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Tag: "nile" at biology news

Promising new West Nile therapy cures disease in mice

West Nile virus alarmed Americans when it made its first U.S. appearance in New York City in 1999. It has since spread from coast to coast, sickened more than 16,000 Americans and killed more than 600. As the virus spread, medical investigators hastened research to develop an effective vaccine or therapy. None currently exist, but a newly published paper by researchers at Washington University in...

NIAID begins clinical trial of West Nile virus vaccine

A small trial testing the safety of an experimental vaccine targeting West Nile virus (WNV) opened today at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD. The vaccine, which will be tested first in 15 healthy adult volunteers, was developed for human clinical studies by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' (NIAID) Vaccine Research C...

Secrets to antibody's success against West Nile Virus surprise scientists

Insights may advance vaccines for related viruses including dengue fever. A monoclonal antibody that can effectively treat mice infected with West Nile virus has an intriguing secret: Contrary to scientists' expectations, it does not block the virus's ability to attach to host cells. Instead, the antibody somehow stops the infectious process at a later point. . "This was a complete surprise to u...

Mosquito study shows new, faster way West Nile can spread

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) have discovered a quick new way that mosquitoes can pass West Nile virus to each other. The new study challenges fundamental assumptions about the virus' transmission cycle and may help explain why it spread so rapidly across North America despite experts' predictions that it would progress more slowly or even die out. . In...

Researchers reverse juvenile diabetes in animal model

Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center researchers Massimo Trucco, MD, and Nick Giannoukakis, PhD, observed marked amelioration of diabetes in a mouse model by a novel treatment strategy involving specific modification of the animal's own dendritic cells, thereby reversing diabetes in animal studies. . The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the...

Screening blood for West Nile virus

A recent mandate to screen blood donations in all US states for West Nile virus (WNV) makes little sense from a public health point of view, say researchers from Columbia University and Harvard School of Public Health. . .. WNV can be detected in blood samples by recently developed and approved tests. These tests detect some but not all case...

Genetic mutation linked to West Nile virus infection

A genetic mutation that protects against HIV increases the risk of developing clinical West Nile Virus infection, according to a new study appearing online on January 9th in The Journal of Experimental Medicine. . .. This resistance was the theoretical basis for the development of...

New strategy developed to combat West Nile Virus

The spread of West Nile Virus appears to be triggered by a complex interaction of mosquitoes, nesting birds and specific weather patterns, scientists say, which leads to "amplification" of the virus within mosquito populations. . .. .. Many early hydrologic m...

Revealing the machinery underlying the 'plastic' juvenile brain

Among the central mysteries of neurobiology is what properties of the young brain enable it to so adeptly wire itself to adapt to experience—a quality known as plasticity. The extraordinary plasticity of the young brain occurs only during a narrow window of time known as the critical period. For example, children deprived of normal visual stimulation during an early critical period of the first f...