News by Subject Biology

Early research on a new approach to protecting against malaria is offering promising, potentially long-lasting results against the persistent parasite that sickens hundreds of millions people each year. The approach uses a cytomegalovirus-based platform that's already being used in vaccines being developed to battle HIV and tuberculosis. This new vaccine reduced the malaria-causing parasite's release from the liver and into the blood of infected rhesus macaques by 75 to 80 percent, reports a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Using multiple genomic sequencing tests, TGen identified a specific non-polio enterovirus -- EV-D68 -- among at least four children, according to a study published today in the scientific journal mBio. The finding is significant because AFM cases are continuing to increase and there has been no official recognition that this disease is being caused by EV-D68, which limits the research community's ability to develop preventative measures, such as new vaccines.

Less than two years after the first report of wild chimpanzees in Uganda dying as a result of a human 'common cold' virus, a new study has identified two other respiratory viruses of human origin in chimpanzee groups in the same forest.

The proportion of US liver transplants for alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) has doubled in the last 15 years, in part due to broader acceptance of waiving the mandated period of sobriety before transplants for this population, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco, which showed ongoing regional geographic variations in liver transplant rates for ALD patients, whose long-term survival rate is slightly lower than other liver transplant patients. The study appears Jan. 22, 2019, in JAMA Internal Medicine.

A new study in Science challenges long-held theories of why a common virus -- cytomegalovirus, or CMV -- can reactivate and become a life-threatening infection in people with a compromised immune system, including blood cancer patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation.

Despite recommendations first issued more than a decade ago, antibiotics are still routinely prescribed in US emergency rooms for infants with bronchiolitis, a common viral lung infection. Published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the findings highlight a concerning lag in translating evidence-based guidelines into clinical practice and underscore the need to continue educating health care providers and the public about appropriate antibiotic use.

Scientists have developed a combination of monoclonal antibodies that protected animals from all three Ebola viruses that cause human disease. Their work is described in two companion studies published online in Cell Host & Microbe. The antibody 'cocktail,' called MBP134, is the first experimental treatment to protect monkeys against Ebola virus (formerly known as Ebola Zaire), as well as Sudan virus and Bundibugyo virus, and could lead to a broadly effective therapeutic.