disease detected in Victorians and Western Australians after holidays in the Kuta area of Bali between August 2010 and January 2011.

19 Jan 2011

Jayex launches online healthcare media library

Jayex, the healthcare digital display system specialist, today announces the launch of Med-Extranet; its online healthcare media library. Med-Extranet offers hospitals, clinics, and GP surgeries online access to educational videos, digital posters and public service announcements that can be displayed on patient waiting room screens.

19 Jan 2011

Transplant surgeons routinely use fewer organs from high-risk donors

As a response to a 2007 episode in which four patients in Chicago were transplanted with organs from a single donor unknowingly infected with HIV — the only such episode in 20 years — one-third of transplant surgeons in the United States "overreacted" and began routinely using fewer organs from high-risk donors, new research from Johns Hopkins finds.

19 Jan 2011

Collaborative study may lead to improved influenza vaccine and vaccines for other respiratory virus infections

A collaborative project between researchers at the Trudeau Institute and their colleagues at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., offers new insights that may lead to an improved strategy to protect against the influenza virus and other viruses that infect the respiratory tract.

19 Jan 2011

MD Anderson experts create plan to guide women on healthy behaviors

"A woman's life changes at every decade and so does her body," says Therese Bevers, M.D., medical director of MD Anderson's Cancer Prevention Center. "And, just as a woman sets personal and work-related milestones, she also should set health goals for every stage of life."

19 Jan 2011

Convalescent plasma therapy may reduce mortality rate in patients with H1N1 infection: Study

A study published in the February 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases suggests that convalescent plasma may reduce the death rate in patients severely ill with this type of influenza.

19 Jan 2011

Meganucleases used to prevent HSV-1 infection

Cellectis, announced today that scientists from Cellectis therapeutics, the French National Center For Medical Research (CNRS) and Institut de la Vision (Paris) have used its proprietary meganucleases to successfully prevent infection of cultured cells by a Herpes Simplex virus (HSV-1).

19 Jan 2011

WHO Director-General opens executive board session with calls for reform

Kicking off a nine-day annual WHO executive board meeting Monday, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan called for the board to consider areas where the agency can redirect resources in a more targeted manner so as to achieve greater outcomes, Reuters reports.

19 Jan 2011

Research provides new insight into how HIV protein's structural changes may alter viral infection into healthy cells

The UK's National Physical Laboratory with the University of Edinburgh and IBM's TJ Watson Research Center have published new research about the structure of an HIV-1 protein that could help to develop new drugs to stop the virus infecting healthy cells.

19 Jan 2011

UQAM student identifies gene linked to B-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia

Cyndia Charfi, a Ph. D student in biology at Universit- du Qu-bec - Montr-al (UQAM), supported by her thesis supervisors, Professor -ric Rassart, and Adjunct Professor Elsy Edouard, UQAM, Department of Biological Sciences and BIOMED Research Centre, made a major breakthrough in research on B-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia, a disease that occurs most commonly in children.

19 Jan 2011

UMMS begins MBL-HCV1 Phase 2 trial to prevent hepatitis C virus infection in liver transplant patients

Following a successful Phase 1 study for safety, researchers at MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School today announced the beginning of a Phase 2 clinical trial testing the ability of a human monoclonal antibody they developed to prevent hepatitis C virus infection of a donor liver in transplant patients.

19 Jan 2011

iBio grants commercial, royalty-bearing license to Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos for new yellow fever vaccine

iBio, Inc. today announced the grant of a commercial, royalty-bearing license to Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos of Brazil to develop, manufacture and sell certain vaccines based upon iBio's proprietary technology. Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos will invest more than $6 million to bring the first product - a new yellow fever vaccine - through Phase I clinical trials.

18 Jan 2011

Harbor Biosciences signs development agreements for HE2000, HE3235 and HE3286 with CIPI

Harbor BioSciences, Inc., a leader in the development of a proprietary class of adrenal steroid hormones as novel pharmaceuticals, announced it has licensed the research and development and commercialization rights for three of its products, exclusively in the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong, to China State Institute of Pharmaceutical Industry (CIPI).

18 Jan 2011

Scientists create GM chicken that does not spread bird flu to other chickens

"Scientists have developed genetically modified [GM] chickens that don't transmit bird flu [H5N1] to other chickens," HealthDay News/Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

18 Jan 2011