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By Category: Research

Ebola expert to give presentation on virus in Hamilton

(The Missoulian) In the summer of 1976, van der Groen was a 33-year-old biochemist and research assistant at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium. Reports of an unknown infectious disease led him and a team of scientists to the central African nation of Zaire, now named the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Near the Read More »

April 9, 2012
| Filed under Africa, North America, Agents & Toxins, International, Public Health, and Research
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Tackling Bioterrorism

(The Diplomat) The United States is vulnerable to an attack that could kill hundreds of thousands. But the big threat might not come from a nuclear device falling into the wrong hands, and certainly not from a brigade of suicide bombers. Instead, argues James Glassman in an article Forbes article this week, “terrorists could spray Read More »

April 9, 2012
| Filed under Asia/Pacific, North America, South Asia, Bioterrorism, Countermeasures, International, and Research
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Bioterrorism threat spurs authorities to invoke animal rule for J&J antibiotic

(MedCity News) An FDA advisory panel this week agreed that studies using monkeys demonstrated Levaquin’s effectiveness in treating pneumonic plague. The FDA can invoke the animal rule, which allows evidence to support the approval to be based entirely on animal studies, to provide a regulatory pathway when human studies aren’t possible, the paper said.

April 9, 2012
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, Public Health, and Research
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Controversial bird flu experiments produced no killer virus, scientists say

(Washington Post) Two controversial research projects with the H5N1 bird flu virus haven’t produced a killer bug but have generated useful information, two researchers told scientists and bioethicists gathered here to talk about the benefits and pitfalls of manipulating deadly pathogens. “We can use this information to understand what’s happening in nature,” Yoshihiro Kawaoka of Read More »

April 6, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Biosafety, International, Policy & Initiatives, Public Health, and Research
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Censoring flu data could raise bioterror threat

(New Scientist) Efforts to keep science secret by “redacting” scientific papers might cause the very problems it is supposed to prevent. That was the warning from leading cyber-security specialist Bruce Schneier to a meeting of flu and security experts this week at the Royal Society in London in the wake of the decision by the Read More »