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By Category: Agents & Toxins

A Single Amino Acid Change Switches Avian Influenza H5N1 and H7N9 Viruses to Human Receptors

(WatchingTheWatchers) Two back-to-back papers were published last week that provide a detailed analysis of what it would take for avian influenza H5N1 and H7N9 viruses to switch to human receptors. Influenza virus initiates infection by attaching to the cell surface, a process mediated by binding of the viral hemagglutinin protein (HA) to sialic acid. This Read More »

June 14, 2013
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Agriculture, Public Health, and Research
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DARPA Develops Tiny Helpers To Spot Bioterror Attacks

(InformationWeek) The government might soon have at its disposal highly sensitive gas analyzers that can detect chemical or biological attacks, atomic clocks the size of chips, and micro-vacuum tubes. A group of researchers funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently developed a new class of powerful, tiny vacuum pumps that could be Read More »

June 14, 2013
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Biological Weapons, Bioterrorism, Policy & Initiatives, Public Health, and Research
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University of Toronto breakthrough allows fast, reliable pathogen identification

(EurekAlert) Life-threatening bacterial infections cause tens of thousands of deaths every year in North America. Increasingly, many infections are resistant to first-line antibiotics. Unfortunately, current methods of culturing bacteria in the lab can take days to report the specific source of the infection, and even longer to pinpoint the right antibiotic that will clear the Read More »

June 13, 2013
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Countermeasures, Public Health, and Research
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Alchemists Gone Bad: What You Should Know About Biological Warfare

(Discover) Spears. Bows and arrows. Swords. Guns. Bombs. Drones. Microbes. The evolution of weapons and forms of warfare shadows our technological advancements, from the field of metallurgy to that of microbiology. Biological warfare has existed for thousands of years: cheap and easy, it is often referred to as the “poor man’s nuclear bomb.” Few supplies Read More »

June 13, 2013
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Biological Weapons, and Bioterrorism
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Triple Threat: Middle East Respiratory Virus And 2 Bird Flus

(WBUR) The World Health Organization is warning health care workers everywhere to suspect a disease called Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, whenever they see a case of unexplained pneumonia. Monday’s warning comes at the end of a six-day WHO investigation in Saudi Arabia, where 40 of the 55 cases of the respiratory disease have Read More »