Infectious

Researchers reveal the infectious impact of salmon farms on wild salmon

A new study published in the March 30th edition of the prestigious scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B (a publication of the UK's national academy of science) shows that the transfer of parasitic sea lice from salmon farms to wild salmon populations is much larger and more extensive than previously believed. This quantitative analysis of parasite transfer is a scientific...

A bacterial genome reveals new targets to combat infectious disease

More than a billion people are at risk for infection with filarial nematodes, parasites that cause elephantiasis, African river blindness, and other debilitating diseases in more than 150 million people worldwide. The nematodes themselves play host to bacteria that live within their cells, but in this case, the relationship is classic mutualism, with each benefiting from the other. Indeed, the Wo...

Development of portable infectious disease detector

A portable device similar to today's homepregnancy tests that can quickly detect the presence of infectiousdiseases, including HIV-AIDS and measles, as well as biological agentssuch as ricin and anthrax, is the object of a new jointuniversity/industry research project.Vanderbilt University's Institute for Integrative Biosystems Researchand Education (VIIBRE) and Pria Diagnostics LLC, a priv...

Major breakthrough in the treatment of cancers and infectious diseases

Montreal researchers identify new anti-cancer, anti-infection response control mechanism Dr. André Veillette, a researcher at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), and his team will publish in the upcoming issue of the prestigious journal Nature Immunology of Nature Publishing Group, a discovery that could significantly advance the treatment of cancers and infectious di...

Hide and seek: Researchers discover a new way for infectious bacteria to enter cells

French scientists have learned how bacterium, found in soil and water, can be transmitted to humans via undercooked and unpasteur...

Researchers create infectious hepatitis C virus in a test tube

A team of researchers led by scientists at The Rockefeller University has produced for the first time an infectious form of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in laboratory cultures of human cells. The finding, reported in the June 9 issue of Science Express, will allow scientists to study every stage of the HCV life cycle and develop drugs to treat this life-threatening disease that affects more than 1...

Infectious disease expert warns of spread of Rocky Mountain spotted fever

An infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins who has spent nearly three decades studying the life-threatening, tick-borne infection known as Rocky Mountain spotted fever warns that the first widespread outbreak of the bacterial disease in Arizona is a growing and dangerous sign of how humans can inadvertently help spread infectious organisms beyond traditional state boundaries. In an arti...

Hurricane aftermath: Infectious disease threats from common, not exotic, diseases

In the wake of Katrina, the public health threats from infectious diseases in hurricane-devastated areas are more likely to come from milder, more common infections rather than exotic diseases. These common infections can often be prevented using simple hygiene measures and a little common sense. "Deadly diseases, such as typhoid or cholera, are unlikely to break out after hurricanes and f...

New NIAID grants strengthen national biodefense and emerging infectious diseases research network

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, today announced four-year grants totaling approximately $80 million for two new Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (RCE). The grants to the University of California, Irvine, and Colorado State University (Fort Collins) mark the completi...

Supersized 'island' of resistance genes discovered in an infectious bacterium

Researchers have discovered a cluster of 45 genes coding for antibacterial drug resistance in the bacterium, Acinetobacter baumannii, a major cause of hospital-acquired infections worldwide. The study was reported in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. "We expected to find resistance genes," said lead author, Pierre-Edouard Fournier, researcher at the Structural and Genomic Information...

Soil-bound prions that cause CWD remain infectious

Researchers discovered a new bacterium in an immune-compromised patient, according to a study recently published in PLoS Pathogens. The bacterium belongs to the family Acetobacteraceae and includes bacteria common in the environment, some of which are used in industry, such as vinegar-making. "This is the first reported case of invasive human disease caused by any of the Acetobacteraceae," acco...

Brittle prions are more infectious

Brittleness is often seen as a sign of fragility. But in the case of infectious proteins called prions, brittleness makes for a tougher, more menacing pathogen. Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher have discovered that brittle prion particles break more readily into new "seeds," which spread infection much more quickly. The discovery boosts basic understanding of prion infections, an...

Human behavior changes the number of strains of infectious diseases

Simple models predict that only one strain of an infectious disease can exist at one time, but observation suggests otherwise. In a study in the August issue of The American Naturalist, Ken Eames and Matt Keeling (University of Warwick) use a mathematical model to help explain multiple strains, showing that the way humans interact is all-important. The researchers found that the coexistence of mu...

U of S Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization team discovers key step in flu virus replication

As public health officials around the world keep a nervous eye on the spread of avian influenza, the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) has uncovered a key step in how the influenza virus causes infection. Yan Zhou and her team have discovered how a crucial pathway that supports the influenza A virus's ability to reproduce itself is activated, a...

Bacteria control how infectious they become, study finds

The results of a new study suggest that bacteria that cause diseases like bubonic plague and serious gastric illness can turn the genes that make them infectious on or off. Knowing how disease-causing bacteria, like Yersinia pestis and E. coli, do this may one day help scientists create drugs that control the expression of these genes, thereby making the bacteria harmless, said Vladimir Sv...

Scientists identify prion's infectious secret

Researchers have known for decades that certain neurodegenerative diseases, such as mad cow disease or its human equivalent, Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease, result from a kind of infectious protein called a prion. Remarkably, in recent years researchers also have discovered non-pathogenic prions that play beneficial roles in biology, and prions even may act as essential elements in learning and memory...