Recent News

By Region: North America

Potential Chagas vaccine candidate shows unprecedented efficacy

(ScienceDaily) Scientists are getting closer to a Chagas disease vaccine, something many believed impossible only 10 years ago. Research from the Sealy Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has resulted in a safe vaccine candidate that is simple to produce and shows a greater than 90 percent protection Read More »

March 27, 2013
| Filed under North America and Countermeasures
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H5N1 viral-engineering dangers will not go away

(Nature) Barely two months after a small group of influenza virologists lifted a moratorium on work to make the H5N1 avian flu virus as transmissible between humans as seasonal flu, researchers are at it again. Earlier this month, a Dutch scientist proposed similar experiments with other avian flu viruses, as well as the SARS coronavirus. Read More »

March 27, 2013
| Filed under Europe, North America, and Public Health
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Drug Target Development Proposals Sought for Antimicrobial-Resistant Pathogens

(GlobalBiodefense) The National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has announced a new funding effort to support research focused on characterization and validation of novel drug targets for development of new therapeutics against antimicrobial-resistant bacterial pathogens. The initiative is designed to capitalize on the numerous potential drug targets identified through Read More »

March 27, 2013
| Filed under North America, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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Lethal Virus Sample Vanishes From U.S. Biodefense Lab

(GlobalSecurityNewswire) A high-security biodefense laboratory in Texas has lost track of a lethal hemorrhagic fever virus sample in an incident said to underscore recent government warnings about how the United States oversees the deadly disease agents it holds for study. Experts and researchers at other institutions have generally chalked up the Guanarito virus sample’s disappearance Read More »

March 27, 2013
| Filed under North America and Public Health
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Researchers developing antiviral drug to combat contagious norovirus

(EurekAlert) A Kansas State University-led team is researching ways to stop the spread of norovirus, a contagious stomach illness that infects one in 15 Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kyeong-Ok Chang, associate professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, is leading researchers as they develop an antiviral drug for Read More »