Science News – Page 2

New Ebola Study Uncovers Potential Drug Target

Written on April 10, 2015. Posted in Breaking News, Featured, Science News.

Every bit of news about a possible therapy is cause for excitement when it comes to Ebola, the deadly viral haemorrhagic fever that is still ravaging West Africa. Scientists at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute have hit on a candidate. In a new study in the journal Science, they suggest that tetrandrine, a compound found naturally in Stephania tetrandra, a climbing plant and component of traditional Chinese medicines, could effectively fight...

New Ebola Study Points to Potential Drug Target

Written on April 9, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News.

Opening the door to potential treatments for the deadly Ebola virus, scientists have found that a protein made by the virus plays a role similar to that of a coat-check attendant. The protein removes a protective coat from the virus’s genetic material, exposing the viral genome so that it can be copied, and then returns the coat, according to a new study led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The research, in...

Genetic Mutation Helps Explain Why, in Rare Cases, Flu Can Kill

Written on March 30, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News.

Nobody likes getting the flu, but for some people, fluids and rest aren’t enough. A small number of children who catch the influenza virus fall so ill they end up in the hospital — perhaps needing ventilators to breathe — even while their family and friends recover easily. New research by Rockefeller University scientists, published March 26 in Science, helps explain why: a rare genetic mutation. The researchers scrutinized blood and tissue...

Marijuana Gears Up for Production High in U.S. Labs

Written on March 23, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News.

Residents of 23 US states can buy medical marijuana to treat everything from cancer pain to anxiety, but US scientists must wade through onerous paperwork to score the drug for study. Their sole dealer is the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which has a contract with the University of Mississippi in Oxford to produce marijuana for research purposes. The agency has long faced complaints that its marijuana is too weak to represent what is...

Lab-on-Paper Invention: Fast & Low Cost Pathogen Diagnostics

Written on March 3, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News.

A team of University of Rhode Island engineers led by Professor Mohammad Faghri has created a new paper-based platform for conducting a wide range of complex medical diagnostics. The key development was the invention of fluid actuated valves embedded in the paper that allow for sequential manipulation of sample fluids and multiple reagents in a controlled manner to perform complex multi-step immune-detection tests without human intervention. Faghri...

Asian Herb Holds Promise as Treatment for Ebola Virus Disease

Written on February 26, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News, World News.

New research that focuses on the mechanism by which Ebola virus infects a cell and the discovery of a promising drug therapy candidate is being published February 27, 2015, in the journal Science. Dr. Robert Davey, scientist and Ewing Halsell Scholar in the Department of Immunology and Virology at Texas Biomedical Research Institute announced today that a small molecule called Tetrandrine derived from an Asian herb has shown to be a potent small...

Ebola Vaccine: Human Antibodies Target Marburg & Ebola Viruses

Written on February 26, 2015. Posted in Breaking News, Featured, Health News, Science News, World News.

One step closer to Ebola vaccine: Researchers at Vanderbilt University, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and The Scripps Research Institute for the first time have shown how human antibodies can neutralize the Marburg virus, a close cousin to Ebola. Their findings, published this week in two papers in the journal Cell, should speed development of the first effective treatment and vaccine against these often lethal viruses, said...

Funding For Development of Microneedle Patch Polio Vaccine

Written on February 25, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News.

The Georgia Institute of Technology and Micron Biomedical have been awarded $2.5 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance the development of dissolvable microneedle patches for polio immunization. The patches will be studied to evaluate their potential role as part of the worldwide efforts to eradicate polio. The funds will support research and development of vaccine-filled microneedles that are designed to dissolve...

The Course of Ebola Virus Disease

Written on February 24, 2015. Posted in Health News, Opinion News, Personal Safety, Science News.

When a glycoprotein in the Ebola virus envelope binds to a receptor on an antigen-presenting cell, the activated cell goes right to a lymph node and “presents” the antigen (the virus) to cells in the immune system. Thus, like the AIDS virus, Ebola begins by attacking the body’s defenders. Then as it spreads through the body, it also attacks endothelial cells (the lining of blood vessels), liver cells, and many other cells. Cells that are most seriously...

Forgotten Bacterium Is the Cause of Many Severe Sore Throats

Written on February 23, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News.

New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham suggests that Fusobacterium necrophorum more often causes severe sore throats in young adults than streptococcus — the cause of the much better known strep throat. The findings, published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggest physicians should consider F. necrophorum when treating severe sore throat, known as pharyngitis, in young adults and adolescents that worsens. In an analysis...