Statement of Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, on National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, March 10, 2007 :
UCLA researchers have uncovered new clues that may explain why Graves’ disease attacks the muscle tissue behind the eyes, often causing them to bulge painfully from their sockets, as in the case of the late actor Marty Feldman.
Novartis announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the Procleix? Tigris? System, the first fully automated nucleic acid testing system, to screen donated blood, organs and tissue for the West Nile virus.
Children whose parents and families are under ongoing stress have more fevers with illness than other children. Published this month in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, the study also shows the unanticipated conclusion that children’s natural killer cell function, part of the body’s innate immune system, increases under chronic stress, unlike adults, whose function is decreased.
Researchers at the University of Arizona College of Medicine?s Department of Immunobiology have discovered that the agent that causes tuberculosis (TB), Mycobacterium tuberculosis, produces a new type of virulence factor called Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Pili (MTP). Their findings suggest that MTP could be a promising, new TB-vaccine candidate. Worldwide, three million people die each year from tuberculosis and an estimated 1.2 billion are infected with the bacteria.
UC Irvine researchers have combined genetic and geographic data of the H5N1 avian flu virus to reconstruct its history over the past decade. They found that multiple strains of the virus originated in the Chinese province of Guangdong, and they identified many of the migration routes through which the strains spread regionally and internationally.
New evidence suggests that the risk of HIV transmission may be highest in the early stages of infection. According to a study published in the April 1 issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online, early infection accounted for nearly half of all transmission occurrences in an HIV-infected population in the province of Quebec, Canada.
Devastating blood-borne fungal infections that can be lethal for HIV/AIDS, cancer and organ transplant patients may be treated more successfully, thanks to a new drug delivery method developed by researchers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has opened a new Phase I clinical trial testing an engineered measles virus against multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow that currently has no cure.
Sweat may be another way to pass on hepatitis B infection during contact sports, suggests research published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.