Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

Study identifies new mechanism that impacts HIV infection

A team of scientists led by Texas Biomed's Assistant Professor Smita Kulkarni, Ph.D. and Mary Carrington, Ph.D., at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, published results of a study that pinpointed a long noncoding RNA molecule which influences a key receptor involved in HIV infection and progression of the disease.

25 Jul 2019

Johns Hopkins co-leads study on 'poliolike' condition affecting children

Johns Hopkins Medicine and University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers will lead a multicenter, multinational study of acute flaccid myelitis, the “poliolike” condition affecting children that causes loss of muscle control.

From Johns Hopkins Medicine 25 Jul 2019

New vaccine shows promise against toughest HIV strains

A new study reports successful immunization against a so-far invincible “death star” strain of an HIV-related laboratory virus (SIVmac239) and another tough strain. The new approach also achieves long-term protection with a single dose, showing that gene therapy could allow broad and durable protection, based on a modified form of the CD4 protein that allows HIV entry into human cells.

24 Jul 2019

Vaginal ring used by most women for HIV prevention in open-label study

In an open-label study of women in southern and eastern Africa, a vaginal ring that is inserted once a month and slowly releases an antiviral drug was estimated to reduce the risk of HIV by 39%, according to statistical modeling.

24 Jul 2019

New vaccine containing DNA and recombinant proteins may protect from HIV

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed a novel vaccine consisting of DNA and recombinant proteins?proteins composed of a portion of an HIV protein and another unrelated protein.

24 Jul 2019

Connection to HIV treatment services helps gay, bisexual population to achieve viral suppression

Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men and transgender women with HIV, who are not in care, can be engaged in care when reached and connected with HIV treatment services, according to findings from a clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health.

23 Jul 2019

Researchers identify encephalitis as rare toxicity of immunotherapy treatment

After a cancer patient receiving an immunotherapy developed encephalitis and died 18 months into treatment, researchers at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigated why the complication occurred, performing a molecular analysis of the disease's pathology and mining data to determine the incidence of similar occurrences.

22 Jul 2019

Facial microexpressions change your emotions, but how?

Why are people so easily influenced by the mood of others? Scientists think they have found the answer - our microexpressions.

22 Jul 2019

BIA Separations selected to support AveXis’ gene therapy pipeline

BIA Separations, a leading biochromatography development and manufacturing company, today announced it is collaborating with AveXis, a Novartis company, to enhance the commercial purification process for its gene therapy pipeline, beginning with Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi), the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved gene therapy indicated for the treatment of pediatric patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) who are less than two years of age.

22 Jul 2019

Scientists confirm HIV theory by sequencing 53-year old tissue

Researchers have extracted a near-complete HIV-1 genome from the lymph node tissue of a man who has been embedded in wax since 1966.

22 Jul 2019

How genetic differences in Epstein-Barr virus strains alter the way it behaves

Researchers at the University of Sussex have identified how differences in the genetic sequence of the two main strains of the cancer-associated Epstein-Barr virus can alter the way the virus behaves when it infects white blood cells.

19 Jul 2019

Study defines how diarrhea-causing rotavirus initially interacts with the host

Research by the Department of Microbiology of the University of Valencia, the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia and the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology of the CSIC has defined the initial interaction of human rotavirus P [8] (the main cause of gastroenteritis) with the recipients of the intestine.

18 Jul 2019

WHO declares the deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo a global health emergency

Ebola, the deadly viral infection, is spreading in Congo and the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced it as an international health emergency. Speaking in front of reporters, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave updates on the situation in the Central African country.

18 Jul 2019

Research opens possibility of developing single-dose gene therapy for inherited arrhythmias

Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital report creating the first human tissue model of an inherited heart arrhythmia, replicating two patients' abnormal heart rhythms in a dish, and then suppressing the arrhythmia with gene therapy in a mouse model.

17 Jul 2019

Women's greater immune response to flu vaccine declines with age

Women tend to have a greater immune response to a flu vaccination compared to men, but their advantage largely disappears as they age and their estrogen levels decline, suggests a study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

17 Jul 2019

Researchers find mechanism behind susceptibility to viral infections

A team of researchers from the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medicine Centre's Viral Research and Experimental Medicine Centre found that immune cells undergoing stress and an altered metabolism are the reasons why some individuals become sick from viral infections while others do not, when exposed to the same virus.

16 Jul 2019