Science Daily May 3, 2021 Soluble protein vaccines are poorly immunogenic if administered by an intranasal route. A team of researchers in the US (Georgia State University, Emory University) developed an intranasal influenza vaccine using recombinant hemagglutinin (HA), a protein found on the surface of influenza viruses, as the antigen component of the vaccine. HA is integral to the ability of influenza virus to cause infection. They also created a two-dimensional nanomaterial (polyethyleneimine-functionalized graphene oxide nanoparticles) and found that it displayed potent immunoenhancing effects on influenza vaccines delivered intranasally. The study, conducted in mice and cell culture, found the nanoparticles significantly […]
Tag Archives: Infectious diseases
Study shows how some bacteria withstand antibiotic onslaught
Phys.org April 20, 2021 Bacteria that survive antibiotics, called persisters. Researchers at Princeton University explored how the number of DNA copies in a cell affects whether a cell persists despite exposure to DNA-damaging antibiotics called fluoroquinolones. The study confirmed the researchers’ expectation that bacteria with backup chromosomal copies of DNA proved to be persisters at a much greater rate than cells with just one copy. The experiments revealed a second and separate pathway to persistence in cells with a lone DNA copy. Unlike fully antibiotic resistant “superbugs,” persisters do not possess mutated genes; in fact, persisters are genetically identical to […]
Solution to century-old math problem could predict transmission of infectious diseases
Science Daily May 29, 2020 The diffusion equation models random movement and is one of the fundamental equations of physics. The analytic solution of the diffusion equation in finite domains, when time and space is continuous, has been known for a long time. However, the diffusion equation in finite space was not solved until now. Researchers in the UK used Chebyshev polynomials, and the method of images which is used to tackle electrostatic problems to construct the solution to the discrete diffusion equation in higher dimension from the one in lower dimensions. The solution could be used to accurately predict […]
Graphene-based fabric protects against mosquitoes
Physics World August 28, 2019 Researchers at Brown University investigated the fundamental interactions between graphene-based films and the globally important mosquito species, Aedes aegypti, through a combination of live mosquito experiments, needle penetration force measurements, and mathematical modeling of mechanical puncture phenomena. The results showed that graphene or graphene oxide nanosheet films in the dry state are highly effective at suppressing mosquito biting behavior on live human skin. Behavioral assays indicated that the primary mechanism is not mechanical puncture resistance, but rather interference with host chemosensing. This interference is proposed to be a molecular barrier effect that prevents Aedes from […]
Chilling New Research Shows How Dire a Smallpox Bioterror Attack Could Actually Get
Science Alert February 21, 2019 To investigate what this kind of hypothetical threat might look, an international team of researchers (Australia, Fiji, USA- USINDOPACOM, Emory University, New Zealand, UK, Western Samoa, Tonga, industry) recently led a complex international simulation of such an attack, called Exercise Mataika to simulate a worst-case, large scale bioterrorist attack. The aim was to determine the duration and magnitude of the epidemic under different scenarios and scenarios where the current stockpile of vaccine is adequate. In a worst-case scenario, at the peak of the epidemic worldwide, it showed that only 50 percent of smallpox cases are […]
Glow-in-the-dark paper as a rapid test for infectious diseases
Science Daily October 3, 2018 An international team of researchers (Japan, the Netherlands) has developed microfluidic paper‐based analytical devices (μPADs) based on bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) switches for analyte recognition and colorimetric signal generation. They use BRET‐based antibody sensing proteins integrated into vertically assembled layers of functionalized paper, fully reagent‐free operation, including on‐device blood plasma separation. It takes about 20 minutes and a drop of blood to test the sample for anti-bodies. The device is ideally suited for user‐friendly point‐of‐care testing in low‐resource environments…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE