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By Category: Agents & Toxins

Auto-Immune Disease Myasthenia Gravis: The Viral Route Is Confirmed

(Medical News Today) Why would our immune system turn against our own cells? This is the question that the combined Inserm/CNRS/ Pierre and Marie Curie University/Association Institut de Myologie have strived to answer in their “Therapies for diseases of striated muscle”, concentrating in particular on the auto-immune disease known as myasthenia gravis. Through the project  Read More »

Experts differ on HHS select-agent proposal for H5N1

(CIDRAP) Some professional groups and scientists think it’s a good idea to classify highly pathogenic avian (HPAI) H5N1 influenza viruses as “select agents” requiring special research precautions, while others say the step is unnecessary and would impede research, according to comments they have filed with the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). For  Read More »

Penn team developing new class of malaria drugs using essential calcium enzyme

(EurekAlert) Calpain, a calcium-regulated enzyme, is essential to a host of cellular processes, but can cause severe problems in its overactivated state. It has been implicated as a factor in muscular dystrophy, AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. As such, finding and exploiting calpain inhibitors is an important area of research. A team from  Read More »

Strange Behavior: New Study Exposes Living Cells to Synthetic Protein

(Science Daily) One approach to understanding components in living organisms is to attempt to create them artificially, using principles of chemistry, engineering and genetics. A suite of powerful techniques — collectively referred to as synthetic biology — have been used to produce self-replicating molecules, artificial pathways in living systems and organisms bearing synthetic genomes. In  Read More »

Scientists sequence genome of pathogen responsible for pneumocystis pneumonia

(EurekAlert) Scientists have sequenced the genome of the fungus Pneumocystis jirovecii, an advancement that could help identify new targets for drugs to treat and prevent Pneumocystis pneumonia, a common and often deadly infection in immunocompromised patients. The study will be published on December 26, 2012 in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society  Read More »

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