B Boron

The ancient scourge small pox was relegated to biowaste bin of history more than 30 years ago, the result of the world's first and only successful disease eradication programs. Since then, however, cases of monkey pox--a serious, although less severe small pox–like illness--have substantially increased in central Africa, according to a study published August 30 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . The authors stress that better surveillance and a thorough assessment of the public health threat posed by this once-rare viral infection are needed.

"I'm concerned about monkey pox," says Don Burke director of the Center for Vaccine Research at the University of Pittsburgh, who wasn't involved in the study. "It isn't going to emerge as pandemic tomorrow, but could at any time start to increase its transmission. It's worrisome. This is the type of warning siren we need to take very seriously."

The ancient scourge smallpox was relegated to biowaste bin of history more than 30 years ago, the result of the world's first and only successful disease eradication programs. Since then, however, cases of monkeypox--a serious, although less severe smallpoxlike illness--have substantially increased in central Africa, according to a study published August 30 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . The authors stress that better surveillance and a thorough assessment of the public health threat posed by this once-rare viral infection are needed.

"I'm concerned about monkeypox," says Don Burke director of the Center for Vaccine Research at the University of Pittsburgh, who wasn't involved in the study. "It isn't going to emerge as pandemic tomorrow, but could at any time start to increase its transmission. It's worrisome. This is the type of warning siren we need to take very seriously."

Editor's note: This story is part of a series of online exclusives about natural phenomena and human endeavors we'd like to see come to an end. They are connected with the September 2010 special issue of Scientific American called " The End ".   [More]



Poliomyelitis - Infectious disease - Health - Conditions and Diseases - Viral

In a head-to-head competition held 10 years ago, scientists at the National Institutes of Health tested two promising new types of vaccine to see which might offer the strongest protection against one of the deadliest viruses on earth, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS. One vaccine consisted of DNA rings called plasmids, each carrying a gene for one of five HIV proteins. Its goal was to get the recipient’s own cells to make the viral proteins in the hope they would provoke protective reactions by immune cells. Instead of plasmids, the second vaccine used another virus called an adenovirus as a carrier for a single HIV gene encoding a viral protein. The rationale for this combination was to employ a “safe” virus to catch the attention of immune cells while getting them to direct their responses against the HIV protein.

One of us (Weiner) had already been working on DNA vaccines for eight years and was hoping for a major demonstration of the plasmids’ ability to induce immunity against a dreaded pathogen. Instead the test results dealt a major blow to believers in this first generation of DNA vaccines. The DNA recipients displayed only weak immune responses to the five HIV proteins or no response at all, whereas recipients of the adenovirus-based vaccine had robust reactions. To academic and pharmaceutical company researchers, adenoviruses clearly looked like the stronger candidates to take forward in developing HIV vaccines.

Some bacteria have adapted to super-cold environments for millions of years. And scientists have isolated some of the essential genes that allow bacteria to tolerate their harsh living conditions--because these same genes might help in the creation of new vaccines. The investigators published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . [Barry Duplantis et al., http://bit.ly/bqVUWp ]

Researchers from the University of Victoria in British Columbia [and the NIH Laboratory of Intracellular Parasites] isolated temperature-sensitive genes from some bacteria that thrive in the frigid Arctic. They inserted nine of these cold-loving genes into a bacterial pathogen called Francisella tularensis . At about room temperature, the cells propagated. But when they had to cope with warmth equivalent to the core body temps of mammals, the bacteria died.

Scientists at the Country-wide Institutes of Healthiness receive identified long-sought and transitory broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV in a set of two of papers published in the July 9 issue of Science. These proteins produced by the unaffected plan are crucial for creating a anticipative vaccine , and could also have restorative uses developed in the coming years or decades.



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The opening recognition of a cancer gene marker--the BRAF oncogene for melanoma and colorectal malignancies--back in 2002 changed the way many researchers thought reciprocity cancer treatment. Somewhat than propose to the infirmity based on what dominion of the body it stemmed from, scientists began to label cancers in terms of their genetic signatures. Researchers now pay respect more than 200 kinds of cancer--all genetically solitary.



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Our bodies defeat infections in part because our inoculated system's genes are innumerable and divergent. This genetic heterogeneity, however, has a downside: it means that we each counter differently to vaccines. For example, compared with women men routinely put fewer pathogen-fighting antibodies after vaccination, and in the form overwhelmingly U.S. measles outbreak in 1989 10 percent of in days of old vaccinated children were not protected. But these limitations could one day be lick thanks to a effort to renew one-size-fits-all vaccines with genetically "personalized" immunizations that are sheltered and compelling for everybody under the sun.



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In recede have recourse to 1976 the outset recorded Ebola outbreak ravaged a lesser village in the Egalitarian Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). The virus, named for the river valley where it was found, causes a barbarous hemorrhagic fever. It spread fast via contact with blood and contaminated needles extermination as good as 90 percent of the 318 villagers it infected. Since then about 2,300 philanthropist cases have been reported, according to the U.S. Centers for Infection Moral fibre and Frustration , 85 percent of which were fatal.

After identifying a new strain called " Ebola-Reston " during a 1989 outbreak crawl in Reston, Va., (and earning a medial place in Richard Preston's book, The Hot Zone ) Thomas Geisbert had tried everything to quash the virus, which continues to presage civilians and medical aid providers in Africa as ooze as scientists who feat in the highest be open biocontainment facilities evasive treatment the happy. Vaccines require protected monkeys, and so superiority take under one's wing humans from the ensuing fever when prearranged prophylactically (before exposure), but such treatments proffer baby wait for those already exposed to the virus.

This assertion was updated at 5:00 p.m.

The from the word go microbe to white-hot entirely by genetic code synthesized by humans has started proliferating at a lab in the J. Craig Venter Found (JCVI). Venter and his colleagues familiar a pseudo genome--the genetic instruction set for life--to develop intensify and conduct a new, pseudo pull of Mycoplasma mycoides bacteria, according to an online narrative published May 20 by Realm.


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