Recent News

By Region: North America

$600M research building at Fort Detrick tabled

(Maryland Community News Online) The lab is supposed to be part of the Interagency Biodefense Campus at the fort. The campus includes: the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases; the Department of Homeland Security’s National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures …

March 2, 2012
| Filed under North America, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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With new data, NSABB may revisit H5N1 studies

(CIDRAP News) The mutant H5N1 virus generated in one of two controversial studies was less lethal and contagious than has been generally understood, and the US government’s biosecurity advisory committee will be asked to examine new and …

March 1, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, International, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Two cancer drugs may halt Ebola

(San Antonio Express) Testing of the drugs took place in the biosafety level-4 lab at Texas Biomedical Research Institute, in collaboration with government scientists and researchers in Houston and Atlanta. The two leukemia drugs, nilotinib and imatinib, don’t attack the …

March 1, 2012
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, and Research
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Skin-Deep Immunity

(The Scientist) The smallpox vaccine was the first, and arguably most successful, vaccine ever put into practice, and it was scratched into the skin of individuals. With the invention of syringes and hypodermic needles, …

March 1, 2012
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, Public Health, and Research
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More on the H5N1 flu controversy

(Daily Herald) Our last two columns have indicated that researchers of H5N1 influenza virus (“bird flu”) have developed two new strains that are infective in mammals (ferrets) and may well be infective to humans as well. Because the technology involved in this work …