Immunology

Resilience Management: What The Bubonic Plague Can Teach Us About Ebola

In the 14th century, Venice was in many ways still a world power in its own right. The days when it could topple kingdoms using commerce were behind it, but it was still an important trade destination. In that period, trade meant ports and ports meant the ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 26 2014 - 3:38pm

Ionic Liquids: Busting Through Biofilm Shatters Defenses Of Serious Skin Infections

Biofilms are the first line of defense for harmful bacteria and make the treatment of skin infections especially difficult because microorganisms protected in a biofilm have antibiotic resistance and recalcitrance to treatment. Biofilm-protected bacteria ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 26 2014 - 5:17pm

New Antibody Shows Promise Against Sudan Strain Of Ebola

Researchers have developed a potential antibody therapy for Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV), one of the two most lethal strains of Ebola.  Sudan ebolavirus was first identified in 1976 and has caused numerous Ebola outbreaks (most recently in 2012) that have kill ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 30 2014 - 4:30am

MERS Has Low Transmissibility But It's Still Dangerous

The MERS coronavirus has caused disease outbreaks across the Arabian Peninsula and spread to Europe several times, claiming the lives of several hundred people since its discovery in 2012. How easily the pathogen spreads from human to human has remained a ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 30 2014 - 11:30am

Mutating Ebola Viruses Not As Scary As Evolving Ones

Scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus budding from the surface of a Vero cell (African green monkey kidney epithelial cell line. Credit:NIAID By Rob Brooks My social media accounts today are cluttered with stories about “mutating” Ebola viruses. The ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 2 2014 - 8:02am

Dengue Vaccine May Cause Short-Term Increase

Dengue is a serious illness diminished in importance in much of the developed world. Some efforts evolve around genetic modification while other efforts work on a vaccine. ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 5 2014 - 7:33pm

HPV Vaccine Credited With 61 Percent Decrease In Female Genital Warts

Doctors in Australia are reporting 61 percent fewer cases of genital warts among young women since the introduction of the national human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program. The study reviewed more than a million patient encounters between 2000 and ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 7 2014 - 12:38pm

New Soldier In The Body's Anti-Virus Army Discovered

When it comes to defense against viruses, the immune system has an arsenal of weapons at its disposal, including killer cells, antibodies and messenger molecules, and when a pathogen attacks the body, the immune system usually activates the appropriate me ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 11 2014 - 12:01pm

Repair The Muscles In Muscular Dystrophy, Not The Genetic Defect

The saying goes that we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, so while there is no cure for muscular dystrophy, rather than solely focusing on the underlying genetic defect might not help people right now as directly targeting muscle re ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 15 2014 - 10:30am

Ebola Virus And Protein Secrets

The current Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has claimed more than 2000 lives and has spurred calls for a deeper understanding of the molecular biology of the virus that could be critical in the development of vaccines or antiviral drugs to treat or pr ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 17 2014 - 2:02am