News by Subject Biology

Influenza is a highly contagious respiratory disease that may cause a serious outbreak at any time. Here, an Osaka University-led research team developed a new nanosensor to detect single flu virus particles in a variety of samples. The method is quick, simple, and does not require specific training or expertise. This could help clinicians and public health agencies to control nascent flu outbreaks.

Infectious diseases can substantially reduce the size of wildlife populations, thereby affecting both the dynamics of ecosystems and biodiversity. Predicting the long-term consequences of epidemics is thus essential for conservation. Researchers from Leibniz-IZW and CEFE have now developed a mathematical model to determine the impact of a major epidemic of canine distemper virus (CDV) on the population of spotted hyenas in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. The results of the study are published in the journal Communications Biology.

Only a fraction of the microbes residing in, on and around soils have been identified through efforts to understand their contributions to global nutrient cycles. Soils are also home to countless viruses that can infect microbes, impacting their ability to regulate these global cycles. In Nature Communications, giant virus genomes have been discovered for the first time in a forest soil ecosystem by researchers from the DOE Joint Genome Institute and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Until recently, scientists thought of viruses as mostly small infectious agents, tiny compared to typical bacteria and human cells. So imagine the surprise when biologist Jeff Blanchard and Ph.D. student Lauren Alteio at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with others at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), discovered giant viruses -- relatively speaking the size of Macy's parade day balloons -- in soil at Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts.

Scientists have equipped a virus that kills carcinoma cells with a protein so it can also target and kill adjacent cells that are tricked into shielding the cancer from the immune system. It is the first time that cancer-associated fibroblasts within solid tumors -- healthy cells that are tricked into protecting the cancer from the immune system and supplying it with growth factors and nutrients -- have been specifically targeted in this way.

Mechanisms that govern HIV transcription and latency differ in the gut and blood, according to a study published Nov. 15 in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by Steven Yukl of San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues. According to the authors, the findings could inform new therapies aimed at curing HIV.

While making smart glue, a team of engineers discovered a handy byproduct: hydrogen peroxide. In microgel form, it reduces bacteria and virus ability to infect by at least 99.9 percent.