SciTech Daily February 21, 2022 Microbes compete for resources and must also hide from or fight predators. Using the fungus Rhizopus, which grows in the soil and on spoiled food, an international team of researchers (UK, USA – UCLA) showed how it fights back against this predator by partnering with a bacteria called Ralstonia in a two-way partnership. By living inside Rhizopus, Ralstonia hides from the predator. In return, Ralstonia makes a toxin that Rhizopus can use to neutralize the predator, preventing it from feeding on the pair. By learning to fight off predators in the soil, Rhizopus has also […]
Category Archives: Infectious diseases
BAA for COVID-19 Diagnostics, Vaccines and Therapeutics
Global Biodefense March 6, 2020 The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) issued the BAA-18-100-SOL-00003-Amendment 13 to solicit proposals for advanced development and licensure of COVID-19 diagnostics, vaccines, or medicines such as therapeutics or antivirals. COVID-19 response related Areas of Interest includes: Diagnostic assay for human coronavirus using existing FDA-cleared platforms, Point-of-care diagnostic assay for detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus, Diagnostic assay for detection of COVID-19 disease (SARS-CoV-2 infection), COVID-19 Vaccine, COVID-19 Therapeutics, Immunomodulators or therapeutics targeting lung repair, Pre-exposure and post-exposure prophylaxis, Respiratory protective devices, Ventilators, Advanced Manufacturing Technologies. BARDA will only accept submissions related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus […]
Over 24,000 coronavirus research papers are now available in one place
MIT Technology Review March 16, 2020 Today researchers collaborating across several organizations released the Covid-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19), which includes over 24,000 research papers from peer-reviewed journals as well as sources like bioRxiv and medRxiv. The research covers SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19 and the coronavirus group. The database was compiled under the request of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) through a collaboration between three organizations. The National Library of Medicine provided access to existing scientific publications; Microsoft used its literature curation algorithms to find relevant articles; and research nonprofit the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) […]
Outbreak science: Infectious disease research leads to outbreak predictions
Science Daily January 8, 2020 An international team of researchers (Finland, USA – Georgetown University, Canada) used information from the Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network (GIDEON) data resource to develop a simple approach to accurately predict disease outbreaks by combining novel statistical techniques and a large dataset on pathogen biogeography (spatial distribution of pathogens across the globe). The approach takes pairwise dissimilarities between countries’ pathogen communities and pathogens’ geographical distributions and uses these to predict country–pathogen associations. They compare the success rates of their model for predicting pathogen outbreak, emergence and re-emergence potential as a function of time…read more. […]
New tool to predict the global spread of dengue
Science Daily December 4, 2019 According to the World Health Organisation, around half the world’s population is at risk of contracting dengue. International travelers significantly contribute to dengue’s rapid and large-scale spread by importing the disease from endemic into non-endemic countries. Researchers in Australia consider international air travel volumes to construct weighted networks, representing passenger flows between airports. They calculate the probability of passengers being infected with dengue which depends on the destination, duration and timing of travel. The findings shed light onto dengue importation routes and reveal country-specific reporting rates that have been until now largely unknown. The research […]
Ebola Outbreak in Congo Has Just Been Declared an “Emergency of International Concern”
Science Alert July 18, 2019 The last time the global health body declared an international emergency for Ebola was during the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa that killed more than 11,000 people. Ebola began spreading in Congo’s conflict-ridden North Kivu province last summer and has infected more than 2,500 and killed nearly 1,700, according to official Health Ministry figures. The decision was made by a committee of 10 scientists who had three times earlier declined to issue the declaration for the current outbreak. The WHO and other public health organizations have been tracing giant webs of people who have come […]
A New Layer of Medical Preparedness to Combat Emerging Infectious Disease
DARPA February 19, 2019 DARPA has selected five teams of researchers to support PREventing EMerging Pathogenic Threats (PREEMPT), a 3.5-year program first announced in January 2018 to reinforce traditional medical preparedness by containing viral infectious diseases in animal reservoirs and insect vectors before they can threaten humans. The PREEMPT researchers will model how viruses might evolve within animal populations and assess the safety and efficacy of potential interventions. According to the World Health Organization approximately 60 percent of emerging infectious diseases reported globally are zoonoses…read more.