News by Subject Biology

Researchers at McMaster University have invented a stable, affordable way to store fragile vaccines for weeks at a time at temperatures up to 40C, opening the way for life-saving anti-viral vaccines to reach remote and impoverished regions of the world.

Scientists from the University of Adelaide's Research Centre for Infectious Diseases have developed a single vaccination approach to simultaneously combat influenza and pneumococcal infections, the world's most deadly respiratory diseases.

The Zika virus outbreak in Latin America has affected over 60 million people up to now. The infection can have potentially fatal consequences for pregnant women and their unborn children: many children have subsequently been born with malformations of the head (microcephaly). A particularly high incidence of these Zika-associated malformations exists in northeastern Brazil. DZIF scientists from Charité -- Universitätsmedizin Berlin tried to find out the reasons for this regional cluster and discovered a surprising protective factor.

Antiviral antibodies produced by survivors of Ebola infection continue to evolve and improve after recovery, according to a study of immune responses in four people who received care at Emory University Hospital in 2014. High levels of neutralizing antibodies- thought to be key to protecting someone against deadly infection -- didn't appear in patients' blood until months after they left the hospital.

Host-cell enzymes called PARP12 and PARP14 are important for inhibiting mutant forms of a coronavirus, according to a study published May 16 in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by Stanley Perlman of the University of Iowa, Anthony Fehr of the University of Kansas, and colleagues.

Scientists have discovered how stem cells can develop resistance against viruses, a finding that could aid the development of stem cell therapies.

The existence of certain microorganisms in your gut may bolster the immune system's ability to fend off a herpes viral attack that can cause fatal brain inflammation. Researchers say the findings are the first to suggest that an envelope molecule from a bacterium called Bacteroides fragilis (B. fragilis) might be useful against viral inflammatory diseases. Called capsular polysaccharide A (PSA), the envelope molecule appears to promote protective, anti-inflammatory responses during a viral infection.

Twenty-five counties across the country have been identified to be most at risk for a measles outbreak due to low vaccination rates compounded by a high volume of international travel, according to an analysis by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Johns Hopkins University.