News by Subject Medicine & Health

In 'Toward Antitumor Immunity and Febrile Infections: Gamma/Delta (γδ) T Cells Hypothesis' published in The Quarterly Review of Biology, Wieslaw Kozak, Tomasz Jedrzejewski, Malgorzata Pawlikowska, Jakub Piotrowski, and Sylwia Wrotek propose a mechanistic hypothesis that focuses on the potential impact infectious fever has on a particular subset of T cells, known as gamma/delta (gd) T cells.

In a pair of new modeling studies, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with international colleagues, examined how policy reform in terms of drug decriminalization (in Mexico) and access to drug treatment (in Russia) might affect two regions hard hit by the HIV pandemic: Tijuana, Mexico and the Russian cities of Omsk and Ekaterinburg.

The deadly Nipah virus and others like it assemble themselves in a much more haphazard manner than previously thought, new UBC research has found. The discovery could allow scientists to develop more effective vaccines and rule out many approaches to fighting these viruses.

A new point-of-care test for the parasite Toxoplasma gondii can be performed with a drop of the mother's blood. The test meets the WHO's criteria. It is sensitive, specific, quick, easy to perform, and inexpensive.

Transmission of toxoplasmosis from mother to fetus can lead to severe congenital problems and fetal death, and tests for the parasitic infection during pregnancy are critical. Now, researchers reporting in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases have showed the efficacy of a low-cost whole blood test for toxoplasmosis.

In the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, one of the region's highest risk areas for human plague, Himalayan marmots are the primary carriers of the infectious bacterium Y. pestis. Y. pestis infection can be transmitted to humans and other animals by the marmots' parasitic fleas. In a new study recently published with PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, researchers determine that Tibetan sheep, who make up about one-third of China's total sheep population, also carry this disease and can transmit it to humans.