world health club 27

"Right now there are multiple treatments for cystic fibrosis, and while these have improved life expectancy dramatically, there is still only a lifespan of about 40 years for patients. No one treatment can stand alone," said Allan L. Goldstein, Ph.D., co-author of the paper and Professor Emeritus in Residence of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. "We developed a single treatment that can potentially correct the genetic defect that causes cystic fibrosis and decrease the inflammation that happens as a result." Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that causes persistent lung infections and limits the ability to breathe over time, and it affects approximately 70,000 worldwide and 30,000 in the U.S. alone. Cystic fibrosis is the result of mutations in the gene encoding the protein called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), which is important to maintain chloride-channel activity affectin...

Retroviruses, which include human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), are abundant in nature. Unlike other viruses, which do not usually leave a physical trace of their existence, retroviruses include a step in their life cycle where their genetic material is integrated into the genome of their host. This integration has created a genetic fossil record of extinct retroviruses that is preserved in the genomes of modern organisms. Writing in the journal  eLife , researchers from the Rockefeller University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), US, set out to discover how extinct viral lineages could have been eliminated. To do this, they analysed retroviral fossils left by human endogenous retrovirus T (HERV-T), which replicated in our primate ancestors for approximately 25 million years before it was eradicated about 11 million years ago. Working with Robert Gifford from the University of Glasgow, the team first compiled a near-complete catalog of HERV-T fossils in old-wor...

That is a picture of an grownup zebrafish mind exhibiting fluorescent granular perithelial cells (inexperienced) atop blood vessels (inexperienced). Credit score: Nationwide Institutes of Well being Nationwide Institutes of Well being researchers learning zebrafish have decided inhabitants of cells that defend the mind in opposition to illnesses and dangerous substances should not immune cells, as had beforehand been thought, however as a substitute probably come up from the liner of the circulatory system. This fundamental science discovering might have implications for understanding age-related decline in mind functioning and the way HIV infects mind cells. The examine, showing on-line in  eLife , was performed by researchers at NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver Nationwide Institute of Little one Well being and Human Improvement (NICHD) and Nationwide Human Genome Analysis Institute and the Japanese Nationwide Institute of Genetics. The blood-brain barrier is ...

The left picture exhibits typical HSV reactivation (pink) from latency in neurons. On the fitting, viral reactivation is stimulated by compounds that activate the HCF-1 binding companions. Credit score: NIAID Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections final a lifetime. As soon as an individual has been contaminated, the virus can stay dormant (latent) for years earlier than periodically reactivating to trigger recurrent illness. This poorly understood cycle has annoyed scientists for years. Now, Nationwide Institutes of Well being (NIH) scientists have recognized a set of protein complexes which might be recruited to viral genes and stimulate each preliminary an infection and reactivation from latency. Environmental stresses identified to control these proteins additionally induce reactivation. Globally, the World Well being Group estimates that one-half billion persons are contaminated with HSV-2 whereas two-thirds of the inhabitants are contaminated with HSV-1. ...

A new study, conducted by researchers at Zhejiang University, China and published in  The Lancet Infectious Diseases , is the first to report long-term infectious disease trends in China since the SARS outbreak and tracks 45 diseases over ten years in roughly 1.3 billion people, with data from the national notifiable infectious diseases report database. From 2004 to 2013, there were almost 55 million infectious disease cases and more than 132500 deaths as a result. Overall, the incidence of cases per year increased between 2004 and 2013 from 300.5 cases in every 100000 people in 2004, to 483.6 cases per 100000 in 2013. However, the pace slowed from 2009 onwards -- with the annual percentage increase of incidence going from 6.2% in 2004-2008 to 2.3% between 2009-2013. Deaths showed a similar trend, with the research showing a stable death rate after 2009. The authors of the study propose that these improvements come as a result of a number of measures implemented in recent y...

In an effort to promote better health outcomes for PWID, investigators, working in a three-institution multidisciplinary team, examined the relationship between injection drug use and immune activation in a sample of HIV infected and uninfected PWID. The team, led by Martin Markowitz, MD, Principal Investigator, from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, conducted a series of studies to assess correlates of immune activation. "Injection drug use (IDU), with or without HIV-infection, is associated with an increase in immune activation, measured in blood and in the GI tract," says the study's co-investigator, Sauarabh Mehandru, MD, assistant professor, Medicine and Gastroenterology , at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Research participants for the studies included people who were current and former injectors, and comparison participants who never injected. The investigators found the high prevalence of the hepatitis C virus among PWID made it difficult to disti...