Strai

Fibril Shape Is The Basis Of Prion Strains And Cross-species Prion Infection

New research on prions, the infectious proteins behind "mad cow" disease and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in humans, suggests that the ability of prions in one species to infect other species depends on the shape of the toxic threadlike fibers produced by the prion. Two studies on the topic appear in the 8 April issue of the journal Cell. Although research suggests that prions from one specie...

Searching the depths of the straits of Florida for disease cures

On Monday, the Harbor Branch drug discovery group will begin a 2-week expedition to explore the Straits of Florida in search of organisms that produce chemicals with the potential to cure diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's. The work will include the first submersible exploration of the remote Cay Sal Bank, which encompasses a number of small, uninhabited islands 30 miles north of Cuba. Cay S...

DNA constraints control structure of attached macromolecules

A new method for manipulating macromolecules has been developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The technique uses double-stranded DNA to direct the behavior of other molecules. In previous DNA nanotechnology efforts, duplex DNA has been used as a static lattice to construct geometrical objects in three dimensions. Instead of manipulating DNA alone into s...

Experimental vaccine protects lab animals against several strains of H5N1

Nations are preparing to stockpile vaccines against H5N1, the strain of influenza virus that experts fear could cause the next flu pandemic. But will these vaccines remain effective as the virus mutates? Researchers present good news in the July 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. Elena Govorkova, MD, PhD, Robert G. Webster, PhD, and coworkers at St. Jude...

Less virulent strains of avian influenza can infect humans

In findings with implications for pandemic influenza, a new study reports for the first time that a less-virulent strain of avian influenza virus can spread from poultry to humans. The research appears in the October 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. Crossing the species barrier is an important step in the development of a flu virus with pandemic potenti...

Emerging staph strains found to be increasingly deadly and deceptive

A study of how the immune system reacts to strains of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria--emerging strains that sicken otherwise healthy people, or so-called "community-acquired" infections--has shown for the first time that these strains are more deadly and better at evading human immune defenses than more common S. aureus strains that originate in hospitals and other health-car...

Study outlines genetic differences between potential pandemic influenza strains

An analysis of H5N1 influenza samples in Southeast Asia shows not only how the two strains that have caused human disease are related but also that they belong to two different, distinct genetic subgroups. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report their findings today at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases. "As the virus continues its...

Neuronal cell cultures kept on the straight and narrow

An improved technique for culturing cells, developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), may enable new, fundamental insights into the behavior of neuronal cells. Culturing particular types of cells in isolation is a basic technique for measuring how they respond to various stimuli, testing new drugs, and similar cell biology tasks. Neuronal cells, which make up t...

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...

Complexity constrains evolution of human brain genes

Despite the explosive growth in size and complexity of the human brain, the pace of evolutionary change among the thousands of genes expressed in brain tissue has actually slowed since the split, millions of years ago, between human and chimpanzee, an international research team reports in the December 26, 2006, issue of the journal, PLOS Biology. The rapid advance of the human brain, the...

New test for most virulent HPV strains under study

A test for the two strains of human papillomavirus responsible for most cervical cancers is under study. The molecular assay uses a cervical scraping, like that for a liquid-based Pap smear, to test for HPV types 16 and 18, responsible for 70 percent of cervical cancers, says Dr. Daron G. Ferris, family medicine physician and director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Center at the Med...

Avian influenza survivors' antibodies effective at neutralising H5N1 strain

Adults who have recovered from the potentially deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza may hold the key to future treatments for the virus, according to an international team of researchers. In a study published today in the open access journal PLoS Medicine, the researchers have shown how specific antibodies taken from avian flu survivors in Vietnam can be reproduced in the laboratory and prove...

Skimmed milk -- Straight from the cow

The researchers also pl...