Monday, March 3rd, 2008
US scientists have discovered a possible reason why the flu virus is seasonal and tends to infect people mostly in the winter. It has a jacket that melts in the summer causing the virus to die off, and stays hard in the winter, until it enters a host where it ...
Posted in Flu / SARS | No Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) have announced that it has been selected by Blue Shield of California Foundation (BSCF) to participate in a statewide effort to reduce healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
APIC will join BSCF and other leading health organizations to expand the Foundation's innovative California Healthcare-Associated ...
Posted in Infectious Diseases | No Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
MIT graduate student and synthetic biologist Timothy Lu is passionate about tackling problems that pose threats to human health. His current mission: to destroy antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The 27-year-old M.D. candidate and Ph.D. in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology received the prestigious $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for inventing processes ...
Posted in MRSA / Drug Resistance | No Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
"We have identified a key connection of signaling pathways in the cascade of events leading to sepsis. This defines a crucial point where the immune system spirals out of control to cause severe sepsis and where there is an opportunity for therapeutic intervention," says Scripps Research Professor Wolfram Ruf, who ...
Posted in Infectious Diseases | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Scientists have identified the role of two proteins that contribute to disease-causing bacteria cells' versatility in resisting certain classes of antibiotics.
The finding is a step toward development of drug therapies that could target bacterial resistance at its cellular source. Before researchers can design such drugs, they must understand all of ...
Posted in Infectious Diseases | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Bacteria mutate for a living, evading antibiotic drugs while killing tens of thousands of people in the United States each year. But as concern about drug-resistant bacteria grows, one novel approach under way at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill seeks to thwart the bug without a drug ...
Posted in Medical Devices | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
As part of our Scientific Support activities, ECDC is involved with catalyzing public health research. Our aim is to identify "directed" research needs (i.e. question- and need-based research goals) and to coordinate the application of results between key stakeholders. To achieve these goals, ECDC must keep abreast with state-of-the-art research ...
Posted in Respiratory / Asthma | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
A new study by researchers in the US found that people with advanced dementia are frequently given antibiotics toward the end of life, and has thrown into question whether this practice should be curtailed in view of the increased risk of developing drug resistant superbugs.
The study is the work of ...
Posted in Alzheimers / Dementia | No Comments »
Saturday, February 23rd, 2008
An analysis of global trends in new infectious diseases suggests that we are looking in the wrong places for the world's next major outbreak.
The study is the work of Dr Kate Jones, Senior Research Fellow, based at Institute of Zoology, London, and colleagues, and was published on 21st February in ...
Posted in Infectious Diseases | No Comments »
