July 19th, 2016
Today, July 19 2016, the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) kicked off its second day in Durban, South Africe. Today, a press conference held on the topic of finding an HIV cure was held. The press conference was chaired by Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine winner. Barré-Sinoussi received the award for the discovery of HIV decades prior. Other speakers at the press conference were Dr. Sharon Lewin, Dr. Annemarie Wensing, Dr. Giorgio Bozzi, Dr. Ann...
News
Regulation of IL-25 levels provides protection against clostridium difficile infection
July 8th, 2016
Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) continues to be the most common hospital-acquired disease in the United Sates, with over 450 000 infections annually. In the recent 12 July 2016 edition of Cell, researchers from the University of Virginia have discovered a possible immune-based therapy for this disease. Although IL-25 is typically studied in the context of allergies, it has shown...
Injection drug use and susceptibility to HIV and co-morbidities
July 7th, 2016
IInjection drug users (IDUs) are at a greater risk of contracting co-morbidities like HIV, hepatitis, and other blood-contracted diseases. However, it’s possible that the act of injection drug use itself may be altering the immune profile of IDUs, which may make them more susceptible to these infections. New research from Pipenbrink et al. uses a flow cytometry approach to determine whether the immune profiles of IDUs....
Is there a link between loneliness and Inflammation?
July 5th, 2016
New research published in PLOS One attempted to bridge the gap between the social and the biological by studying the relationship between loneliness and circulating levels of fibrinogen and C-reactive protein (CRP). To do so, they asked their research population of healthy, middle-aged adults to self-report levels of loneliness, and measured the circulating levels of fibrinogen and CRP.....
Do Mosquito bites help viral infections?
June 24th, 2016
In the recent 21 June 2016 article of Cell Immunity, McKimmie and colleagues investigated the mechanistic process of the mosquito bite in arbovirus infections. The researchers used the Semliki Forest virus (SFV), a relative of the chikungunya virus. The SFV was first injected into the skin of mouse models, however the virus quickly decimated in the lymphoid tissue. However, when the mice were bitten with A. aegypti mosquito, this lead to higher replication rates and rapid spread of the virus....
Can we tolerate an inhaled vaccine as a way to improve BCG efficacy?
June 20th, 2016
In the 6 May 2016 edition of Plos Pathogens, researchers from New Mexico, USA, studied the mechanisms and efficacy of BCG immunizations in EM-exposed mice through either the oral or intradermal route...
A new genetic approach for diagnosing Common Variable Immunodeficiency
June 16th, 2016
Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is the most common symptomatic group of primary immunodeficiency (PID) syndromes. The hallmark of CVID......
Inflammatory markers during pregnancy is linked with autism
June 13th, 2016
In the recent 24th May 2016 article from Molecular Psychiatry, researchers examined maternal mid-gestional serum samples of multiple cytokines and chemokines.....
Possible mother-to-child transmission route for Zika virus discovered
June 10th, 2016
In the 27th May 2016 edition of Cell Host & Microbe, scientists have discovered a potential mechanism for the entry of ZIKV into the fetal compartment.....
HIV uniquely impacts on gut microbial metabolism
June 9th, 2016
In a study published in the most recent edition of Nature, scientists studied the effects of HIV on the metabolism of gut bacteria......