Research
Nonhuman primates were recently protected against Lassa fever by using three types of monoclonal antibodies eight days after they became infected with the virus, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB).
While the virus is known... Read More »
Sandia National Laboratories recently developed a software application for mobile and traditional computing devices analyze gamma radiation data collected at the scene of an emergency involving radiation.
Sandia’s InterSpec team includes software developer and physicist Will Johnson and... Read More »
The gradual increase of the earth’s surface temperature enhances the metabolism of mosquitoes and increases the risk of dengue fever outbreaks, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Liverpool, the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) and the National... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently announced that it awarded four contracts for concrete prototypes of a southern border wall, which will help deter illegal crossings where they are constructed and allow CBP to evaluate new designs.
Caddell Construction Co., (DE), LLC based in... Read More »
The Alabama Department of Public Health recently announced the launch of a serious infectious disease response network in order to help identify and respond to potential outbreaks as they occur.
According to Mary McIntyre, chief medical officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health, the... Read More »
Start-ups and small biotech companies are the most-promising developers for new medical countermeasures for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, but they face serious challenges, according to Battelle's Senior Market Manager for Medical and CBRN Products Russell Coleman.... Read More »
The Nebraska Public Health Laboratory (NPHL) recently underwent an inspection of its patient care, quality control, and other critical facets and was subsequently reaccredited by the College of American Pathologists.
The reaccreditation places the lab among 7,700 other accredited facilities... Read More »
A meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assembled experts in human and animal health last week to address early warning systems for animal-to-human (zoonotic) disease outbreaks.
“Early detection is the key,” Trevor Shoemaker, a CDC epidemiologist formerly based in Uganda,... Read More »
A recently developed mathematical model accurately forecasted that a large-scale cholera outbreak would peak in war-torn Yemen by early July 2017, triggering more than 750,000 cases.
The model was developed by researchers at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.
While various amounts of... Read More »
Future measles vaccination strategies in high-fertility countries should focus on increasing childhood immunization rates, while immunization campaigns targeting adolescents and young adults should be required in low-fertility countries, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at... Read More »
Researchers are tracking down biothreats like tularemia but are facing a number of challenges including avoiding false positive tests, according to a recent study by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Specifically, the laboratory is investigating the... Read More »
The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) recently published a reminder about safety practices for microbiology labs following a July 2017 outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium associated with clinical and teaching microbiology labs.
The outbreak infected 24 people infected in 16 states. The... Read More »
After a Zika virus epidemic in 2015 and an outbreak of yellow fever earlier this year, Brazil runs a serious risk of being affected by Oropouche fever, a tropical viral infection similar to dengue fever, according to a recent study by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) in Brazil.... Read More »
National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists reported a new step forward in understanding and developing tools against tick-borne viruses this week, with the development of a laboratory model to study flaviviruses.
Specifically, it was researchers at Rocky Mountain Laboratories--a part of the... Read More »
A gene variant that affects cholesterol levels could increase a person’s risk of contracting typhoid fever while a common cholesterol-lowering medication can protect zebrafish against the bacterium Salmonella Typhi, according to a recent study by researchers at Duke University.
Intrigue for... Read More »
A multi-institution team of researchers recently published a study examining the role of a tiny protein called a delta peptide in making the Ebola virus more contagious.
Researchers from Tulane University, Louisiana State University and the Johns Hopkins University Institute for... Read More »
Due to Saudi-led air strikes and blockades, the cholera outbreak in Yemen is disproportionately affecting rebel-controlled areas, a letter recently published by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) researchers in The Lancet Global Health said.
According to the analysis, eight out of 10... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that it made available a panel of human plasma samples for regulatory evaluation of serological tests to detect recent Zika virus infection.
“By providing manufacturers of these tests with standardized patient samples to use in... Read More »
The Frederick National Laboratory recently announced it is producing an additional round of a Zika virus vaccine for use in ongoing studies to determine the most effective delivery methods and dosages.
According to David Lindsay, director of the laboratory’s Vaccine Clinical Materials Program... Read More »
Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has received a $1.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study a virus that infects malaria-bearing mosquitos and develop a means of genetically modifying mosquitoes more easily.
With that money, professor Jason Rasgon and his... Read More »
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) has continued to take steps to provide a department-wide nuclear command, control and communications (NC3) oversight structure for the NC3 Weapons System, but its focus has mainly centered on sustaining the current system as it adds personnel for the new structure,... Read More »
A team of international researchers were recently awarded a three year, $5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to test a cancer drug called imatinib as a repurposed tuberculosis (TB) treatment.
Commercially sold under the name Gleevec, imatinib... Read More »
Researchers at Princeton University recently found a critical role for a new immune signaling pathway in controlling infection by the flavivirus Yellow Fever Virus (YFV).
"An improved understanding of the complex mechanisms regulating YFV-17D attenuation will provide insights into key... Read More »
An algorithm that automatically determines how much useful information is contained in latent crime scene fingerprints was recently developed by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Michigan State University.
During the crime scene discovery process, the... Read More »
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently awarded a grant worth $112,000 to researchers at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (UH) to expand its studies of a proposed Ebola virus disease (EVD) vaccine candidate.
According to UH, the... Read More »
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) recently exercised an option with Soligenix, Inc. to fund its good manufacturing practices-compliant ricin vaccine, called RiVax, bulk drug substance and finished drug product manufacturing in order to conduct future preclinical... Read More »
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis recently developed a test that uses nanotechnology to quickly detect the Zika virus in blood.
Current Zika test requires the refrigeration of a blood sample in order to shop it to a medical center or laboratory. The recently developed test’s... Read More »
U.S. Muslims with positive opinions about ISIS and suicide bombing are more likely to experience isolation, social rejection, and depression, according to a recent National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) study.
The project began in 2012, and the... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has two new tools at their disposal for predicting cattle shipments and preparing for disease outbreaks among them.
With department funding, the two new web-based tools include the U.S. Animal Movement Model... Read More »
A test of more than 50 different computers linked with USB hubs, the most common medium to connect external devices to computers, revealed that more than 90 percent of the computers leaked information to the USB device, according to a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of... Read More »
A new proof-of-concept test for Zika virus that can quickly produce results in a matter of minutes has recently been developed by researchers from the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Contemporary Zika virus tests involves... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has made progress in establishing long-term deployable biometrics and forensics capabilities, but further actions are needed, according to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
For its report, GAO was tasked by the House Armed... Read More »
Using highly specific nuclear-derived techniques, a H5N8 avian influenza outbreak was recently identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and quickly put under control in the country’s Lake Albert region, according to scientists involved with the response efforts.
“This is the... Read More »
Cholera vaccines provide substantial protection for adults, but provide significantly less protection for children under age five, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The study, which was published in a recent... Read More »
Since the onset of the Zika virus in 2015, experts have been researching ways to combat its spread, but now, Arizona State University may have a plant-based vaccine ready to meet the challenge.
The effort is different than existing efforts in that it appears to be more potent, safer and even... Read More »
