infectious diseases
For the first time, scientists have successfully treated monkeys infected with the deadly Ebola virus. Ebola causes hemorrhagic fever that kills up to 80 percent of humans infected with the virus. These findings, published in the December 13th issue of THE LANCET, represent an important step in the search for a treatment strategy for Ebola. Currently no effective therapies are available.
Scientists have identified several key molecules that block the activity of a toxin that causes botulism--an important first step in developing therapeutics to counter the disease. Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNT) are useful as therapeutic agents for treating a wide variety of muscle dysfunctions in humans, and are used cosmetically to reduce wrinkles. Paradoxically, the seven serotypes of BoNT, designated A through G, also are among the most lethal biological substances known.
Biomedical researchers in government, academia and industry have made tremendous progress working collaboratively towards developing countermeasures for bioterrorism, according to a report issued today on research funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health. The NIAID Biodefense Research Agenda for CDC Category A Agents--Progress Report describes myriad steps the Institute has taken since February 2002 to catalyze the development of vaccines, treatments and diagnostics for the most threatening bioterror agents. It was in February 2002 that NIAID convened the first Blue Ribbon Panel on Bioterrorism and its Implications for Biomedical Research, which provided NIAID with objective expertise on the Institute's biodefense future research plans and helped identify the highest priority areas.
Researchers have been awarded new federal grant money to develop experimental compounds that may someday extend the period during which a person exposed to anthrax can be treated successfully. Ravi Kane, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at Rensselaer, has been awarded a grant of $500,000 from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to develop inhibitors of the anthrax toxin. The inhibitors will be tested in collaboration with Dr. Jeremy Mogridge at the University of Toronto.
Nanotechnology researchers have developed a new method of testing whole blood that could allow emergency room doctors and other point-of-care health professionals to rapidly diagnose a variety of ailments, including hemorrhagic stroke, heart attack, and various infectious diseases. The test, which is faster than existing whole-blood immunoassays, uses gold nanoshells, tiny optically active gold-coated glass particles that are so small about 700 could fit in the diameter of a human hair.
A Yale researcher has identified an area of the brain he calls the brain temperature tunnel, which transmits brain temperature to an area of skin and has the potential to prevent death from heat stroke and hypothermia, and detect infectious diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The researcher found that a small area of skin near the eyes and the nose is the point of entry for the brain temperature tunnel. His research shows that this area is connected to a thermal storage center in the brain, and the area has the thinnest skin and the highest amount of light energy.
The next-generation anthrax vaccine, based on a decade of work at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, is now moving into not one, but four clinical trials. The group at the institute did the legwork for the current vaccine candidates by singling out which protein in Bacillus anthracis - the bacterium that causes anthrax - signals the body to produce immunity to the disease.
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced agreement with Chinese Vice Premier and Health Minister Wu Yi to increase collaboration with China toward improved detection and management of infectious diseases. The agreement stems from President Bush's pledge to Chinese President Hu Jintao to provide resources necessary to help stem the SARS epidemic in China.
Shoddy work by a DNA-repair enzyme allows tuberculosis-causing bacteria to develop antibiotic resistance, scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have discovered. Reported in the current issue of the journal Cell, the finding could lead to new ways to treat TB without risking the development of drug resistance.
Like a well-trained soldier with honed survival skills, the common bacterium, Group A Streptococcus (GAS), sometimes can endure battle with our inborn (innate) immune system and cause widespread disease. By investigating the ability of combat-ready white blood cells (WBCs) to ingest and kill GAS, researchers have discovered new insights into how this disease-causing bacteria can evade destruction by the immune system. The research is being published this week in the Online Early Edition of the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA."
Researchers have discovered how to grow a little-understood type of human immune cell. The cells, known as T-regulatory cells type 1 (Tr1), are thought to turn off unnecessary immune reactions and to block the action of immune cells that otherwise would attack the body and cause dangerous inflammation. The findings are reported in the Jan. 23 issue of the journal Nature.
Although the oceans cover 70 percent of the planet's surface, much of their biomedical potential has gone largely unexplored. Until now. A group of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, have for the first time shown that sediments in the deep ocean are a significant biomedical resource for microbes that produce antibiotic molecules. In a series of two papers, a group led by William Fenical, director of the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine (CMBB) at Scripps Institution, has reported the discovery of a novel group of bacteria found to produce molecules with potential in the treatment of infectious diseases and cancer.
Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis no longer must be considered a death sentence for infected individuals living in resource-poor nations, according to a study by a consortium of researchers led by Harvard Medical School's Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change. The study, which appears in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, provides the first hard evidence that outpatient community care in poor, urban shantytowns can work for this most difficult to treat form of tuberculosis. The multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatment model could ultimately help save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.
A pivotal efficacy trial of an experimental vaccine designed to prevent genital herpes in women began enrolling volunteers this week. The study will determine the vaccine's ability to prevent genital herpes disease in women who are free of two common types of herpes simplex viruses (HSV): HSV-1 and HSV-2. The trial will eventually enroll 7,550 women in at least 16 sites in the United States.
Clinical tests began today of a novel vaccine directed at the three most globally important HIV subtypes, or clades. Developed by scientists at the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center, part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the vaccine incorporates HIV genetic material from clades A, B and C, which cause about 90 percent of all HIV infections around the world. "This is the first multigene, multiclade HIV vaccine to enter human trials," said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. "It marks an important milestone in our search for a single vaccine that targets U.S. subtypes of HIV as well as clades causing the global epidemic."
