News

When golden staph (Staphylococcus aureus) enters our skin it can identify the key immune cells and 'nuke' our body's immune response. Now we know how, thanks to an international research group led by dermatologists from the Centenary Institute and the University of Sydney. Using state-of-the art microscopy techniques, the team identified the key immune cells that orchestrate the body's defenders against invading golden staph, and also how the bacteria can target and destroy these cells, circumventing the body's immune response. Golden staph is the multi-drug resistant bacterium that is the scourge of hospitals.

Medical zoologist Stephen Rich cant wait to get his hands on your ticks. As head of the Laboratory of Medical Zoology (LMZ) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Rich and colleagues collect thousands of ticks, dead or alive, extracted from people and pets and sent in from across the country, to help map the distribution of different kinds of the blood-sucking arachnids, and to categorize the many disease-causing pathogens they carry.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Philippine Department of Health have launched a vaccination campaign to prevent outbreaks of measles and polio among survivors of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda).

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory are investigating the complex relationships between the spread of the HIV virus in a population and the actual, rapid evolution of the virus (phylogenetics) within each patients body.