Health Meaning

Having fraternal twins is in your genes—and in your hormones -

Researchers have long known that women whose families include fraternal twins are more likely to give birth to twins themselves -Same, and they are finally beginning to understand why. After scanning the data of nearly 00 mothers of fraternal twins, eight countries scientists have found two genes that increase the chances of having twins and one that affects hormone levels and another that can change how the ovaries react to them in a woman. The second of these may also have implications for why some women respond better than others to IVF.

Unlike identical twins, who are genetically the same, fraternal twins are no more closely related in terms of DNA than regular siblings. But scientists often like comparing identical and fraternal twins to understand how the variation of a trait is due to the environment versus genetics. Because of this, several large databases follow the twins as they age. In 1987, a young behavior geneticist at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam named Dorret Boomsma began the Netherlands Twin Register, which now contains more than 75,000 twins, triplets, and other children of multiple births. Parents of all participants had the same question: Why did they twins? "People want to understand," said Boomsma.

Researchers like Boomsma have ideas, especially since the birth of twins are on the rise in Western countries, for example, the United States saw an increase of 76% from 1980 to 2011. in vitro fertilization, for which demand has surged, is more likely to give twins. Older women who have more children than in the past, are also more likely to release more than one egg, which increases their chances of giving birth to fraternal twins.

To permanently solve the mystery, a new team led by Hamdi Mbarek, a molecular geneticist at Vrije Universiteit, combined data from nearly 00 mothers fraternal twins from databases in the Netherlands, the Australia, and Minnesota, and compared them against the women who had not had twins, and women who had been identical twins. The researchers looked for individual bases of DNA called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, which may vary from person to person, especially those that popped up most often in mothers of fraternal twins and not in others . Once they came up with a few potential SNPs, they ran the analysis once more in a separate database of Iceland, reducing their key findings down to only two SNPS. A copy of each SNP increased the odds of having fraternal twins a mother of 29%, they report today in The American Journal of Human Genetics .

The first SNP is near a gene called FSHB , which is involved in the production of follicle-stimulating hormone ( FSH ). FSH levels fluctuate as the eggs mature in the ovaries, if levels remain too high for too long, the ovaries release multiple eggs, the first of a series of events that could lead to a twin birth . It is therefore not surprising that FSH gene is associated with having twins.

The second SNP was more of a surprise. He was in a gene called SMAD3 . By changing the way the molecules reported to each other, SMAD3 changes how the ovaries react to FSH , at least in mice. Although the role SMAD3 s' is somewhat of a mystery here, Mbarek said SMAD3 could be a candidate to understand why some women respond better to IVF others . "This is a new area of ​​biology that was found in this document," said Anna Murray, a geneticist at the University of Exeter in the UK, who was not involved in the study. She agrees this is an interesting avenue to explore, but stressed that the study is only a first step.

Mbarek next plans to investigate whether women with the variant SMAD3 are more likely to get pregnant with IVF. But for now, it's exciting to know anything at all about genetics. "This is the first demonstration of the robust genes that are involved in [having fraternal twins]," Murray said. For his part, Boomsma is delighted to have seen the story through its full 30-years of the first entry in the Dutch register today's conclusions.

A modular route to new antibiotics -

Neuroscience gains a foothold in the West Bank -

European Commission gives controversial weed killer a last-minute reprieve -

For the relief of farmers, the controversial herbicide glyphosate will remain on the market in Europe for another 18 months. The weed killer widely used facing a deadline of June 30 for re-approval of its security without which it could not be sold, but the decision has been stuck in political deadlock. Thus, the European Commission intervened to extend the registration of security until December 2017. The decision was mentioned by the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety vytenis andriukaitis at a press conference today and can be officially announced tomorrow, according to a Commission source.

safety of glyphosate has been hotly debated since the International Agency for Research on Cancer has declared a "probable human carcinogen" in March 2015. regulators had previously declared safe when glyphosate is used, and the European food safety Authority was on track to renew its approval. (the divergent opinions have caused confusion, as specified here.) opponents of herbicide campaigned for the commission to do not renew the contract of license. Glyphosate manufacturers and the agricultural lobby have opposed fiercely, and member states could not reach a majority decision on how to proceed.

in his commentary, Andriukaitis said the commission has granted an extension of 18 months to have the European chemicals Agency (ECHA) to complete its review of glyphosate. ECHA is responsible for the classification and labeling of hazardous chemicals, and during deliberations the commission in May, some member states wanted to know the opinion of ECHA on the carcinogenicity of glyphosate before voting on his re-approval.

NIH in uproar over report slamming Clinical Center, leadership shakeup -

The decision to revise the direction of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center after a group of outside review found serious patient safety issues sparked an outcry at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. In a recent letter, the department heads to center wrote the review, triggered by problems with a drug production facility, wrongly concluded that patient safety was compromised in the research hospital. They say the report of the Working Group demoralized staff, worried patients, and "demonized" the center director.

letters patient advocates and research at NIH clinicians have also written taking issue under consideration. The NIH Director Francis Collins said yesterday in one of the letters, the clinical department heads Center. In a statement, Collins said he "takes the comments ... seriously. They are very dedicated senior officers, and I have great respect for all of them. "At the same time, it" stand [s] by "the process and expertise outside working group and agreed that the center is" more central authority and responsibility. "Collins was to meet clinical leaders today to discuss their concerns.

disorders is the clinical center began there about a year, when the fungal contamination was found in two vials of a drug from a sterile production unit in the development section pharmaceutical center. Examination revealed other problems at the facility, such as insects in lighting. Although no patient was injured in December 2015 Collins asked a so-called red-Team Working Group of its Advisory Committee to the Director to review all of the Clinical Center. The team on April report found "significant operations issues" with patient safety, regulatory compliance, and leadership. He describes a culture where patient safety "has become enslaved to search requests."

In response, Collins announced several changes, including a new board of the hospital. And the May 10, he said that the clinical team Centre Director John Gallin would be replaced by a new management structure similar to that used by most hospitals: a CEO, COO and the head doctor. Gallin the team will remain in the changes, Collins said.

But the clinical center staff, the ratio of the red team has gone too far. in the farmhouse letter dated 16 May from September department heads center and lead investigator Harvey Alter, they wrote that the claim that patient safety has taken a back seat to research is "simply incorrect." they suggested the red team would come to different conclusions if they had met several leaders of clinical research and patients tested positive reviews by accreditation outside agencies, and considered standard measures for the quality of care- such as patient data and falls infections.

instead the red team "deficiencies amalgamated in certain transactions clinical centers" as "an indication of the quality" of care for each patient, said the letter, first described by on Wall Street Journal . The resulting report and subsequent news coverage, they wrote, has "demonized [Clinical Center] leadership, demoralized employees high effective ... and alarmed our patients."

The members of the Advisory Group of the Clinical Center patients weighed, too, noting in an open letter yesterday that they are not aware of any harm to patient safety. They make a plea to keep Gallin and his management team, which they argue have become "scapegoats" for wider problems such as unstable funding the center.

A more measured letter 27 May of a committee of the clinical directors of the NIH institutes also expressed "concerns". the authors emphasize that the center's safety standards are higher than in most hospitals because all patients are part of an approved research protocol and are closely monitored. At the same time, the Committee agrees with some of the problems identified in the report, including the fact that funding for the Clinical Center operations comes from a tax on NIH institutes. The center needs its own flow budget and more money spent to make the necessary changes, the letter suggests.

Another conclusion widely accepted in the Red Team report is that it is a problem that many people working in the Clinical Center report to the leaders of their institutions, and not the center. Collins has already answered that question by giving these employees an additional information line to the director of Clinical Center, NIH said.

The president of the Red Team, former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, did not respond to an email request for comment. But team member Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at the University of Yale, defended the report's findings, saying it was based on interviews with experts from the NIH, site visits, and reading " extended materials. "

"We saw clear opportunities to raise systems so they can more reliably ensure the safety" of patients, Krumholz said science Insider. Regarding the lack of data showing larger issues report of patient safety, he added, "the question that led to the red team should be enough of a problem of proof."

Today, the NIH issued a "correction" to the assertion of Red team report that the clinical Center does not collect common quality control measures. "in fact, the Centre collects clinical parameters associated with patient safety ", but NIH is evaluating if more are needed, the red team web page states.

Although several signatories of the letter May 16 did not respond to emails asking for comment, a clinical research manager said NIH Science Insider that "hundreds" of staff are upset by the ratio of the red team and the response of Collins, which they fear will "ruin" of the clinical Center. A group called the Assembly NIH scientists representing staff Intramural also planning to write Collins, but held off until after the meeting with him today.

Frustrated by politics—and under investigation—Italian bird flu scientist heads to the United States - survey-Italian

Italian virologist Ilaria Capua turned politician threw in the towel. After 3 years in politics, she left Italy and return to science, frustrated by what it says is an unscientific attitude among other politicians. Capua, an expert on avian influenza, will become director of the Health Centre One of Excellence for research and training at the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville June 20.

In 2013, Capua took a leave absence as director of the Biomedical Sciences Division of the Istituto Sperimentale delle Venezie Zooprofilattico in Padua, Italy, a government laboratory for veterinary research, after was elected to the Chamber of deputies for Scelta Civica, a party led by economist and then- Prime Minister Mario Monti. Capua has been under criminal investigation since 05, resulting in a formal charge in 2014 it sold and trafficking in avian influenza viruses between 1999 and 08. She said the charges were baseless, but they did it a "lame duck" in Parliament.

Capua entered politics at the invitation of Monti; he wanted candidates with technical expertise to join his new reformist party. But his experience since then has been "surreal," she said. In a book published in January, the emphatic Capua observed behavior of colleagues and too formal procedures Montecitorio, the seat of the Chamber of Deputies, as a scientist who studies an unknown insect. "Politics is a complicated world, especially if you think in a rational manner and related facts. I often feel appalled," she said.

It irritated difficult relationship between Italy and the instance of science because when lawmakers ordered a value of € 3 million clinical trials for a stem cell treatment that most the scientists said was false, or when prosecutors arrested measures to control the spread of Xylella fastidiosa , a bacterium that kills the trees, and spread of the disease accused scientists. "Italy has no culture in the policies based on science," she said.

A bill to strengthen the position of scholars who earn a European grant in the Italian institutions and implement elements of the European Charter for researchers, which contains guidelines for the scientific development career has never even debated in the House, despite being supported by 60 other MEPs. It shows "a clear lack of interest to the research questions, "says Capua.

Yet Capua says she is proud of a handful of initiatives that Parliament has adopted as resolutions to curb the rise of antibiotic resistance and to be implemented on the basis of evidence-European regulations on animal experimentation, a hot topic in Italy. She also managed to get a property tax exemption for past research.

Qu'est- what will happen to the judicial inquiry against Capua, which also covers 40 other people, including officials of the Ministry of Health, private business managers, and leaders in government labs, is uncertain. The accusations are very serious, ranging from attempts to spread the disease, which is punishable by life imprisonment in a criminal association aimed at corruption, concealment, and the administration of drugs that endanger public health.

The survey, which took more than a decade, is based on extensive wiretaps. But Capua and others have said that investigators Carabinieri, the military police of Italy, have misinterpreted their conversations, and a senior official at the health Carabinieri investigation department (NAS) recently told a considers that the investigation has produced no evidence beyond the recorded calls. (Marco Datti, head of NAS and the report's author who started the case must be tried himself in another case.)

A judge could decide to close all Capua and the case against other accused as early as next month. For most charges, strict Italian law limitations has already expired. A prosecutor in Verona, where Capua will be held, has already issued a motion to dismiss the most serious charge, that of "spreading epidemics," while the prosecutor of Padua, who manages another part of the survey increased dismiss all charges.

"One thing I learned: I'm much more careful in my telephone conversations, and now tries to leave no room for interpretation," says Capua, who denies any wrongdoing. She says she has fully revealed his involvement in the case where she was interviewed by UF and was told that the question "does not apply at all." (University representatives were unable to respond to requests commented today.)

Capua the survey exposed to intense attacks by political opponents, said Maria Chiara Carrozza in Rome, an industrial bioengineer who served as education minister of Italy from 2013 until 2014. These attacks tend to be "more fierce" when the accused is a woman, said Carrozza, now a member of the Democratic Party, who said she "understands" the choice to Capua go. "Italian politicians are not used to listening to the views of researchers," said Carrozza.

At UF, Capua will be in charge of a research and training program in "health," an approach that aims to connect the fields of animal, human and environmental health. Despite several large outbreaks of disease scale, politicians and the media do not make account the urgency of combating emerging diseases, she said. "We need to insert existing expertise in biomedical and veterinary science in an integrated approach that encompasses several disciplines and engages policy makers and citizens."

Capua became well known in the world of influenza to a stand for public access to genetic information on influenza and refusing to participate in a database that made the data available only to selected researchers. It considers that the most recent pleas for science open Zika respiratory syndrome in the Middle East, and Ebola prove she was right.

Major funders launch international repository of cutting-edge cancer models -

For decades, cancer biologists have relied on what is called cancer cell lines to their experiences. But these cells in culture often bear little resemblance to the tumor they came. In fact, a piece of tumor tissue fell into a Petri dish does not just start growing. Instead, researchers withdraw a few tumor cells that occur in replicating cells often do not require the surrounding normal cells which feed tumors inside the body. And the genetic makeup of the cell lines may change over the years, they multiply in the laboratory. No wonder, then, that an experimental drug that kills a line of colon cancer cells will not necessarily help a patient with colon cancer.

Now, several US and European funding agencies want to change that. Today they are launching the models of human cancer Initiative (HCMI), which aims to give the tumor cells of the research community that behave more like real human tumors. The project comprises four groups: the National Institute of US cancer (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland; Cancer Research UK in London; the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, U.K.. and nonprofit Hubrecht organoid Technology in Utrecht, the Netherlands, which was founded by Hans Clevers, a cancer researcher at the Hubrecht Institute.

The project will use new perspectives on how to make the mixture of cells from a human tumor grow outside the body. For example, Clevers added growth factors and matrix gellike to obtain isolated cells from a particular organ to develop in a similar miniorgan or organoid. Others use a special bed of mouse cells to coax growing tumor cells. When samples of these cells were treated with known anti-cancer drugs, they responded in a manner that was remarkably similar to that of mice with tumors derived from these cells.

HCMI will increase the production of these tissues the basic models of human cancer and share them with the community. NCI will fund the development of 0 models; the Sanger Institute and Cancer Research UK will create 0; and Hubrecht Institute will produce 0 models as part of a pilot project 2 to 3 years. (The total level of funding has not yet been determined.) Although the focus will be mainly on common cancers, such as colon and pancreas, NCI will try to include rare cancers and childhood also said Louis Staudt, director of NCI's Center for cancer Genomics.

Each model will come with a complete genetic analysis and clinical information on the cancer patient, he came, for example, if a specific drug helped them. The project dovetail with NCI effort to complete its workhorse 60 human cancer cell lines with cells derived from tissue samples of patients implanted in mice, said Staudt.

The first samples of the repository might be available to researchers this year. In the long term, Staudt said he would like to see the project expand to 10,000 models. "I am extremely excited about it. I think this is great opportunity to boost cancer research. It is an opportunity to raise all boats. "

Australia has conquered AIDS, but not HIV -

AIDS epidemic in Australia has ended, and the country could virtually eliminate HIV infections in 2020, according to a statement released today by a team of researchers and experts to come to the international AIDS Conference 21, which begins next Sunday in Durban, South Africa community.

"AIDS threat to public health has turned into a challenge of HIV prevention," said epidemiologist Andrew Grulich, head of the HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Program at the Kirby Institute infection and immunity in society, which leads the national surveillance of HIV / AIDS in Australia and is based at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney.

Grulich added that Australia "compares favorably" to a handful of countries such as Denmark, which have hindered HIV infections and effectively eliminated AIDS deaths. paper in the Lancet Infectious Diseases last May indicated that the rate of HIV infection among Danish gay men is only 0.14% per year, or one in 700. This rate is similar to that for 1000 the incidence rate of the World Health Organization set a threshold to eventually eliminate the HIV epidemic. Although 1000 Australians are diagnosed with HIV each year, effective and accessible treatments mean that few people progressing to AIDS, according to the announcement of Grulich and colleagues at five organizations. With the Kirby Institute, participating agencies are the Australian Federation of AIDS Organizations, the Peter Doherty Institute, Pacific Friends of the Global Fund, and the National Association of People with HIV in Australia (NAPWHA).

However, researchers warn that too many people are still infected with HIV and the diagnosis often comes rather late, after the virus began to cause disease. Therefore, they call for a long-term strategy to stop the spread of HIV. This strategy should target "vulnerable communities", including women, single men gays, and non-English speakers, said Cipri Martinez, president of NAPWHA in Sydney.

While welcoming the end of the "AIDS epidemic," UNSW expert in social policy Susan Kippax warns that "the HIV" is not over. She added that during the past decade, HIV diagnoses increased by 13%. "We have to watch our language," she said. Many people do not distinguish between HIV and AIDS, and may mistakenly believe that prevention is more critical, she said.

Yet , Kippax agreement with Grulich and company as close to zero AIDS diagnoses is the culmination of a 33 -Year response covering science, medicine and community outreach that began shortly after the arrival of HIV Australia. They also attribute the decline of AIDS in universal health care system in the nation, providing affordable medicines, effective and well tolerated for HIV infection.

pre-exposure prophylaxis ( PrEP) -medication taken daily to prevent HIV infection has also been particularly important, says director Peter Doherty Institute Sharon Lewin, an infectious disease doctor in Melbourne, Australia. PrEP was approved for use in Australia, and is made available in trials in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane. PrEP is currently being considered for funding under Australia Benefits Scheme, which subsidizes drugs for large pharmaceutical public.

Can social media help prevent opioid abuse? -

Is a social media strategy that helped gay men fight HIV now help fight against drug abuse potent opioids? That is the question a team of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), application in a pilot study highlighted by officials from the White House last week.

The peer education Exploiting Online (HOPE) procedure is just one of more than 0 administration of research projects Obama highlighted July 6, as he announced new action against the growing epidemic of opioids in the US. With research projects, the administration is seeking to better educate opioid prescribers, strengthen supervision of prescription drugs, and to allow the safe disposal of unneeded drugs.

The intervention of HOPE, led by psychologist Sean Young, Ph.D., associate professor of family medicine and executive director of the University of California Institute for Technology Forecasting, aims to exploit the immense power of social media to improve public health. Instead of adopting a clinical approach to reducing opiate abuse, which often involves prescribing alternative medications such as naloxone, the study aims to change behavior. For 12 weeks, $ 170,000 pilot project, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and will begin later this month, the team of Young plans to recruit approximately 60 patients of the medical center UCLA Ronald Regan who experience chronic pain, are on therapy long-term opioids, and reported other behaviors such as drug or alcohol abuse that put them at high risk of addiction. Researchers will ask each participant to connect to a private Facebook group where they can share articles, comments, photos and other private messages, as well as eight pairs of models that are also therapy opioids in the long term. Peer models should share tips and successes and challenges they have experienced in managing their pain.

To assess whether the strategy works, Young monitor changes in the participants reported using opioids and other substances. Most of the time, however, Young says the effort is a "feasibility and accessibility" study. He asked whether participants find such useful intervention, easy to use and accessible, and if they will be willing to discuss sensitive issues in an online community. Young also hopes the results, which should be compiled by the end of the year, will provide enough preliminary evidence to help raise money for a larger trial testing using social media to fight against the abuse of a greater number of substances.

Previously, Young used a model of support by online peer similar encouraging a group of homosexual men Peru to get tested for HIV. This driver has found that men who participated were 2-3 times more likely to get tested for HIV than those in the control group, who participated in online groups without models peer. Young said the participants found that the community is a safe place to communicate, and some online relationships continued after the trial concluded.

Young notes that these studies suggest social media have great potential to drive behavior change. "If the correct psychological fundamentals are applied to an intervention of social media, then it will have an impact on behavior," he said. "We should take advantage of existing platforms that have proven to cause change and behavior cause fairly quickly and instantly has access to billions of people. "

Jacqueline Lloyd, deputy head of the branch to the National Institute of drug abuse of the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, said the study is Young one of 11 funded as part of a program to use social media for understanding and treating drug use and addiction. the intervention of HOPE, she said, has "the potential to inform how social media and new technologies can be leveraged to provide a low cost, new interventions to prevent prescription opioid abuse and overdose. "

Cyclists' favorite drug falls flat in trial -

The Avenger -

Vaginal bacteria species can raise HIV infection risk and undermine prevention -

The composition of the vaginal microbiome of a woman greatly influences its susceptibility to HIV infection, suggest studies presented Durban, South Africa, today to kick off the 21st international AIDS Conference a week. Microbiome may also explain why pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) -Give HIV drugs to prevent infection, works better in men than in women. These results are of particular importance here in the KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa, which has high perplexingly levels of HIV infection among adolescents and young women.

At a press conference today, two related studies have been reported that researchers will report on Tuesday. "It's a great story, and it's a really important insight as to why young women in Africa are infected at high rates," said Douglas Kwon, an immunologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was not involved in the work, but studied vaginal microbiome and HIV.

new results come all the women followed studies that have participated in a PrEP study of a vaginal gel containing the drug tenofovir anti- HIV. Led by the Centre for the AIDS Programme of research in South Africa (CAPRISA) based in Durban, the trial took place in a region where 66% of 30 year-old women are infected. the team did CAPRISA headlines in 2010 when he showed that the gel reduced the risk of infection of a woman of 44%. But this encouraging result was, he also raised questions about why the gel did not was more effective, and it does not indeed in a subsequent trial.

The most provocative of the two new studies have carefully analyzed the vaginal microflora 119 women who were HIV-negative at the start of the trial and compared the 49 who were infected with the others. In a previous study of women in this trial, the CAPRISA researchers and their collaborators at the University of Cape Town in South Africa said last year that women who had increased inflammation of the genital tract were more likely infection. Monkey studies have suggested a mechanism: inflammation brings more of the HIV favorite target, CD4 white blood cells to the mucosal surface. And in a separate study of women in KwaZulu-Natal, Kwon and colleagues reported last year that inflammation in the vagina is associated with a reduction of Lactobacillus , a famous case-in yogurt creates an inhospitable acidic environment for many pathogens. As the researchers noted, but could not explain, Lactobacillus dominated in the vaginas of only 37% of the women they studied, compared with 0% of white women in the US

. So far, however, no one had clearly linked vaginal microbiomes specific to an increased risk of HIV infection. "Now we have real data," says the director of CAPRISA epidemiologist Salim Abdool Karim.

The data comes from a massive effort to identify the bacterial species on vaginal smears of women in the study tenofovir gel CAPRISA. Ian Lipkin's lab at Columbia University, who specializes in search of rare pathogens extract about 25,000 bacterial ribosomal RNA sequences of the swab and used genomic data to identify a total 1368 species.

A relatively rare species, Prevotella bivia stood out as particularly dangerous. women whose vaginal microbiome included more than 1% of P . bivia had the highest levels of genital inflammation and the highest probability of being infected by HIV. These women have significantly reduced levels of Lactobacillus and researchers showed that P . bivia was associated with high levels of a compound of inflammation promoting called lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Earlier in vitro studies have shown that P . bivia growth leads to high levels of LPS, which constitute the cell wall of bacteria, LPS and, in turn, stimulates the production of inflammatory chemical messengers.

Women who had more than 1% P . bivia were almost 13 times more likely to be infected with HIV.

In the second study, vaginal washes of 688 women in the same trial CAPRISA, Adam Burgener Agency of Canada Public Health in Winnipeg and Nichole Klatt from the University of Washington, Seattle, showed that the vaginal microbiome does not only influence the risk of infection; it can also interfere directly with PrEP. In women with microbiome contained less than 50% lactobacilli , tenofovir gel protected only 18% of women who received it. The efficiency jumped to 61% when the proportion of Lactobacillus species was greater than 50%. And when the researchers mixed with various bacteria tenofovir in the laboratory, they found that the drug concentrations remained high in the presence of lactobacilli but halved when mixed with bacteria called Gardnerella , which blooms when lactobacilli are rare. " Gardnerella gobbles up," says Karim.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland USA, said these results open the ability to manipulate the vaginal microbiome to help guide HIV infections among vulnerable young women. antibiotics, for example, could strike back Gardnerella or Prevotella . or introduce beneficial bacteria, called probiotics, bacteria could "crowd out" dangerous. "When I saw this data, I thought if it pans, it is a means of relatively low technology to have a impact on whether you are infected or not, "Fauci said.

Kwon warned that efforts to manipulate the microbiome to treat inflammatory bowel disease have had limited success. "We know that bowel manipulation of these communities is often extremely difficult," he said. "There are many home mechanisms to maintain these communities."

But Fauci is optimistic . the vaginal vault tissue less sensitive than the gut, he said. "You're talking inches rather than feet," he said. "This is an interesting question that needs to be pursued."

Research charities help marry two major South African HIV/tuberculosis institutes -

As the International AIDS Conference opened in Durban, South Africa, today, two of the most important institutions biomedical research in the nation announced they will marry and combine resources to attack the coepidemic rage of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV in the region.

The new health research institute in Africa supported by the Wellcome Trust in deep UK pocketed and just as flush American Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), plans to link basic research to studies level of the population and clinical trials. "This is something very strong," says Bruce Walker, an immunologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who is an HHMI investigator.

Many fundamental questions remain about why HIV spreads so fiercely South Africa, which has more people infected with the AIDS virus than any other country in the world. South Africa also has enormous burden of TB caused by mycobacteria that develops in immune system HIV compromises and badly needs both better diagnostics to detect cases and more effective treatments to fight against widespread multiresistant tuberculosis strains. the African health research Institute promises to tackle these problems overlap-which are both at their worst in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where the institute resides-with a unique combination of biological samples and high core strength biological, such as blood or tissue lungs, tens of thousands of people who have carefully documented health history. "We have obtained significant funding and significant expertise and it really has a huge potential," says clinical virologist Deenan Pillay, who will head the new institute. "There is no such thing as far as I can see everywhere."

the creation of the African Institute for health research also provides a solid home for two institutions that each have faced an uncertain future. one of the fusion partners is KwaZulu-Natal research Institute for TB-HIV (K-RITH), which HHMI established in 08 at the suggestion of Walker. the idea was to create a strong basic research institution in the heart of the TB / HIV coepidemic bring world-class researchers and to train a new generation of African scientists. HHMI spent $ 40 million building a center of biomedical state-of-the-art, including a biosafety level 3 laboratory that can handle dangerous pathogens such as drug-resistant TB and HIV. "In terms of equipment, I do not think there is place that is close in sub-Saharan Africa," says Walker.

But K-RITH encountered difficulties shortly after that it opened in 2012. its first director, William Bishai, an investigator from tuberculosis of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, eventually resigned a year later after HHMI, which emphasizes " basic research, "told him not to continue clinical trials. HHMI fears that it turns its mission and could also make it vulnerable philanthropy prosecution says development geneticist Dennis McKearin, an HHMI administrator in Durban that led K-RITH after Bishai left.

Several other familiar with the episode said Science Insider, and Bishai confirms that HHMI also had concerns he improperly used its funds to pursue Related clinical projects. Bishai insists he did nothing wrong and is "very proud" of how he led K-RITH. "Why put $ 100 million to study TB and HIV and put his right hand in a sling and prevent it from reaching out to patients?" He asks.

Barry Bloom, a researcher of tuberculosis at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston , who led the search committee that chose Bishai for work, said HHMI has no policy on clinical research when K-RITH open, but it was clear to him that philanthropy blanched at the idea from the start. "Howard Hughes said they would not have anything to do with patients," says Bloom. "What the bill does not understand is that they were serious. I told him 100 times. He was a bull in a china shop. "

" When Bill left he had a huge negative on K-RITH game, "notes Kristina Wallengren, an epidemiologist and molecular biologist who was clinical advisor at the institute, but formally linked to Johns Hopkins . "It was extremely damaging for scientists." (Wallengren now runs a nonprofit Durban, tuberculosis and HIV Network survey, which stages of clinical trials.)

The other partner this new union, the African Centre for population health, embraces clinical research, but also experienced upheavals. Prepared by the Wellcome Trust in 1996 to Somkhele, about 235 kilometers north of Durban, he emphasized on observational studies that track the spread of HIV through entire communities, creating elegant spatial epidemiological maps. All in all, the institute says it has "detailed demographic data" on more than 100,000 people. He also conducted clinical studies of mother to child transmission of HIV and the impact of antiretroviral therapy on the prevention of AIDS.

But in 2013, the Wellcome Trust brought Pillay, a clinical virologist at University College London, who heads the center, a leadership change that marked the desire to conduct more research that directly contributed to the local community. "One of the reasons why I became director of the Africa Centre in 2013 was the wish of the Wellcome Trust as the main funder to see a very different scientific program," said Pillay. "There has been increasing pressure and need for the African Center not only to observe the epidemic, but to do something about it. How long can you produce bloody cards?"

Pillay said Bloom effectively saved the Africa Centre. "The sense that I'm Deenan and others is that it did not work, Wellcome would have closed the place down," he said. Bloom, a former HHMI investigator who, for a time chaired the scientific Council for K-RITH, is optimistic Pillay will also be successful in his new challenge. "Deenan has the insight and enthusiasm to bring together basic research and clinical studies."

the Wellcome Trust, which unlike HHMI, strongly supports clinical trials, promised the new institution of $ 50 million over the next 5 years renewable. HHMI grant, for its part, plans to give a total of $ 80 million at the African Institute of health research (in addition to construction) by 2018, after which he plans to reduce his contribution, said McKearin.

This is the first time that the two organizations collaborated on a World health institution. "Bringing HHMI and Wellcome Trust in the financing of this unified institution is a great match," said McKearin. "It would be hard to imagine a better result."

Better views of TB lungs may save lives and stop spread - high-tech image of the lungs of TB patients 'latent' (TB) identified people at risk of developing symptoms. The new work, the researchers presented at a special session of TB at the International AIDS Conference 21 in Durban, South Africa this week, suggests new ways to assess whether the treatment has cured an infection . But it could also upset the conventional wisdom that billions of people are walking around with dormant TB in their lungs that might one day erupt into full-fledged disease.

TB "Active" kills about 1.5 million people a year, but the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that a third of the world's population has latent TB, meaning that Mycobacterium tuberculosis can be grown from their sputum, but their immune cells release interferon gamma even if mixed with pieces of the microbe. A skin test called "delayed hypersensitivity" is also widely used to determine latency. Only about 10% of these people will develop TB at some point in their lives, and one of the major challenges in the fight against tuberculosis is that there is no way of knowing who is at risk. X-rays of the lungs latent patients show nothing abnormal. WHO recommendations call for treating people infected with HIV who have latent TB with a drug, isoniazid, as prophylaxis, but often not.

In the new study, the scientists used more sophisticated techniques to look at the lungs of 35 people infected with HIV in South Africa that have latent TB, according to standard tests. A scan using computed tomography (CT), which shows the anatomy of a much more detailed lung radiography; the other is a positron emission scanner (PET) using a radioactive glucose injection, which is absorbed by metabolically active cells and indicates the presence of M . tuberculosis.

Ten people had clear nodules "hot" in their lungs. "We saw quite magnificent manifestations of the disease," says Clifton Barry, who directs tuberculosis research at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, and also has a laboratory at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. (the Barry team conducted the work with Rob Wilkinson group at UCT.) the team saw no hot spots in the other 25 patients lungs.

the researchers planned to everyone in the study of isoniazid. But in the few weeks between scans and when treatment began, four of the 10 patients with abnormal CT hotspots or developed TB symptoms, and M . TB found in the sputum of the others. in essence, analyzes had shown the people who were about to get ill and had a urgent need for TB treatment drugs-fledged three different doses for 6 months. "The data are very compelling," said David Russell, a researcher of tuberculosis at Cornell University. "There's nothing out there with this resolution."

The researchers continued to do lung tests during the treatment period, and they showed lung abnormalities dissolution, meaning they could use the technique to analyze the effectiveness of the treatment. "for many of us it opened a new door to think about whether we really need to be treated for six months, "says Jens Lundgren, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Copenhagen. "This is a really exciting place for personalized medicine so we can separate those who may have a shorter treatment period." That would be welcome, because the standard treatment is a challenge for many patients.

Although TB ​​in these 10 people was far from "latent" Barry said he is convinced that many, if not most, of the other 25 people, did not have all TB. He suspected they had only interferon gamma responses M . TB because their immune systems had cleared the germ at some point in the past. "It is wrong to say that a third of the world has latent TB," Barry said. "This figure made great starts for the scientific articles, but it is quite misleading."

Lucica Ditiu who heads the Stop TB Partnership, a nonprofit in Geneva, Switzerland, recognizes that "latent" is not an accurate term. "These data are extremely interesting and something that we should move forward" Ditiu said.

Unfortunately, CT and PET are very expensive, Barry acknowledges, and it would be impossible to track more than 2 billion people, most of them in poor countries, which meet the definition of tuberculosis the tent. But the analyzes could be very useful in research, he says, for example, in the first tests of new TB drugs to see which ones deserve large-scale efficacy studies. Wilkinson also found another possible way to identify people with an active infection. He made a so-called transcriptome analysis that compared the immune genes that were activated in 10 people who had the hot spots and the 25 who did not. Six "biomarkers" surfaced that theoretically could identify people who are most likely to develop symptomatic disease and infectious. (Other laboratories have recently identified biomarker transcription, too.)

Barry notes that on average, each person has an active M . TB infection transmits the pathogen to 10 others. "If we can identify people with subclinical disease before transmitting, it is potentially a game changer in terms of eradication of tuberculosis," he said.

Experimental anticancer drug may tackle heart disease, too -

What are a cancerous tumor and fat accumulation in an artery have in common? Their harmful cells may have the same way to hide from the immune system, a study suggests today. In the new work, researchers studying atherosclerosis gradual accumulation of fat cells in plaque-laden blood found a signaling molecule that can prevent dead cells in the arteries being eaten and disposed of. Blocking this signal, they found, reduced arterial plaque in mice. And because their signal blocker is an antibody already in Phase I clinical trials for the treatment of cancer, they hope to make a quick jump in human tests for cardiovascular disease.

"There will be a new platform of therapy, not just another cholesterol-lowering medication," says Nicholas Leeper, a vascular biologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California and lead author of the new study.

Although cholesterol contributes to atherosclerosis, the history of the progression of the disease is much more complex. When these fat deposits damage the artery wall , immune cells flock to the places-including macrophages, which engulf the dying and damaged cells all over the body. But when they get to the inflamed artery, they fail to perform the cleaning. Soon, death muscle cells and macrophages die to join a plate increasingly on the wall of the artery. Nested inside is a "necrotic core" cemetery cells destabilizing the rest of the plate and makes it vulnerable to rupture, which can block the artery and cause a heart attack or stroke.

Leeper and his colleagues studied the signaling between cells die and macrophages that are supposed to put them out of their misery. The team previously found that many of these dying cells lacking a surface molecule that labels for destruction called calreticulin in people at risk for cardiovascular disease. But other common surface molecules in the body send a different signal: "I am healthy, leave me alone!" And this may give scientists an opening. It might be easier to block this message to force the cells to express more "eat me" signals. In fact, Stanford researchers are already working on the first clinical trials of an antibody that blocks the cancer cells display an eluding death such a molecule called CD47 signal.

Atherosclerosis researchers have had their eye on "don" t eat me "molecules such as CD47 signaling for some time, said Matthias Nahrendorf, a cell biologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston who was not involved in the new study. But no one had measured this common molecule in arterial plaques. "I do not have a good reason why people have not looked at this particular molecule in atherosclerosis before," he said . "in retrospect, it is an obvious choice."

Leeper team analyzed samples of arterial plaque in people undergoing surgery for a clogged carotid artery and organ donors without cardiovascular disease. They found that arterial plaque contained significantly higher levels of CD47 than healthy arterial tissue. to see if blocking the CD47 could reverse the buildup of plaque, the group tested the experimental cancer drug antibodies in several disease models cardio- vascular different mice. On a diet rich in fat, these animals quickly develop plaques in their arteries because they lack a gene that regulates the metabolism of cholesterol. But the intravenous treatment with the anti-CD47 treatment reduced by about half of plaque buildup in these mice, Leeper and his colleagues report online today in Nature .

"These results are revolutionary for the field of research on atherosclerosis," says MacRae Linton, an endocrinologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, who was not involved in the study. The results are anti-CD47 antibody candidate promising drug for cardiovascular diseases, he notes, although there may be other "do not eat me" signal molecules in the plates he can not answer. If the drug progresses in human trials, researchers will also monitor anemia, a side effect suggested in the results of the mouse. CD47 is essential for the protection of red blood cells from macrophages, and red blood cells are particularly susceptible to the effects of blocking antibodies as they age, says Leeper. the treated mice in the study did show drops in number of red blood cells, but they showed no clinical signs of disease.

The researchers have patented their treatment approach and allowed to Forty Seven Inc., Stanford spinout already developing anti-CD47 antibody for cancer. Stanford biologist and stem cell Forty Seven Inc. founder Irving Weissman, whose pioneering group of research CD47 in cancer, is a co-author on the new paper. Although no new treatment faces a smooth or some way to the clinic, it can have a head start. The drug has already demonstrated the safety testing of non-human primates, and cardiovascular research may even be able to move directly to a Phase II trial largest database of safety data from the Phase I being studies, Leeper suggests. "This can be a very unusual circumstance which can be grafted."

Les équipes de recherche se heurtent sur MERS trop similaires papiers [1945001 - ] Une grande histoire peut être racontée encore et encore. Mais les scientifiques travaillant sur le syndrome mortel respiratoire Moyen-Orient (MERS) virus sont intrigués par deux articles parus dans des revues distinctes qui non seulement racontent la même histoire, mais aussi sont basés sur les données de la même patiente en Arabie Saoudite.

la double publication, le premier dans maladies infectieuses émergentes ( EID ), l'autre plus tard dans le New England Journal of Medicine ( NEJM ) - a opposé l'ancien sous-ministre de l'Arabie Saoudite de la santé, Ziad Memish, contre spécialiste des maladies infectieuses Tariq Madani de l'Université king Abdulaziz de Jeddah, qui est récemment devenu son chef scientifique du gouvernement saoudien conseiller sur MERS. Pris au milieu inconfortable est virologue allemand Christian Drosten de l'Université de Bonn, qui a aidé à la fois et est devenu un co-auteur sur le papier Memish.

Pour rendre les choses plus compliquées, plusieurs scientifiques, dont Drosten, disent que la centrale conclusion du NEJM papier que le virus MERS sauté d'un chameau à un être humain à une Arabie ferme est erronée et très probablement le résultat d'une contamination de laboratoire.

le cas est un autre exemple de la politique complexe de recherche MERS en Arabie Saoudite, dit Ian Mackay, un virologue à l'Université de Queensland, Sainte-Lucie, en Australie, qui a d'abord mis en évidence les similitudes entre les deux documents sur son blog le 5 Juin. "Il est caractéristique de ce MERS a été tout au sujet:. Mauvaise communication"

"Ceci est un problème beaucoup plus important qu'une simple publication en double», ajoute Michael Osterholm, directeur du Centre pour la recherche sur les maladies infectieuses et la politique au l'Université du Minnesota, Twin Cities. "Il est vraiment un signe de dysfonctionnement de la recherche scientifique générale qui a eu lieu à ce jour en Arabie Saoudite."

Le papier par Memish et Drosten, qui est apparu en ligne dans EID le 20 Mars, a rapporté un patient MERS de Djeddah qui était tombé malade en Octobre 2013 après avoir pris soin des animaux malades dans son troupeau de neuf chameaux. Le patient, qui est décédé plus tard, peut avoir été infecté par ses chameaux, les auteurs ont conclu, bien qu'ils ne pouvaient pas exclure que les deux chameaux et leurs propriétaires avaient été infectés par une troisième source avec MERS.

Puis le 4 Juin, NEJM a publié un document par Madani et ses collègues de king Fahd Medical Research Center son université et qui est apparu pour décrire le même patient. le document comprenait des séquences génomiques complètes des virus isolés chez le chameau et le patient, sur la base duquel les auteurs ont conclu que l'homme avait le plus probable été infecté par ses chameaux.

Madani, qui est le président d'un Ministère de la Santé (MOH) comité consultatif sur MERS, a confirmé à science Insider que les deux documents décrivent le même cas. "Ce patient était mon patient à l'hôpital King Abdulaziz University," at-il écrit dans un e-mail. L'homme a été admis à l'hôpital le 3 Novembre et son état détérioré. Madani dit que après avoir appris que l'éleveur avait pris soin de chameaux malades , il a envoyé une équipe de vétérinaires et de virologues à la ferme de l'homme pour recueillir des échantillons le 8 Novembre. Madani a également notifié MOH, où Memish travaillait, de son fort soupçon que les chameaux pourraient être la source. le 10 Novembre, Madani dit, son groupe détecté le virus chez le patient et dans l'un des chameaux.

un jour plus tard, «le ministère de la Santé a annoncé qu'ils ont découvert qu'un chameau était une source d'infection à un être humain sans donner le crédit de cette découverte notre groupe ou du moins à notre institution », dit-il. Madani dit qu'il a écrit une plainte officielle au président de son université, qui lui a conseillé de publier les résultats dès que possible.

Mais Madani de NEJM le papier était encore battu par 2 mois par le EID publication Memish co-auteur. Memish dit le ministère a procédé à sa propre enquête, comme cela a été la procédure standard, l'échantillonnage des chameaux et des personnes dans la maison du patient et dans les établissements de soins de santé où il a été traité. Les premiers échantillons de chameaux ont été prises le 9 Novembre, selon le EID papier. "En aucun cas, un médecin pratiquant n'ont la responsabilité ni le pouvoir d'interférer avec l'enquête de santé publique MoH ou mener leur propre enquête sans coordination officielle," Memish écrit dans un e-mail à Science Insider.

Memish dit que les sécrétions nasales de deux chameaux testés positifs pour MERS à plusieurs reprises, et Novembre annonce 11 du ministère est venu à propos, car Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, ministre de la santé de l'Arabie Saoudite à l'époque, lui a ordonné de libérer l'information les résultats préliminaires. l'agence de presse saoudienne et l'Organisation mondiale de la santé ont été informés ce jour-là, et le lendemain Memish envoyé un rapport à ProMED, un système de déclaration des éclosions en ligne.

a l'époque, MERS avait été écœurante et tuer des gens sur la péninsule arabique depuis plus d'un an, mais on savait peu sur comment exactement il se répandit. plusieurs enquêtes ont montré que beaucoup de chameaux abritent des anticorps contre le virus, ce qui suggère une infection passée. Le patient Jeddah semblait offrir une occasion d'enquêter sur ce lien et peut-être même prouver chameau transmission interhumaine du virus, un grand pas en avant. Ainsi, les deux équipes rivales ont poursuivi leurs enquêtes parallèles en essayant de prouver la même chose.

collègue Esam Azhar de Madani, le premier auteur sur le NEJM papier, demanda Drosten, qui se spécialise dans les coronavirus, de l'aide au début de Novembre. Drosten envoyé les réactifs de l'équipe et a suggéré la façon de procéder à l'enquête, mais il a refusé à plusieurs reprises d'être un co-auteur, dit-il, parce que les chercheurs à Djeddah ne lui envoyer des échantillons à tester dans son propre laboratoire. "Je suis d'accord avec eux:. Conseils oui, réactifs sûr, mais je ne vais pas prendre la responsabilité de la validité des données avec mon propre nom" En fait, Drosten est vite devenu convaincu que quelque chose ne va pas avec les données qu'ils lui envoyaient.

les scientifiques saoudiens ont dit qu'ils avaient isolé un virus du patient, ainsi que de l'un des chameaux, cultivé les deux échantillons dans des cellules de rein de singe, et séquencés leurs génomes, qui se sont avérés être identiques à 100%. Ils ont également séquencées directement le virus à partir d'échantillons prélevés sur le patient et le chameau et les deux étaient également identiques à 100%. Mais les deux ensembles de séquences différaient dans deux positions

C'est impossible d'expliquer, Drosten dit. un virus peut changer légèrement lorsque la mise en culture de cellules, mais pourquoi le chameau et le spectacle de virus humain exactement les deux mêmes modifications lorsqu'elles sont cultivées, des changements jamais vu auparavant? Drosten pense que la contamination avait eu lieu, et que ce que les chercheurs ont appelé le virus de chameau était en fait le virus humain. (Thomas Briese, un virologue à l'Université Columbia, convient qu'il semble peu probable que les mutations apparaissent deux fois mais il dit qu'il ne peut pas exclure cette possibilité.) Frustré, Drosten a cessé de travailler avec le groupe de Madani à la mi-Décembre, dit-il.

Pendant ce temps, Memish dit qu'il avait envoyé des échantillons au Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute à Hinxton, Royaume-Uni, qui séquencer le virus humain complet et a réussi à séquencer des petits fragments du virus de chameau. En Janvier, Memish a également recruté Drosten, dont l'équipe a réussi à séquencer huit autres fragments du virus de chameau. Assembler les pièces représentaient environ 15% du génome du virus de chameau et ces parties étaient presque identiques à séquencer le génome du patient. Les tests d'anticorps a également suggéré que le chameau avait eu une infection aiguë MERS au moment où le patient a été infecté. Bien que restés questions, Memish et Drosten ont décidé de publier ce qu'ils avaient. Pendant ce temps, l'équipe de Madani a décidé de soumettre un document aussi bien

Le papier par Drosten et Memish atteint la ligne d'arrivée beaucoup plus rapide. EID publié en ligne le 20 Mars. Le document de Madani a traversé plusieurs révisions et n'a pas obtenu en impression jusqu'à ce que la semaine dernière.

Maintenant qu'il est sorti, Drosten dit qu'il est debout par sa critique. Ajoutant à ses soupçons au sujet de la contamination est que le NEJM auteurs déclarent trouver le virus à des concentrations très faibles dans le chameau. "Il semble étrange que ils ont réussi à obtenir un isolat de virus à partir du tout," dit Mackay. Azhar dit que les échantillons utilisés pour isoler le virus peuvent contenaient des concentrations plus élevées que celles utilisées pour d'abord détecter le virus.

virologue Bart Haagmans d'Erasmus MC à Rotterdam, aux Pays-Bas, dit-il a soumis une lettre à NEJM de souligner cette question, ainsi que ce qu'il prétend être des erreurs dans l'arbre phylogénétique dans le document de Madani. "Je pense qu'il est un document assez bizarre dans l'ensemble," dit-il.

Dans une déclaration, NEJM dit qu'il ya une «différence substantielle» entre les deux documents, et que ses rédacteurs étaient pas au courant de la EID papier. "Ils avaient été au courant, ils auraient demandé un accusé de réception dans l'article du NEJM," dit la déclaration. (Le journal a ajouté l'accusé lui-même.) La déclaration n'a pas abordé les problèmes allégués dans le document.

Memish a perdu son emploi le 2 Juin, pour des raisons qui ne sont pas claires. Six semaines plus tôt, Al-Rabeeah avait déjà été remplacé en tant que ministre de la Santé par Adel Fakieh. Osterholm est optimiste que le shake-up est un signe d'un plus grand engagement à la transparence en Arabie Saoudite. En fait, juste un jour après Memish a été tiré, le pays a annoncé 113 nouveaux cas de MERS, dont 92 décès, survenus au cours des mois précédents et avaient pas été signalés.

Mais Mackay reste pas convaincu que l'Arabie saoudite sera plus à venir. "Rien n'a changé, la nouvelle transparence est un peu plus l'opacité," dit-il. Le gouvernement n'a pas expliqué où les 113 nouveaux cas sont venus, par exemple: «Il n'y avait pas de données jointes que ce soit, la façon dont ils ont été testés, les dates, les âges, tout ce qui pourrait être intéressant d'un épidémiologiste," dit-il "Juste mettre. sur ce nombre avec un taux de 80% de mort est fou "

* Clarification, le 11 Juin, 11h02:. cette histoire a été mis à jour pour clarifier quelques détails dans la recherche décrite dans le EID papier.

Le vaccin antirougeoleux protège contre d'autres maladies mortelles [1945001 - ] La rougeole tue environ 140.000 personnes dans le monde chaque année, mais les millions d'enfants qui ont survécu à la maladie ne sont pas en clair. Une nouvelle étude épidémiologique suggère qu'ils restent sensibles à d'autres infections pendant plus de 2 ans, beaucoup plus longtemps que les chercheurs devraient. Les résultats renforcent l'hypothèse que le virus de la rougeole affaiblit le système immunitaire de la mémoire et indiquent que le vaccin contre la rougeole protège contre d'autres maladies mortelles ainsi.

Les chercheurs savent depuis longtemps que la rougeole inhibe le système immunitaire, mais ils pensaient généralement cet effet portait au bout de quelques mois au plus. Cependant, les études des enfants dans les pays en développement, où la plupart des cas se produisent, ont constaté que la vaccination contre la rougeole réduit le taux de mortalité global d'infections pour jusqu'à 5 ans, ce qui suggère que la prévention de la maladie fournit en quelque sorte une protection contre d'autres maladies.

One explication possible à cet avantage est que le vaccin contre la rougeole éperons en quelque sorte le système immunitaire à produire des défenses contre ces autres maladies. Mais le travail sur les singes se remettent de la rougeole a donné naissance à une autre hypothèse. En 2012, Rik de Swart d'Erasmus MC à Rotterdam, Pays-Bas, et ses collègues ont révélé que le virus de la rougeole tue un grand nombre de cellules de mémoire, des globules blancs qui empêchent les infections subséquentes par le même agent pathogène. Ainsi, le virus de la rougeole peut provoquer ce que les scientifiques appelés amnésie immunologique, portant atteinte à la capacité du système immunitaire à retenir et à éliminer rapidement d'autres microbes qu'elle a déjà battus. En conséquence, "vous êtes vulnérable aux maladies que vous ne devriez pas être vulnérables à», dit Michael Mina, auteur principal du nouveau papier et un étudiant en médecine à l'école de l'Université Emory de médecine à Atlanta.

Pour tester cette explication, une équipe qui comprenait de Swart et Mina, puis un postdoc à l'Université de Princeton, a obtenu des données sur le nombre de cas de rougeole et les décès dus à d'autres maladies infectieuses aux États-Unis, le Danemark, et une partie du Royaume-Uni. vaccination contre la rougeole a commencé dans les années 1960 dans les États Royaume-Uni et dans les années 1980 au Danemark, et les chercheurs ont eu des statistiques avant et après son introduction.

analyse mathématique de l'équipe a essayé de déterminer s'il y avait une relation entre le nombre de cas de rougeole et le nombre d'enfants qui est mort d'autres maladies. Si le virus inhibe l'immunité que pour un court laps de temps, par exemple, le nombre de décès dus à d'autres infections dans une année donnée pourrait corréler le nombre de cas de rougeole dans cette année. Mais si le virus déclenche une amnésie immunitaire prolongée, le nombre de décès dans une année donnée pourrait corréler le nombre total de cas cette année et l'année précédente ou deux.

Grâce à cette approche, les chercheurs ont calculé que les enfants qui survivent à la rougeole restent vulnérables à d'autres maladies pour une moyenne de 2,5 ans. La valeur était presque le même pour les trois pays, l'équipe annonce aujourd'hui en ligne Science . "Nos résultats suggèrent que les effets négatifs de la rougeole sont beaucoup plus durable», dit Mina.

Pour vérifier que la déficience immunitaire résulte de la rougeole, les chercheurs ont analysé les statistiques de la coqueluche, qui ne supprime pas le système immunitaire système. Ils ont trouvé aucun lien entre le nombre de cas de coqueluche et la mortalité due à d'autres maladies infectieuses.

Mina et ses collègues ont également déterminé que la durée de la période sensible n'a pas changé dans l'un des trois pays après l'introduction de la vaccination . Cette constatation appuie l'idée que le vaccin contre la rougeole profite aux enfants non seulement parce qu'il les empêche de contre la rougeole, mais aussi parce qu'il offre une protection contre les autres maladies. Dans les jours précédant la vaccination, la rougeole était responsable d'environ la moitié des décès d'enfants d'autres maladies, l'équipe dit. Avec que de nombreux enfants morts, pourquoi ne pas les chercheurs détectent cette connexion avant? Beaucoup supposer que l'impact de la rougeole sur le système immunitaire est vite retombée, dit Mina. "Alors, quand un enfant obtient une pneumonie 6 mois plus tard, personne ne relierait que la rougeole.» D'autres études des enfants en Afrique de l'Ouest n'a pas montré une durée "rougeole ombre". Mina et ses collègues notent que la moitié des enfants dans ces études est mort d'autres maladies dans les 2 mois après qu'ils avaient la rougeole, ce qui aurait rendu difficile de détecter un effet à long terme.

"qu'il pourrait y avoir une immunosuppression prolongée est possible," dit immunologiste vaccin Katie Flanagan de Monash Université de Melbourne, en Australie. Mais l'étude "est un long chemin de vraiment prouver." Par exemple, les chercheurs ont besoin de montrer que les enfants qui ont eu la rougeole sont ceux qui meurent d'autres maladies, elle dit.

"Il existe des preuves indirectes, », dit William Moss, un épidémiologiste à l'Ecole Johns Hopkins Bloomberg de santé publique à Baltimore, Maryland. Mais il dit que les résultats sont «très suggestive» que la rougeole contribue à cette période de suppression immunitaire plus. Et si les chercheurs ont raison, dit-il, «les avantages de la vaccination contre la rougeole sont bien plus que la simple réduction de la mortalité rougeoleuse."

Vaccine Trials Débat sur le sida [1945001 - ]

PHILADELPHIA - responsables de la santé du gouvernement sont aux prises avec une décision difficile: Faut-il approuver les essais cliniques les plus ambitieux à ce jour d'un vaccin contre le sida, même si les deux candidats ont lacunes évidentes? Des plans détaillés pour deux essais cliniques ont été annoncés ici lors d'une réunion de la semaine dernière, mais comme un vigoureux débat ici indiqué, certains chercheurs ont de profondes réserves quant à savoir si les tests doivent aller de l'avant.

Les essais proposés tester les vaccins utilisés dans un coup de poing une-deux connu comme un prime-boost. Le premier vaccin, le "prime" se compose de gènes du VIH piquées dans canarypox, un virus aviaire qui ne nuit pas à l'homme. Le vaccin est conçu pour enseigner le système immunitaire à produire soi-disant cellules tueuses qui dans la maison sur et détruire les cellules infectées par le VIH. Le "coup de pouce" viendrait d'une version génétiquement modifiée de la protéine de surface de la gp0 du VIH. Ce second coup stimule la production d'anticorps qui, en théorie, peuvent empêcher le VIH d'infecter les cellules en premier lieu.

réponses immunitaires puissantes Jusqu'à présent, ces vaccins ne sont pas déclenchés dans les plus petites, II des essais cliniques de stade. Les essais proposés tester le vaccin au niveau suivant, stade III ou essais "d'efficacité". L'armée des Etats-Unis et aux États-Unis National Institutes of Health (NIH) ont dévoilé des plans similaires pour tester des vaccins presque identiques. Les essais séparés coûterait un total de 95 millions $ au moins et impliquer près de 27.000 participants des États-Unis, la Thaïlande, et plusieurs pays de la Caraïbes et en Amérique du Sud (voir tableau).

David Baltimore, lauréat du prix Nobel qui dirige Comité de recherche AIDS Vaccine NIH et dirige l'Institut de technologie de Californie à Pasadena, résume le dilemme: ". Nous avons pas d'autres matériaux qui sont à considérer pour essais de phase III Il faudra au moins 4 ans de plus pour cela." D'autres chercheurs sont plus émoussée: "Il n'y a pas une bonne base scientifique pour ces essais», explique Brigitte Autran, immunologiste à H (tm) pital Pitié- Salptrière à Paris

Les deux équipes disent qu'ils vont mener des essais d'efficacité seulement. si les études de phase II en cours de finalisation montrent qu'au moins 30% des personnes vaccinées développent des réponses de cellules tueuses. L'armée espère revoir sa phase II des essais au cours des prochaines semaines et prendre une décision d'ici la fin de l'année; les chercheurs du NIH pourraient prendre une décision en Janvier.

Plus Turmoil sur les coûts cachés de l'étude des NIH enfants [1945001 - ] Emploi Le directeur de longue date de l'étude sur la santé d'un ambitieux enfants aux National Institutes of Health a changé à la suite d'un rapport interne suggérant que les fonctionnaires ont délibérément caché les coûts de ballonnement du projet.

Mandaté par le Congrès en 00, l'étude de la national Children (NCS) prévoit de suivre la santé de 100.000 enfants d'avant la naissance jusqu'à l'âge il y a 21. Plusieurs mois, les responsables de l'Institut national de la santé infantile et du développement humain (NICHD) ont révélé que l'étiquette de prix pour l'étude, estimée à long à environ 3 milliards $ sur 25 ans, pourrait effectivement atteindre 6 milliards $. NIH directeur par intérim Raynard Kington a mis l'étude complète en attente jusqu'à ce qu'un pilote est terminé et a ordonné un examen.

Cela n'a cependant pas été la fin de la question,. Un récent rapport de l'Office de NIH évaluation de la gestion, le bureau d'audit interne de l'agence, suggère que le personnel NICHD a délibérément laissé le coût «indirecte» ou les frais généraux, de l'étude dans leurs estimations, selon une source qui a vu le rapport. Les législateurs ne sont pas heureux au sujet du manque de NIH de franchise. La semaine dernière, dans un rapport accompagnant un projet de loi de dépenses pour le budget 2010 du NIH, une commission du Sénat a déclaré qu'il «considère [s] cette dissimulation d'information comme une violation grave de la confiance." Contrairement à son homologue de la Chambre des représentants, le Comité du Sénat n'a pas mis de côté 194 M $ pour NCS que la Maison Blanche a demandé; à la place du Sénat décidera du niveau de financement, "le cas échéant,« quand il rencontre la Chambre pour concilier les deux projets de loi.

Pendant ce temps, le 10 Juillet, le premier directeur de NCS, Peter Scheidt, a démissionné pour devenir un conseiller au directeur du NICHD Duane Alexander. Comme encore inconnue est de savoir s'il y aura plus des retombées de ce problème de comptabilité. Mais une rumeur qui circule à Washington, DC, est que Alexander, qui tourne 69 ce mois-ci et a conduit le NICHD depuis 23 ans, annoncera bientôt sa retraite.

États-Unis pour intensifier la défense contre les menaces infectieuses [1945001 - ] Un examen publié aujourd'hui par le ministère américain de la Santé et des Services sociaux (HHS) pourrait conduire à des changements majeurs dans la façon dont le pays se prépare pour la santé publique les situations d'urgence, telles que les pandémies et les actes de bioterrorisme. Pendant ce temps, une nouvelle étude par le Conseil du Président des conseillers sur la science et la technologie (PCAST) a proposé une série de mesures, à la fois à court et long terme, que les États-Unis peuvent adopter pour mieux se préparer à la prochaine pandémie de grippe.

The Medical Countermeasures Enterprise Review urgence de santé publique, publié aujourd'hui lors d'une conférence de presse par le secrétaire HHS Kathleen Sebelius, conclut que, malgré les investissements massifs dans biodéfense après 9/11 et les attaques à l'anthrax de 01, les États-Unis est encore trop lent quand il vient à faire face aux menaces émergentes pour la santé. Pour changer cela, le plan propose une série de mesures visant à aider les scientifiques universitaires dont la recherche promet d'aider à repousser les menaces infectieuses, et plus de soutien pour les entreprises qui cherchent à apporter de nouveaux médicaments et de vaccins sur le marché.

L'examen indique que le gouvernement fédéral devrait devenir un «partenaire stratégique» pour les scientifiques et les entreprises avec de bonnes idées pour protéger la nation. Parmi les propositions sont un ou plusieurs centres d'innovation pour le développement et la fabrication avancée, peut-être fondée, en collaboration avec le Pentagone, qui fournirait une assistance aux entreprises et aux organismes gouvernementaux qui tentent de franchir les obstacles sur le chemin de nouveaux produits. La Food and Drug Administration sera mieux équipé pour analyser le potentiel de nouvelles découvertes et de lisser la voie réglementaire pour les réaliser.

Pendant ce temps, PCAST ​​a analysé les leçons de la pandémie de grippe H1N1, qui a officiellement pris fin la semaine dernière. Bien que les fabricants de vaccins ont fini par produire un vaccin efficace contre le nouveau virus, il a fallu une demi-année pour les premières doses de devenir disponibles et 38 semaines avant les États-Unis avaient suffisamment de vaccins pour couvrir la moitié de sa population. le virus avait été plus meurtrière, ces retards auraient entraîné d'énormes pertes de vie.

Dans son rapport (pdf), PCAST ​​recommande une série de mesures qui pourraient réduire le temps critique entre l'émergence d'un nouveau virus de la grippe et le jour où les premiers vaccins sont libérés. Parmi les recommandations: surveillance des nouvelles souches émergentes de la grippe devrait être stimulée, les souches dites semences pour les vaccins pandémiques doivent être développés plus rapidement, en préparant le virus "backbones" à l'avance, et les tests d'activité, souvent lourdes et imprécises pour de nouveaux vaccins doivent être amélioré.

Tout cela pourrait être fait au cours des prochaines années, le panneau dit, mais dans le long terme, des investissements sont nécessaires pour faire disparaître le jour processus de fabrication, dans lequel le virus du vaccin est cultivé dans des œufs de poule . Le panneau indique également la chasse difficile à atteindre pour un soi-disant vaccin contre la grippe qui universelle permettrait de protéger contre toutes les souches devrait être intensifiée.