Spanish researchers and UK scientists are currently preparing for the clinical trials of a possible vaccine and cure against AIDS-causing HIV. Spanish experts believe the vaccine will be therapeutic while UK scientists...
Archive - December 2013
Team discovers new form of virus reproduction
Each small step that science takes to discover how viruses infect cells is always very valuable to researchers and society, since it provides relevant information to fight infections. However, the recent discovery made...
Biomarkers of vaccine immunity identified
Testing the efficacy of vaccines in clinical trials takes years, even decades. Yet, challenging infections like HIV, malaria and dengue are striking today. To speed up vaccine testing, scientists at the Emory Vaccine...
Hope for a breakthrough in AIDS research
In 1987, two medical researchers, Anthony Fauci and Cliff Lane, conducted the first clinical trial of an AIDS vaccine. They took the envelope that surrounds the virus and simply injected it into study participants...
Israeli study sparks new research into fighting infectious diseases in babies
The need to let helpful microbes do their work weakens a baby’s immune system, a problem challenging an Israeli scientist. That babies are especially sensitive to bacterial infections isn’t news. According to the World...
Virus grows tube to insert DNA during infection then sheds it
Researchers have discovered a tube-shaped structure that forms temporarily in a certain type of virus to deliver its DNA during the infection process and then dissolves after its job is completed. The researchers...
Single mutation gives virus new target
In a new study published online in the journal PLOS Pathogens, an international team of scientists showed that by swapping a single amino acid they could change the sugar to which the human BK polyomavirus will binds on...
Vaccines have prevented millions of disease cases
A study comparing rates of contagious disease before and after the introduction of vaccines finds that vaccines have prevented more than 100 million contagious diseases in the United States since 1924. The study...
Virus linked to deadly cancer rates in China
Medical researchers at a leading Australian university recently uncovered an alarming link between a common virus and the quadrupling of a string of deadly cancers in China, Xinhua news agency reported. The deadly Human...
Brief laser-light treatment may significantly improve effectiveness of influenza vaccines
Pretreating the site of intradermal vaccination – vaccine delivered into the skin rather than to muscles beneath the skin – with a particular wavelength of laser light may substantially improve vaccine effectiveness...