Infectious Diseases News and Research

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Looking at Protein Function in Preventing Female Obesity

Obesity is on the rise in the US, which is linked to worse health outcomes and a lower quality of life. Over 30% of American individuals are currently considered fat. Obesity is a significant and expanding public health issue since it is a risk factor for several diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and COVID-19.

26 Jul 2023

Analyzing the Possibility to Design Improved Vaccines

A new paper in Biology Methods & Protocols, published by Oxford University Press, shows it may be possible to design vaccines that will induce a stronger immune response to infecting pathogens, such as the virus causing COVID-19.

26 Jul 2023

LION™-Formulated repRNA in Next-Gen repRNA Vaccine Platform Appears Promising

The creation of new vaccination technologies continues to be at the forefront of scientific inquiry as the globe fights numerous infectious illnesses. Recent research on illnesses like COVID-19 has shown promise for mRNA-based vaccines and their use of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for delivery.

25 Jul 2023

Berkeley Lab and Genentech Team Up to Develop Next-Generation Drug Delivery System

Many diseases can be successfully treated in the simple environment of a cell culture dish, but to successfully treat real people, the drug agent has to take a journey through the infinitely more complex environment within our bodies and arrive, intact, inside the affected cells.

18 Jul 2023

Study Provides More Treatment Options for Severe COVID-19

Two anti-inflammatory drugs, abatacept and infliximab, reduced deaths among patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19, according to a national study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

11 Jul 2023

EMBL-EBI Launches Pathogens Portal to Enhance Global Pathogen Surveillance

EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) has launched the Pathogens Portal – an online platform that enables researchers, clinicians, and policymakers to access the most comprehensive collection of biomolecular data about pathogens.

7 Jul 2023

New Method Reveals How Hepatitis C Virus Evades Immune System

With a new method for examining virus samples researchers from the University of Copenhagen have solved an old riddle about how Hepatitis C virus avoids the human body's immune defenses.

6 Jul 2023

New Nanoparticle Developed Helps Improve the Delivery of mRNA-Based Vaccines

Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists say they have developed a nanoparticle -; an extremely tiny biodegradable container -; that has the potential to improve the delivery of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based vaccines for infectious diseases such as COVID-19, and vaccines for treating non-infectious diseases including cancer.

29 Jun 2023

Immune Deficits in Space are Temporary

An increase in proof has been found that astronauts are highly vulnerable to infections while in space. For instance, astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) generally suffer from skin rashes, and also respiratory and non-respiratory diseases.

23 Jun 2023

Microglial Cells Serve as a Stable Viral Reservoir for Latent HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV) introduces a copy of its DNA into human immune cells as part of its life cycle. Some of these newly infected immune cells can subsequently enter an inactive, latent state for an extended length of time, which is known as HIV latency.

19 Jun 2023

Ancient DNA Reveals Earliest Evidence of Plague Cases in Britain

The Francis Crick Institute has discovered three 4,000-year-old British cases of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes the plague—the oldest evidence of the plague in Britain to date. The study was published in Nature Communications.

31 May 2023

IgA Described as "Tuner" in Microbe Interaction Regulation

Throughout the world, IgA deficiency is considered to be the most common primary immune deficiency, but its presentation has continued to confuse researchers and physicians.

29 May 2023

Predictive Models to Determine the Structure, Stability, Flexibility and Biology of RNA-Targeted Drugs

Proteins are large, complex molecules that play many critical roles in the body and are produced following the instructions encoded in DNA.

18 May 2023

Fecal Microbiota Transplantation to Help in Clostridioides difficile Infection

In Europe, Clostridioides difficile infection results in severe diarrhea and leads to the death of around 20,000 patients, every year. It is one of the most common hospital-acquired infections.

16 May 2023

AI Used to Create 3D Model of 'Postal Workers' in Human Cells

University of Queensland researchers have used artificial intelligence to build a 3D map of key cell components to better understand dementia and infectious diseases including COVID-19.

12 May 2023

Breakthrough "Gene Silencing" Technology Could Revolutionize the Development of DNAzymes

Researchers from the University of California, Irvine have developed a DNA enzyme – or DNAzyme – that can distinguish between two RNA strands inside a cell and cut the disease-associated strand while leaving the healthy strand intact.

9 May 2023

Argonne's Advanced Photon Source Helps Identify New Antibodies Against Coronaviruses

Results could speed development of new antivirals or vaccines that could counter many different coronavirus variants.

2 May 2023

New Approach Could Power the Development of Advanced Cell Therapies

A new approach to the genetic engineering of cells promises significant improvements in speed, efficiency, and reduction in cellular toxicity compared to current methods.

2 May 2023

Occludin Protein Plays a Critical Role in Cell-to-Cell Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Virus

While the coronavirus continues to infect people around the world, researchers at the University of Missouri have identified a specific protein inside the human body that plays a critical role in how the virus spreads from cell to cell after infection -; a discovery that will help better understand the COVID-19 disease and could lead to the development of new antiviral drugs in the future.

2 May 2023

Study Uncovers a Protein-Protein Interaction Related to Parkinson's Disease

In a study published in Nature Communications, a team led by Krembil Brain Institute Senior Scientists, Drs. Lorraine Kalia and Suneil Kalia, and University of Toronto (U of T) Professor, Dr. Philip M. Kim, identified a protein-protein interaction that contributes to Parkinson's disease.

24 Apr 2023