Body

In May 2016 at the World Health Assembly of 194 member states the WHO announced the process of developing and launching Emergency Medical Teams as a critical component of the global health workforce concept. Over 64 countries have either launched or are in the development stages of vetting accredited teams, both international and national, to provide surge support to national health systems through WHO Regional Organizations and the delivery of emergency clinical care to sudden-onset disasters and outbreak-affected populations.

PHOENIX -- A drug combination designed to enhance the immune system's ability to zero in and attack cancer cells has shown a pronounced therapeutic effect against advanced and metastatic cancers in mice, according to a Mayo Clinic study, published in the July 12 edition of the online journal Oncotarget.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - These days fecal transplantation is no joke.

Fecal transplants are increasingly being used as the treatment of last resort for certain infections in the human gut and have had remarkable success treating the nursing home and hospital-acquired scourge, Clostridium difficile colitis, an infectious diarrhea that often follows antibiotic treatment. There is also preliminary evidence that the transplantation of stool from healthy individuals can be effective in treating multiple sclerosis and Crohn's disease.

Mitochondrial disorders are a chameleon-like set of diseases that take many different forms and vary widely from individual to individual.

Mitochondria are special organelles found in cells that produce most of the chemical energy that powers cell operations. Mitochondrial dysfunction has been associated with a wide variety of illnesses, including autism, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, dementia, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, stroke, cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome and cardiovascular disease.

Increasing the number of men who undergo circumcision and increasing the rates at which women with HIV are given antiretroviral therapy (ART) were associated with significant declines in the number of new male HIV infections in rural Ugandan communities, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health research suggests.

The development of an effective vaccine to prevent HIV infections would represent a critical step toward ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Thus far, the only large clinical trial for an HIV vaccine to show promise was the RV144 study conducted in Thailand in 2009, which resulted in a modest 31 percent reduction in infection. Researchers are working to improve on the results of RV144 and also have launched efforts to create vaccines that induce broadly neutralizing antibodies that can block a wide range of HIV variants.

In a study appearing in the July 12 issue of JAMA, an HIV/AIDS theme issue, Xiangrong Kong, Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and colleagues examined whether increasing community medical male circumcision and antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage was associated with reduced community HIV incidence in Uganda.

In a report appearing in the July 12 issue of JAMA, an HIV/AIDS theme issue, Huldrych F. Gunthard, M.D., of University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland, and colleagues with the International Antiviral Society-USA panel, updated recommendations for the use of antiretroviral therapy in adults with established HIV infection, including when to start treatment, initial regimens, and changing regimens, along with recommendations for using antiretroviral drugs for preventing HIV among those at risk, including preexposure and postexposure prevention.

In a study appearing in the July 12 issue of JAMA, Claire K. Ankuda, M.D., M.P.H., and Deborah A. Levine, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, examined trends in caregiving for home-dwelling older adults with functional disability.

Among nearly 900 serodifferent (one partner is HIV-positive, one is HIV-negative) heterosexual and men who have sex with men couples in which the HIV-positive partner was using suppressive antiretroviral therapy and who reported condomless sex, during a median follow-up of 1.3 years per couple, there were no documented cases of within-couple HIV transmission, according to a study appearing in the July 12 issue of JAMA, an HIV/AIDS theme issue.

A new microscopic imaging system is revealing a never-before-seen view of the underwater world. Researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego have designed and built a diver-operated underwater microscope to study millimeter-scale processes as they naturally occur on the seafloor.

The research team observed coral turf wars, coral polyp "kissing," and much more using the new microscopic technology.

For the first time, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and University of Leeds have proved that gene variants associated with red hair, pale skin and freckles are linked to a higher number of genetic mutations in skin cancers. The burden of mutations associated with these variants is comparable to an extra 21 years of sun exposure in people without this variant.

The ability of finches, sparrows, and many other birds to see a visual world hidden to us is explained in a study published in the journal eLife.

Birds can be divided into those that can see ultraviolet (UV) light and those that cannot. Those that can live in a sensory world apart, able to transmit and receive signals between each other in a way that is invisible to many other species. How they unlock this extra dimension to their sight is revealed in new findings from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

With increased study of bio-adhesives, a significant effort has been made in search for novel adhesives that will combine reversibility, repeated usage, stronger bonds and faster bonding time, non-toxic, and more importantly be effective in wet and other extreme conditions.

A team of Korean scientists-made up of scientists from Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and UNIST?has recently found a way to make building flexible pressure sensors easier--by mimicking the suction cups on octopus's tentacles.

The marker Flattop subdivides the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas into those that maintain glucose metabolism and into immature cells that divide more frequently and adapt to metabolic changes. This could provide a starting point for regenerative diabetes therapies, as scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München, in collaboration with colleagues of the Technical University of Munich and the German Center for Diabetes Research, report in the journal Nature.