In the northeastern United States, warmer spring temperatures are leading to shifts in the emergence of the blacklegged ticks that carry Lyme disease and other tickborne pathogens. At the same time, milder weather is allowing ticks to spread into new geographic regions. Findings were published this week in a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B dedicated to climate change and vectorborne diseases.
The first publication out of a collaboration between Clarkson University and the Trudeau Institute aims to improve the fight against bacterial infections through immunoengineering. Chemical Communications has published a paper authored by researchers at Clarkson University and the Trudeau Institute, titled "Designed Supramolecular Filamentous Peptides: Balance of Nanostructure, Cytotoxicity and Antimicrobial Activity."
This report explains the basics of germicidal ultraviolet light for application in the healthcare environment. It reviews the mechanisms for pathogen deactivation, plus explores the variables of UV-C efficacy, the caveats with the use of this kind of technology, and cost considerations. It also provides advice for evaluating and purchasing UV disinfection devices.
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.