Recently developed treatments that cure hepatitis C virus (HCV) will create new opportunities for people with other liver diseases to receive transplanted livers.
Only one-third of Americans who need liver transplants receive them, and shortages are expected to rise as the transplant waiting list continues to grow while the supply of organs remains flat. The research suggests that the benefits of new HCV treatments could spill over to many other diseases that cause end-stage liver failure.
Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is the leading cause of viral encephalitis (infection of the brain) in Asia. There is no specific treatment for Japanese encephalitis (JE) which can cause death or serious long-term disability, and WHO recommends JEV vaccination in all areas where the disease is recognized as a public health priority. A study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases suggests that current vaccines may fail to protect individuals against an emerging strain of the virus.
Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Their figure, published May 3 in the BMJ, surpasses the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) third leading cause of death -- respiratory disease, which kills close to 150,000 people per year.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 3, 2016) - Three new species of mouse lemurs - the smallest primates in the world - have been discovered by scientists at the University of Kentucky, along with collaborators at the German Primate Center and Duke Lemur Center.
"We didn't go into this work looking for a new species, but there was no real way to get around the fact that there are three new species here to describe," said Scott Hotaling, lead author on the Molecular Ecology paper and a PhD candidate in the UK Department of Biology.
The nerve agent sarin causes a deadly overstimulation of the nervous system that can be stopped if treated with an antidote within minutes of poisoning. Today, a ground-breaking study has been published in PNAS, which in detail describes how such a drug works. Researchers at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, Umeå University and in Germany are behind the study.
Sarin is a colourless, odourless liquid fatal even at very low concentrations. Serious sarin poisoning causes visual disturbance, vomiting, breathing difficulties and, finally, death.
A study has found that a syringe-like device used to invade intestinal cells also acts as a traffic cop -- directing bacteria where to go and thereby enabling them to efficiently carry out infection.
The findings by researchers at Washington State University and Harvard University appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Go to: http://www.pnas.org/content/113/17/4794.long)
New research from the University of Adelaide in Australia shows children aged 9-10 years old are receiving almost half of their daily energy requirements from "discretionary" or junk foods.
An international collaboration of researchers has identified five new gene regions that increase a woman's risk of developing endometrial cancer, one of the most common cancers to affect women, taking the number of known gene regions associated with the disease to nine.
Endometrial cancer affects the lining of the uterus. It is the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer in UK women, with around 9,000 new cases being diagnosed each year.
How bacterial cells divide in two is not fully understood. Physicists of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich now show that, at high concentrations, a crucial protein can assemble into ring-shaped filaments that constrict the cell, giving rise to two daughter cells.
An experimental study carried out by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich media researchers has found that readers rate texts generated by algorithms more credible than texts written by real journalists.
A class of 150 US 7th graders has helped select a name for a newly discovered plant, which amazes with its fruits that appear to be bleeding once they are cut open. Bucknell University biology professor Chris Martine and life science teacher Bradley Catherman challenged the students to come up with ideas for what to call the new Australian species last spring.
How species genetically adapt to their environment is a central question related to the evolution of biodiversity. In a new study scientists at Uppsala University and their colleagues report that whole genome sequencing of Atlantic and Baltic herring revealed hundreds of loci underlying adaptation to the brackish Baltic Sea or timing of reproduction. The study is published today in eLife.
RNA polymerase II (Pol II), a key enzyme in our gene expression, is responsible for transcribing DNA into messenger RNA. Errors in transcription can cause deleterious effect upon repeated translation of erroneous mRNA into protein. Transcription infidelity may result in aging and human diseases such as cancer. During transcription, Pol II can detect the mis-incorporated RNA and backtrack to correct errors to ensure that each messenger RNA created will match with template DNA. However, it remains largely a mystery how Pol II controls the fidelity of gene transcription.
"The results for tolerability, safety, and the immune response to the vaccine candidate are very promising," explains Prof Marylyn Addo. The antibodies which developed against the virus were still detectable after six months. Addo is convinced, "With this, a single vaccine could provide lasting protection against Ebola." The infectious disease specialist, who works for the German Center for Infection Research at the University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf (UKE) in Hamburg, led the trial in Hamburg.
The number of new HIV infections occurring annually in the United States decreased by an estimated 11 percent from 2010 to 2015, while the HIV transmission rate decreased by an estimated 17 percent during the same time period, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Pennsylvania.