Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have determined that the immune-system protein interferon plays a key role in "teaching" the immune system how to fight off repeated infections of the same virus. The findings, available online and in the Dec. 15 issue of the Journal of Immunology, have potential application in the development of more effective vaccines and anti-viral therapies........

The costs that health care providers are charged and reimbursed for childhood vaccines vary widely, and the high cost of some immunizations is leading to significant financial strain for some physicians, as per a pair of new studies from the University of Michigan Health System. The findings suggest that a number of physicians appear to be paying too much and receiving too little reimbursement, but they can use this new data to help improve both areas, the scientists say........

Antibiotics are the single largest class of agents that cause idiosyncratic drug-induced liver injury (DILI), reports a new study in Gastroenterology, an official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute. DILI is the most common cause of death from acute liver failure and accounts for approximately 13 percent of cases of acute liver failure in the U.S. It is caused by a wide variety of prescription and nonprescription medications, nutritional supplements and herbals........

It's a parents worst nightmare, a newborn baby going under the knife to repair a heart defect. If the baby survives, that's when the real work begins for parents. University of Alberta nursing professor Gwen Rempel has seen hundreds of babies on the brink as a former pediatric cardiology nurse; she wanted to find out just what parents go through........

In the same way that winter is usually known to be the "flu season," a new study suggests that the dog days of summer may well be the "bacterial infection" season. Scientists have discovered that serious infections caused by gram-negative bacteria can go up as much as 17 percent with every 10 degree increase in seasonal temperature. The findings, which were based on seven years of data from infections in a Baltimore hospital, suggest that the incidence there of some of these illnesses might be up to 46 percent higher in summer than in winter........

We are always being told by marketers of healthy yogurts that the human gut contains a bustling community of different bacteria, both good and bad, and that this balance is vital to keeping you healthy. But if you target the disease-causing bacteria with medicine, what might be the collateral damage to their health-associated cousins that call the human body home?........

A Purdue University researcher has created a compound that prevents replication of the virus that causes SARS and could lead to a therapy for the disease. "The outbreak of SARS in 2003 led to hundreds of deaths and thousands of illnesses, and there is currently no therapy," said Arun Ghosh, the Purdue professor that led the molecular design team. "Eventhough it is not currently a threat, there is the concern that SARS could return or be used as a biological weapon. It is important to develop a therapy as a safeguard"........

In a global world, significant factors affect the spread of infectious diseases, including international trade, air travel and globalized food production. "Airport malaria" is a term coined by scientists to explain the more recent spread of malaria to areas such as the United States and Europe, which some researchers credit to warmer climate changes........

Chemistry scientists at The University of Warwick and the John Innes Centre, have found a novel signalling molecule that could be a key that will open up hundreds of new antibiotics unlocking them from the DNA of the Streptomyces family of bacteria. With bacterial resistance growing scientists are keen to uncover as a number of new antibiotics as possible. Some of the Streptomyces bacteria are already used industrially to produce current antibiotics and scientists have developed approaches to find and exploit new pathways for antibiotic production in the genome of the Streptomyces family. For a number of years it was thought that the relatively unstable butyrolactone compounds represented by "A-factor" were the only real signal for stimulating such pathways of possible antibiotic production but the Warwick and John Innes teams have now found a much more stable group of compounds that may have the potential to produce at least one new antibiotic compound from up to 50% of the 1000 or so known Streptomyces family of bacteria........

Vaccinating new mothers and other family members against influenza before their newborns leave the hospital creates a "cocooning effect" that may shelter unprotected children from the flu, a virus that can be life-threatening to infants, as per scientists at Duke Children's Hospital. The hospital-based outreach tested in this study proved effective at boosting immunization rates in parents particularly new fathers and siblings who otherwise may not be vaccinated........

Washington, DC, October 26, 2008 - Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of sanofi-aventis Group, announced recently that an investigational high-dose influenza vaccine demonstrated increased immune responses among adults 65 years of age and older compared with the standard influenza vaccine. The candidate high-dose intramuscular formulation of the influenza vaccine is being developed by sanofi pasteur........

Researchers have taken a critical step toward the development of new and more effective antibacterial drugs by identifying exactly how a specific antibiotic sets up a road block that halts bacterial growth. The antibiotic, myxopyronin, is a natural substance that is made by bacteria to fend off other bacteria. Researchers already knew that this antibiotic inhibited the actions of an enzyme called RNA polymerase, which sets gene expression in motion and is essential to the life of any cell........

A single vaccine could be used to protect chickens, cats and humans against deadly flu pandemics, as per an article reported in the recent issue of the Journal of General Virology The vaccine protects birds and mammals against different flu strains and can even be given to birds while they are still in their eggs, allowing the mass vaccination of wild birds........

Pneumococcal disease, one of the world's leading causes of death and serious illness (1), must be recognised as an urgent global health issue together with HIV, malaria and TB, say the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Pneumococcal Disease Prevention in the Developing World in a report launching at the House of Lords today. Between 700,000 and one million children under the age of five die each year from pneumococcal disease, equivalent to malaria and more than AIDS and tuberculosis (2,3)........

As a number of as one quarter of HIV patients have drug resistance, limiting their therapy options and raising their risk for AIDS and death. Now, maraviroc, the first of a new class of HIV drugs called CCR5 receptor antagonists, has been shown to be effective over 48 weeks for drug-resistant patients with R5 HIV-1, a variation of the virus found in more than half of HIV-infected patients........