Household pets can transmit infection to people, especially those with weak immune systems, young children, pregnant women and seniors, according to an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Health care providers and pet owners should be aware of this risk to prevent illness in ... Read More
Viruses cannot multiply without cellular machinery. Although extensive research into how pathogens invade cells has been conducted for a number of viruses, we do not fully understand how the shell of a virus is cracked open during the onset of infection thus releasing the viral genome. An ETH Zu... Read More
Why a field researcher from America has exposed his colon to the gut microbiome of a tribesman from Tanzania.
It's not often we encounter a story that begins with a line like this:
“AS THE SUN set over Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, nearly thirty minutes had passed since I had inserted a turkey b... Read More
Two of the four known groups of human AIDS viruses (HIV-1 groups O and P) have originated in western lowland gorillas, according to an international team of scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Montpellier, the University of Edinbur... Read More
During the winter of 1962 in California, a new virus was isolated from the oropharynx of 4 children who had been hospitalized with respiratory disease that included pneumonia and bronchiolitis. On the basis of its physical, chemical, and biological properties, the virus was classified as an ente... Read More
Imagine a pill that helps people control diabetes with the body’s own insulin.
Cornell researchers have achieved this feat in rats by engineering human lactobacilli, a common gut bacteria, to secrete a protein called Glucagen-like peptide 1 (GLP-1).
A 2003 study led by Atsushi Suzuki of th... Read More
A permissive vaccine prevents disease in the immunized host, but does not block virus infection. Would a permissive vaccine lead to the emergence of more virulent viruses?
This hypothesis is based on the notion that viruses which kill their hosts too quickly are not efficiently transmitted, a... Read More
Contrary to current medical dogma, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences report that the common antibiotic azithromycin kills many multidrug-resistant bacteria very effectively -- when tested under conditio... Read More
In cells with latent HIV infection, the virus is dormant, and such cells are therefore not attacked by the immune system or by standard antiretroviral therapy. To eradicate the virus from the human body and truly cure a patient, reservoirs of latently infected cells need to be activated and elim... Read More
The World Health Organization expressed worry on Wednesday about a second cluster of Ebola virus patients in Nigeria — in the center of its oil industry — because one of the three confirmed victims was a doctor who had treated patients and socialized after he became contagious.
The doctor, in... Read More
When we talk about viruses, usually we focus on the suffering caused by Ebola, influenza and the like. But our bodies are home to trillions of viruses, and new research hints that some of them may actually be keeping us healthy.
“Viruses have gotten a bad rap,” said Ken Cadwell, an immunologi... Read More
WASHINGTON (July 27, 2015) - The improved survival rate of HIV patients in sub-Saharan Africa due to effective treatment programs is increasing the ability of researchers in Africa to study the impacts of cardiovascular disease in HIV patients, according to a guest editor page published today in... Read More
Sea stars are lovely marine invertebrates with a round central body connected to multiple radiating legs (photo credit). In the past year millions of sea stars in the west coast waters of North America have melted into piles of slime and ossicles. Sea star associated densovirus might be the caus... Read More
The TWiM team discusses evidence that serotonin synthesis is regulated by spore-forming members of the gut microbiota. Read More
The Ebola virus has proven deadly to both people and animals.
The epidemic that started in 2014 has so far taken the lives of over eight thousand people in West Africa. The virus also killed an estimated 5,500 gorillas in the Lossi Sanctuary of the Republic of Congo in 2003. But scientists sa... Read More
Two miles below the surface of the ocean, researchers have discovered new microbes that “breathe” sulfate.
The microbes, which have yet to be classified and named, exist in massive undersea aquifers — networks of channels in porous rock beneath the ocean where water continually churns. About ... Read More
President Barack Obama will request a doubling of funds for fighting and preventing antibiotic-resistant bacteria in his 2016 budget, the White House said Tuesday.
The goal is to expand US investment in developing of antibacterial and new rapid diagnostics and launch a major effort to charact... Read More
The vaccine used to protect against tuberculosis disease, bacillus calmette-guerin or BCG, also protects against tuberculosis infection, mycobacterium, as well as protecting against progression from infection to disease, finds new research. The BCG vaccine has been subject to numerous trials and... Read More
An international team of bioengineers has boosted the ability of bacteria to produce isopentenol, a compound with desirable gasoline properties. The finding, published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, is a significant step toward developing a bac... Read More