News

The Rescue Team, an association set up by Ebola survivors to help fellow survivors trying to put their lives back together again, is now exploring ways to contribute to the Ebola outbreak response in Sierra Leone.

It's a firmly established fact straight from Biology 101: Traits such as eye color and height are passed from one generation to the next through the parents' DNA. But now, a new study in mice by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has shown that the DNA of bacteria that live in the body can pass a trait to offspring in a way similar to the parents' own DNA. According to the authors, the discovery means scientists need to consider a significant new factor -- the DNA of microbes passed from mother to child - in their efforts to understand how genes influence illness and health. The study appears online Feb. 16 in Nature.

Scientists from the UK and U.S. are using technology that helped in the design of a new synthetic vaccine to combat the foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) to now target the virus that causes polio. The synthetic vaccine that is currently being engineered in collaboration with professor Dave Rowlands at the University of Leeds would provide a powerful weapon in the fight to rid the world of polio. This project is being funded by a £438,000 grant from the World Health Organization and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Scientists are teaming up to use satellite data to target deadly parasites to help predict patterns of parasitic diseases such as malaria, worms and hydatids. Project leader professor Archie Clements, from the Australian National University, says the research could help authorities in developing countries fight parasitic diseases.

There is “universal recognition” that hand hygiene practices reduce the spread of HAIs, notes nursing researcher Elizabeth McInnes, yet “healthcare workers’ compliance with best practice has been sub-optimal. Senior hospital managers have responsibilities for implementing pa-tient safety initiatives and are therefore ideally placed to provide suggestions for improving strategies to increase hand hygiene compliance.”

Remote video auditing (RVA) with feedback is a promising new technology shown to dramatically improve compliance among healthcare workers (HCWs). Emerging research suggests that the proven efficacy of these systems is associated with the real-time performance evaluation and reminders they provide to HCW, which encourages staff to improve or modify aspects of their behavior.

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore have developed an antibody which boosts the survival chances for patients suffering from influenza and pneumonia. Proven effective in lab tests, the antibody is now being made suitable for use in humans. The scientists are also using the new antibody to develop a diagnostic kit which can help doctors accurately track the recovery progress of flu and pneumonia patients.

In Philadelphia, as in many cities, neighborhoods with high rates of hepatitis C virus (HCV) often also have limited access to screening and treatment. A new study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine shows that when expert advocates made a focused effort in a medically underserved area, they were able to help vulnerable patients leap each of the many hurdles that often keep people out of care.

When fighting chronic viral infections or cancers, a key division of the immune system, known as CD8 T cells, sometimes loses its ability to effectively fight foreign invaders. Overcoming so-called T cell exhaustion is crucial to treating persistent infections but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Now, a team of researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology report that the shift is masterminded in part by NFAT, short for Nuclear Factor of Activated T cells, and best known for its crucial role in getting CD8 T cells battle-ready. The findings from the lab of professors Patrick Hogan, PhD, and Anjana Rao, PhD, published in the Feb. 17, 2015 issue of the journal Immunity, lay the groundwork for novel treatments to restore immune function.

Viruses are masters of outsourcing, entrusting their fundamental function – reproduction – to the host cells they infect. But it turns out this highly economical approach also creates vulnerability. Researchers at Rockefeller University and their collaborators have found an unexpected way the immune system exploits the flu virus’ dependence on its host’s machinery to create new viruses capable of spreading infection. This discovery suggests a new approach to combating winter’s most unpleasant, and sometimes, deadly curse: the seasonal flu.

For decades, scientists have thought the bacteria that cause the bubonic plague hijack host cells at the site of a fleabite and are then taken to the lymph nodes, where the bacteria multiply and trigger severe disease. But UNC School of Medicine researchers discovered that this accepted theory is off base. The bacteria do not use host cells; they traffic to lymph nodes on their own and not in great numbers.