International

International trial of two microbicides begins

A large, multisite trial designed to examine the safety and preliminary effectiveness of two candidate topical microbicides to prevent HIV infection has opened to volunteer enrollment. The trial, sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, represents a partnership among various research institutions in Africa and the U...

International HapMap consortium expands mapping effort

The International HapMap Consortium, boosted by an additional $3.3 million in public-private support, today announced plans to create an even more powerful map of human genetic variation than originally envisioned. The map will accelerate the discovery of genes related to common diseases, such as asthma, cancer, diabetes and heart disease. When the project was launched in October 2002, th...

Solutions that reduce death of marine life reeled in by International Smart Gear Competition

As the world prepared to observe Earth Day, World Wildlife Fund and its partners in the International Smart Gear Competition announced three new winning solutions to prevent the accidental maiming and killing of marine mammals, juvenile fish, and sea turtles that become ensnared by fishing nets and longlines--a problem known as bycatch--while also improving the efficiency of commercial fishing.</...

Canadian youth 4th highest in international obesity study

Canadian youth rank fourth-highest on the obesity scale in a new international study of adolescents from 34 countries, says co-author Dr. Ian Janssen, a professor in Queen's University's School of Physical & Health Education and Department of Community Health & Epidemiology. And sedentary behaviour ?like watching television ?was strongly correlated with being overweight, he adds.</...

International Team Determines Geographic Origin of Leprosy

Leprosy likely originated in East Africa and spread to Asia and Europe before being imported into West Africa by explorers, report scientists in this week's issue of Science. The findings enrich the historical understanding of leprosy's global migration and contradict a commonly held view that leprosy spread to West Africa directly from East Africa, say the researchers. The international t...

Team of international scientists departs today to discover the unknown in China's Himalayan region

In the quest to discover new species, a team of international scientists leaves today on a month-long expedition to explore the undiscovered treasures in the Mountains of Southwest China, an extension of the great Himalayan mountain range. "Expedition Everest: Mission Himalayas" is a scientific and cultural journey to explore one of the planet's richest and most biologically diverse regio...

Tropical dry forests receive international recognition

When most people think of tropical forests, rainforests immediately come to mind. But they are not the only kind under threat--the tropical dry forest is in as much danger as its popular cousin yet its grave situation continues to be ignored. Dr. Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa is hoping to change that. Sanchez-Azofeifa is the director of the newly formed TROPI-DRY, a research network on tropica...

Open Source Biotechnology alliance for international agriculture

CAMBIA & IRRI (The International Rice Research Institute) today announced a majorjoint venture to advance the BiOS Initiative - a new strategy that will galvanize agricultural research focused on poverty alleviation and hunger reduction. The ventureis catalyzed by a 2.55M USD grant to CAMBIA from The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway. The BiOS Initiative ?Biological Innovation for...

International HIV/AIDS trial finds continuous antiretroviral therapy superior to episodic therapy

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced that enrollment into a large international HIV/AIDS trial comparing continuous antiretroviral therapy with episodic drug treatment guided by levels of CD4+ cells has been stopped. Enrollment was stopped because those patients receiving episodic therapy had twice the...

Five surprising facts about starvation that could change the international agenda

While public attention gravitates towards conflict and natural disaster, many people in countries less affected by such events struggle with some of the same nutrition problems as those in crisis. In a "Viewpoint" published in The Lancet, Rainer Gross, PhD, UNICEF's chief of nutrition, and Patrick Webb, PhD, dean for academic affairs at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts...

CHAVI announces international search for genes affecting HIV response

A pioneering collaboration among U.S., European and Australian researchers announced June 20, 2006, will seek to identify genetic differences in the way people respond to HIV. Suppor...

International team analyzes human genetic variation in key immune region

An international group of researchers today unveiled a detailed map of human genetic variation within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), the most important region of the human genome encoding the human response to infection, autoimmune disease and organ transplantation. The work represents a milestone in the analysis of genetic variability for this fundamental immune region and lays the...