Health Meaning

The last and perhaps the latest salvo in a long-standing debate on the merits of the drug of flu fight against Tamiflu was fired off today, but it seems unlikely to appease skeptics or feed unanimity around the effects of the drug.

For years, members of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international network of scientists who review medical evidence, have charged that Tamiflu's benefits are exaggerated. They agree that if taken soon after symptoms surface, the drug reduced by approximately one day someone's life feels sick. But they deny that the evidence, including 12 randomized trials conducted by Roche, which makes Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir shows that this reduces serious complications, hospitalizations and deaths. The Cochrane group also focused on transparency in science: He argued that publication bias had left Tamiflu look better than it really was

The dispute prompted Roche and certain flu. Researchers undertake to re-analyze the data and that is what is published online today. Writing in The Lancet , four influenza experts describe the mix of data from nine clinical trials of over 4,000 patients to assess Tamiflu. Pooling the data, it is easier to discern the effect of the drug on rare outcomes, such as pneumonia. And, the authors report, Tamiflu made a significant difference, which reduces the risk of hospitalization by 63%. The actual numbers are small: Nine of the 1591 participants who took Tamiflu were admitted to hospital, and 22 of 1302 those not taking the drug ended up there. The drug was also associated with fewer cases of infections of the lower respiratory tract that called for antibiotics, the authors say, such as bronchitis or bacterial pneumonia. Patients on the drug had a risk of 4.9% compared to a risk of 8.7% if not on medication. "Significant risk reductions have been detected," the authors note, acknowledging that Tamiflu has also had side effects including nausea and vomiting, which must be balanced against its benefits.

The Lancet paper may be unlikely to compel many people to switch sides, however. "There is no new data presented here on complications or hospitalizations that we do not already know of," said Peter Doshi epidemiologist at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore, a critical part of Roche and Cochrane group that reviewed the Tamiflu studies differences, he says, stem from how complications are interpreted. for example, all cases were recorded as pneumonia really pneumonia clinical study reports,? reviewed by Cochrane reviewers like Doshi, suggest that they are not always believed it.

More troubling, Doshi said, is that the new analysis was funded by Roche through a foundation called that Mugas it helps support. This detail was not shared in the Lancet press release, that of 'Doshi says is "disappointing" -Although it does not appear at the end of the document. "This not want independent science, "says Doshi.

Others suggest that the new report does not change much about our understanding of Tamiflu, but they rent Roche to support and agree with his conclusion that the drug reduced hospitalizations. "The important thing about this study is that it shows that Roche [was] does not hide the skeletons in his closet," said Peter Openshaw, director of the Centre for respiratory infection at Imperial College London, in a prepared statement. "Oseltamivir is not a perfect drug, but it does what you might expect," especially when administered after influenza took the hand and is more difficult to fight back.

- Many obese women have difficulty getting pregnant. When they do, often with the help of fertility treatments, they tend to have children who are prone to obesity. Now the work in mice, the researchers identified a process of egg cells that may explain these two problems. In addition, a new drug, now diabetes in clinical trials, may offer a solution.

This is "a new idea on how obesity affects egg quality," said David Albertini, a reproductive scientist at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, which does has not participated in the study.

obesity does not just impact the lifestyle it a person can also change the way their cells operate. high levels of fats and cholesterol can clog the machinery of a cell and interfere with its ability to build fully functional proteins. specifically, obesity stresses the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) where proteins are made and the shuttle through the cell. this process, known as ER stress name, can cause the cell to self-destruction and can occur in cells throughout the body, including the liver, pancreas and brain.

whether this stress response takes place inside egg cells so researchers led by Rebecca Robker, a cell biologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, turned to a mouse model of obesity that faithfully reproduces what is seen in humans. The aptly named Blobby mice have a genetic mutation that causes them to overeat their way to obesity, low fat chow regular mouse.

The researchers monitored both ER stress and activity of mitochondria, the cell power generator unit, obese mouse egg cells and healthy, and how ova keeled after in vitro fertilization (IVF). When the researchers compared the gene expression profiles in obese mouse egg cells and thin, they found that the Blobby mice had significantly higher levels of genetic markers for ER stress. Criticism, Blobby eggs also had reduced mitochondrial activity compared to eggs from their meager litter mates cells.

"When we saw that the mitochondria in eggs have been damaged, we knew this was a very important and critical issue," said Robker. Mitochondria in eggs are particularly important; although both parents contribute DNA to a child, the mitochondria from the egg of the mother give rise to all the mitochondria in every cell of the body of an offspring.

The researchers found that mitochondria damaged in obese mouse eggs couldn 't properly replicate in embryos. The fetuses that developed from Blobby mouse eggs were heavier than those of lean mice, and they had less mitochondrial DNA in their livers, kidneys and hearts.

"This is important because it provides a new mechanism, a new understanding, to know how obesity can lead to a propensity own offspring to obesity," said Robker.

She and her colleagues have predicted that both the response to cellular stress and mitochondrial damage could be reversed by treating the obese mice with existing compounds. A stressed ER can flood a cell with calcium, and mitochondria, which help keep calcium levels in check within cells, can become overwhelmed and break down. Team Robker felt that the fight against the problem in the ER, the benefits would trickle down to the mitochondria. Indeed, when the researchers gave the BGP-15 obese mice ER inhibitor stress that in early clinical trials for diabetes research is already proving to be a safe and effective way to increase the mitochondria in muscle cells, eggs showed the two lower levels of cellular stress and greater mitochondrial activity. And when these eggs were fertilized and transferred into surrogate mothers, they grew increasingly overweight fetus, the team announced today online Development .

Robker team is currently testing whether the drug against diabetes will have fertility stimulate similar effects on isolated human eggs. However, she noted that weight loss and nutrition drug-place strategies may also prevent women from using in vitro fertilization. "Obese women only lose a small amount of weight and their natural fertility will often come back."

House of Lords of the United Kingdom approved a law to enable a new type of in vitro fertilization (IVF) to replace defective DNA , the prevention of certain types of genetic diseases. The vote follows the approval of the House of Commons of the measure, February 3, making the UK the first country to explicitly allow the procedure, which would combine the DNA of two biological parents and a donor 'egg.

The technique will be authorized under fairly tight regulation :. researchers wishing to offer couples the service must still apply for and obtain a license Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority in the country

The technique, called replacement therapy for mitochondrial DNA, would allow women who have mutations DNA in their mitochondria, the organelles that provide chemical energy for the cell to have children genetically related that do not carry the mutation. However, it is controversial, as it would change the DNA of an embryo in a way that could be transmitted to future generations.

People who have defective mitochondria may experience a variety of symptoms, including heart problems, seizures, and blindness. Symptoms vary, however, and the condition can be difficult to diagnose. Some babies born with defective mitochondria die within months. Other people do not show symptoms until much later in life.

Mitochondria are transmitted through the egg cell, so that the diseases are inherited from the mother. The researchers have developed ways to transfer genetic material from one egg cell that carries the defective mitochondria in an egg from a donor who has healthy mitochondria. And after the egg was artificially inseminated with the sperm, the embryo carries the nuclear DNA from the mother and father and mitochondrial DNA from the donor egg.

The UK has conducted several scientific and ethical studies on the issue since 2011, which concluded that the technology was potentially safe and ethical. But some researchers have argued that not enough known about the potential side effects of the art.

After several hours of debate, the Lords rejected a proposal of the law amendment that would set up a committee to further investigate the potential risks of the technique. They then quickly approved the proposed regulations.

Opponents of the IVF method expressed dismay after. "Unlike experimental gene therapies where risks are taken by consenting individuals, these techniques are transforming our children in biological experiments and alter forever human germline unknowable way. There is no precedent for this," said Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, which argued against the approval of the art. "We call on those who have supported moving forward with these techniques to make it clear that other types of changes heritable genetic remain off-limits. "

in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has asked the Institute of medicine to study the ethical and scientific issues involved in the art and published a consensus report . the next meeting of the committee of experts is scheduled for March 31.

Researchers in Sierra Leone today began a new phase II study of an investigational drug in patients Ebola. The first participant received an injection of the therapeutic, TKM-Ebola called this morning to Ebola treatment unit in Port Loko ^* . The trial can be extended to other sites; the study team hopes for an early response so that it can either switch to another drug or to begin a study of TKM-Ebola Phase III.

Produced by Tekmira Pharmaceuticals in Burnaby, Canada, TKM-Ebola is made of synthetic fibers, siRNA packaged in lipid nanoparticles. target RNA three of the seven Ebola virus gene, blocking the replication of the virus. TKM-Ebola has been shown to work well in monkeys; humans the efficacy trial begins only because there were not enough drugs available sooner. In addition, NRAs have been adapted to the circulating strain when

The study was not placebo arm. All patients on the trial site are eligible for the drug, and researchers hope to determine whether it works by comparing them with patients treated elsewhere.

However, not all patients Ebola in the unit can actually get the drug for practical reasons. The treatment is given as a 2 hour infusion every day for a week; Patients should be monitored for 8 hours after the infusion because of concerns that the drug might produce a dangerous inflammatory response known as a cytokine storm. Doctors and nurses can spend much time in their protective equipment in the tropical heat, which means they may not be able to serve everyone. "The staff has a very narrow window, and there are many patients who qualify in the morning, we should choose a random" said Trudie Lang, global health researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and one of the leaders of the study. patients test site who do not receive the drug could also be used as controls in the study.

the trial aims to register up to 100 patients, but Lang says he can arrive at an answer much sooner. "We are looking for a great effect, and there is a big yes and a big step, we hope see that soon. "if there is a clear signal that the drug does nothing, the team wants to try to test another experimental drug before Sierra Leone reduced the number of cases to zero. Liberia neighbor does not seen new cases in more than 2 weeks, although the outbreak of Sierra Leone has slowed considerably, there are still about 10 new cases every day.

If TKM-Ebola is not working, the team wants to go to a greater III clinical trial phase. It is "essential that we push forward with clinical trials while we still have a realistic chance to get answers about what, if any, candidate treatments can save lives in this area, and in the future outbreaks, "said lead researcher Peter Horby in a statement released today by the Wellcome Trust, a charity which funds the trial.

Liberia, the group had already tested brincidofovir Horby, a drug developed for cytomegalovirus and adenovirus has also shown anti-Ebola activity in the lab. the trial had to be stopped last month when Chimerix, the production company of the drug, withdrew their support. There were too few cases of Ebola in Liberia, and scientists were not able to expand the trial in Sierra Leone, Lang said. Only a handful of patients were treated; these data will be released in the coming months "will be important when we can go back from the business of running this trial to explore what went wrong and what went well in the implementation of testing during this epidemic. "she said.

Until now, no drug has been proven to be effective against Ebola. virus a study of Japanese drug influenza favipiravir happens Guinea, and scientists have reported a weak first signal that can help some patients. a test using the serum recovered Ebola patients as a therapy for others is underway in Guinea and the National US Institutes of Health said it plans a trial of an antibody cocktail called zmapp

* update:. the story said the trial had started in a processing unit Ebola in Kerry Town, its file in this Pan African Clinical Trials Registry. It actually started in Port Loko and can be expanded later to Kerry Town.

* Ebola files: Science and Science Translational Medicine made a collection of research articles and news about the Ebola virus and the current epidemic available for researchers and the general public.

- treatment against cancer that exploit the body's immune system to eliminate tumors began paying for some patients for whom all other treatments have failed. Now a small clinical study found support for a newcomer on the forehead of cancer immunotherapy. Injection of a vaccine designed to match specific mutations in their tumors, three patients with advanced melanoma have a strong immune response and, in two of their tumors shrunk or stabilized, at least temporarily. Although the study was primarily designed to test the safety, the results suggest that it is very promising to stop the growth of tumors.

"There is a lot of excitement about this approach," says oncologist and immunologist cancer Craig Slingluff of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who was not involved in the study.

vaccines for infectious diseases generally provide in the bits of body proteins and other materials from a virus or bacteria that trigger the immune system to defend against the invading pathogen . Cancer, the same idea is to vaccinate a patient with immune stimulating molecules, called antigens, found only on tumor cells so that the immune system of the person ends up attacking the tumor. But vaccines against cancer have a poor record of success. Indeed, most tumor antigens tested also appear in small quantities on healthy cells, and the immune system has mechanisms that make tolerate or ignore these familiar antigens.

Scientists have your eye on a more promising type of tumor antigen: those that result from mutations that riddle the DNA of a tumor through the chaos cancer causes genome. Some of these mutations do not appear in the genes that stimulate the growth of cancer, but encode novel proteins short peptides which can act as antigens on the surface of tumor cells. Because these so-called neoantigens are completely foreign to the body, they could, in theory, a vaccine against cancer.

Designing a vaccine against cancer neoantigen requires sequencing of a large number of tumor DNA, which was not possible or affordable until recently. But now that DNA sequencing costs have fallen and the increased speed, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis began exploring neoantigen cancer vaccines for melanoma, a tumor in which also creates light ultraviolet sunlight that creates carcinogenic mutations hundreds of additional mutations are likely to include many encoding neoantigens.

immunologist Human Beatriz Carreno, leader of the trial Gerald Linette and colleagues recently studied three patients with melanoma who underwent surgery to remove their tumor but had cancer cells that spread to their lymph nodes, that makes tumors likely to recur. Researchers have sequenced the exome or DNA encoding a protein, an original melanoma tumor of each patient and compared with the exome their other cells to identify tens of mutations encoding peptides newly created which could act as neoantigens. (All peptides produced by a cell appears on its surface.) They analyzed the structures of possible neoantigens and made laboratory tests to predict which are actually made by the cell and appears on its surface, then homed in on those most likely to trigger an immune response. For each melanoma patient chose seven specific neo-antigens on the tumor of this person.

After taking the blood of each patient, and harvesting thereof immune sentinel, dendritic cells, researchers were then mixed all neoantigens each patient with these white blood cells so that they see the peptides to other immune cells. The team used the neoantigen dendritic cells coated to make custom neoantigen vaccines that have been infused into the patients three times about 4 months.

Carreno and colleagues found that a key measure of vaccine response, the number of immune system T cells specific for neoantigens each patient has increased in the blood of patients and the increase the diversity of T cell-specific neoantigen These T cells could also kill the melanoma cells in culture expressing the same neoantigens, the team announced today online Science .

In one patient, metastatic tumors in the lungs of women has decreased, while regrew, but are now stable after 8 months; The remains of the tumor of the second person was also stable for 9 months. A third patient who had received an immunotherapy medication after surgery that put her cancer in remission remains cancer free. However, the trial was primarily designed to confirm the safety of the vaccine and immune response, not to test its effectiveness, and because patients received other treatments, it is impossible to say whether the vaccine helped: "I would be speculating if I said that the vaccine had no benefit to patients, "says Linette.

But the fact that the study found "a fairly high magnitude of the immune response," combined with recent reports that neoantigen different vaccine can fight against cancer in mice, suggests the idea is "promising," said Slingluff.

such a vaccine, which should be less toxic than chemotherapy, could be used to prevent cancer from recurring after surgery. It can also be combined with other immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors that appear to work best for cancers such as lung and melanoma tumors in which many mutations. "the high anticipation is whether a one-two punch with inhibition control could function point, "said Roger Lo, a melanoma researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The female of the species is more deadly than the male, the famous author Rudyard Kipling wrote, and that is certainly true of the mosquito Aedes aegypti , also known as the yellow fever mosquito. Only party women human blood, not only the transmission of yellow fever, but dengue fever and many other diseases. But if you could turn all the mosquitoes in men? It's a possibility raised by new research that highlights the gene that determines whether a mosquito becomes male.

Scientists have known for decades that at least one gene that makes A. aegypti male embryos resides on a strand of DNA on chromosome 1. They called this part of the locus M but so far they have been unable to identify the specific gene. Part of the problem: The region contains large amounts of repetitive DNA, making it difficult to sequence this region. (Imagine a huge puzzle of the sea. It is almost impossible to know which part belongs where) In fact, as it appeared, a A. aegypti genome published in 07 does not even contain the gene newly identified. "It is very small and it was thrown in the trash," said Zach Adelman, a molecular geneticist at the Institute and State University Virginia Polytechnic Blacksburg and one of the authors of the new paper.

to find the gene, Adelman and colleagues sequenced thousands of pieces of DNA of male and female mosquitoes belonging to two different strains of A. aegypti and looked for stretches that were more frequent males of both strains. They found 164 such sequences and their correspondence with the data showing which genes are active in embryos, looking for sequences that appeared to be active in the early male embryos. in the 24 sequences that remain, they found a new gene, which they named Nix .

About half of the female embryos injected with a piece of DNA containing this gene developed male genitals, the report researchers online today science . (They do not check whether these animals would be able to bite humans and transmit diseases.) "The exact sequence of events that leads to mosquito development that men are not clear," Adelman said. " But we know that Nix is at the top of the waterfall and that's what counts. "

" This is an excellent basic science and it has the potential for genetic control strategies, "says Bart Knols, an entomologist who has In2Care, a company in Wageningen, The Netherlands, which develops mosquito traps. a first application would be to assist with the control strategies that already exist. a company called Oxitec, for example, produced the mosquitoes that carry deadly gene that kills the offspring in early development, which can significantly reduce mosquito populations. But half of the produced mosquitoes are women who can not be released because they could help spread the disease they are supposed to fight. "The whole system would be cheaper and more effective if you could produce only males," Knols said.

First, however, scientists need to show they can achieve full gender reassignment, knols warnings. Only a few women have become men in the study, because the Nix gene must be integrated into the genome of the mosquito for the protein to be produced in sufficient quantities, said Adelman. "If it is produced all the time in all tissues, hopefully completely converted obtain the fully fertile males. We are working hard on it."

In the long term, this could lead to another strategy. Scientists have recently reported a system that allows them to push a certain gene in the next generation to almost 100% frequency. The coupling of Nix gene to such a system would essentially create a chain reaction spreading of the male gene. "If you release such an animal, it produces only men until eventually crashes the population," said Adelman. But it is much too early to implement such a technique, he admits. "We need technology to control such systems before can be used. "

How a patient with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) deadly infect many others? That's one of the mysteries at the heart of an explosive outbreak of the viral disease in Korea that has so far sickened 41 and killed four. Now, scientists have a hypothesis last. According JongKoo Lee, director of the National University Hospital in Seoul and former chief of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), poor ventilation in a zero-patient rooms in the hospital played an important role. The investigation is still ongoing, he warns. "But this is our tentative conclusion."

The first patient, a 68 year old male who had just returned from a business trip to the Middle East, was treated at several clinics before being diagnosed with MERS on May 20, nine days after he fell ill. He was treated at St. Mary's Hospital in Pyeongtaek, a city of about 1 hour south of Seoul, from May 15 to May 17 Most people sickened were attached to the same hospital.

The room in which zero patient remained behind for six people (the standard in Korea), but he had recently split, said Lee. There was only a small window that was closed for the day, and there was no ventilation. An air conditioning unit cycled the air in the room, Lee said Science Insider. "The air conditioner operates in that little room with the door closed, so we speculate that there is a very high density of virus particles in the air." He also said that MERS RNA was detected in the membrane air conditioning unit in the room.

None of the scientists conducting the investigation could be reached for comment, and a spokesman KCDC acknowledged only that " team of experts in various fields exploring the ventilation system [that] hospital. "Peter Ben Embarek, the point person MERS to the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was also informed of a lack of ventilation in the room." It's very difficult to draw conclusions based what little information we have. We hope to get a more detailed picture soon of this part of the investigation. "

Bad only the breakdown would be difficult to explain the catastrophic spread seen in the hospital, said Christian Drosten, a virologist at the University of Bonn in Germany. But if there was poor ventilation more a patient pay a larger amount than the usual virus, it could make a difference. In a study of tens of MERS patients in intensive care in Saudi Arabia, for example, some had a viral load much higher in their exhaled breath than others, he said. "This must have been so patient." In combination with the constant air circulation in the room, which could help explain the high number of infections, said Drosten.

"A very infectious cases, combined with poor control of infection can easily lead to this kind of cluster," said Mike Osterholm, director of the Center for Research on Infectious Diseases and policy the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. that this combination arrived in Seoul was bad luck, he said. "this could happen both in New York or Berlin." But the government in South Korea did botch the answer original, he said. "There was no reason to close schools, for example. And distributing more than many hospitals patients probably helped spread the virus, "he said. "But I think they are starting to do things."

After refusing for days to name the hospital in the heart of the epidemic, the Korean government has finally revealed at a press conference today that 30 of 41 patients were infected with St . Mary. The Ministry of Health has also asked people to contact a hotline if they had been in the hospital within 2 weeks after the patient index was admitted. Find and isolate these people is the key to stopping the epidemic, said Minister of Moon Hyung-pyo health. Already more than 1,0 people suspected of having had contact with a sick person were isolated.

Early today, which announced a joint mission with Korea "for information and examine the situation," including epidemiological models, the characteristics of viruses and clinical characteristics. A team of seven or eight scientists led by Keiji Fukuda, assistant director general for health security at WHO, is expected to arrive in Seoul this weekend, Ben Embarek said. The mission is expected to last about a week.

Meanwhile, KCDC completed its sequencing of MERS virus causing the current outbreak and only shared today with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A spokesman says it will release the sequence publicly tomorrow.

Researchers have developed a new sophisticated sensor that detects HIV hiding places inside and outside the cells. "It is a fantastic new technology that will allow us to visualize the virus in tissues that we have never been able to before," says immunologist Richard Koup, deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Maryland, who was not involved in the research. Insights of this molecular microscope high power, revealed at an international AIDS conference last week, may clarify critical questions about the persistence of HIV and ultimately on how to rid the body of the virus.

To date, HIV assessments in the fabric known as in situ-analysis was hampered by a major difficulty. The most common sensors, which use fluorescent labels or radioactive markers to pinpoint the location of the virus in a tissue sample, sometimes have difficulty distinguishing the target RNA and HIV DNA from surrounding cell components . In essence, a marker can mislabel tissue the virus, creating a background that throws the analysis. The new technique has "very little noise," says immunologist Jake Estes National Frederick of the National Cancer Institute Laboratory (sister of NIAID) in Frederick, Maryland, used to produce highly detailed images of the AIDS virus in various tissues monkey (above) submitted to the conference.

Estes developed the technique in collaboration with Advanced Cell Diagnostics Hayward, California, modifying the existing product RNAscope of the company to detect HIV RNA, DNA or both the same time. RNA and DNA are composed of nucleotides that complement pair with a guanine, for example, binds to cytosine. Traditional methods for long strings of HIV use mapping the genetic material of these nucleotides, called oligomers, to find and bind to complementary strands of DNA or RNA in the sample tissue. These oligomers are labeled with a marker so they send a signal when they have reached their target, allowing the researchers to create an accurate picture of where the viral genetic material is dispersed in the tissue sample. But the oligomers are molecules large and somewhat clumsy, and they sometimes bind to cellular components other than the target sequence.

new technique Estes, however, uses a more complex sensor system that all but eliminates such errors. In essence, the approach chops in a two oligomer and sends the two halves in search of the target sequence. Their markers on if an additional oligomer which connects the two halves binds to time, which occurs only when they are parked next to each other on the target. The probability is extremely low that the two probes would land next to each other on something other than HIV.

HIV is an RNA virus, but it also converts to a form of DNA that allows it to build its genes in a human chromosome. Estes, who works with the virologist Jeffrey Lifson, also developed a DNAscope to view this DNA HIV-called provirus, which becomes embedded in human cells and can persist for decades without being attacked by the immune or antiretroviral system (ARV) . "Reservoirs" of infected cells that hold latent proviral are a major reason powerful combinations of ARVs can not eliminate infection and heal people.

Estes, Lifson and colleagues monkeys infected with the simian version of the AIDS virus and analyzed the tissues from many parts of their bodies. And RNAscope DNAscope were able to distinguish cells that harbor the provirus, the viral RNA, or even viruses outside cells much more clearly than any in situ prior art. "We are convinced that we can see individual virions, and it has an exquisite sensitivity and specificity," said Estes. To check their work, they counted HIV virions by the eye in one of their new images, and then compared the total to a validated measure of viral levels. "We see a good correlation," said Estes.

HIV / AIDS researchers working to heal the face of infection several obstacles that these new fields could help to overcome. The first is the absence of detectable virus in the blood plasma of patients on effective ART, making it difficult for researchers to assess whether an intervention to cure the infection works. Several techniques exist to measure changes in the tanks, but each has shortcomings that new tracts would be able to complete. Another obstacle is to not know where in the body the provirus prefers to hide. If the new sensor can help solve this longstanding puzzle, they could refine the retraction attempts viral reservoirs. "If we can go and see what happens to the virus in these tissues with this kind of sensitivity and specificity, it will answer a lot of questions," says NIAID Koup.

Former US President Jimmy Carter appeared relaxed and even made the joke from time to time when he publicly announced yesterday he melanoma that has spread to his liver and brain. The 0-year-old hoped it had advantages, as many are these days, advanced therapies that help the immune system to destroy cancer cells. (These treatments have exceeded Science 'Breakthrough of the year in 2013) Melanoma in some patients, was the first cancers to succumb to any of these immunotherapies, and specific treatment Carter takes has many oncologists excited: There is a monoclonal antibody called pembrolizumab Keytruda and sold under the brand name. Approved in the US there is a year for advanced melanoma, pembrolizumab belongs to a class of drugs called hot PD-1 inhibitors. By blocking PD-1 protein, the therapy enables the body to produce T cells that can chase after cancer.

Yet researchers have much to learn about pembrolizumab and other PD-1 therapies in development. Keytruda is also extremely expensive, about $ 150,000 per year. In clinical trials, PD-1 blockers generally work in less than half of the participants (see here and here). A study published earlier this year suggested that PD-1 inhibitors may work better in tumors with many mutations, and a small pembrolizumab clinical trial supported this. It found that people with advanced cancer were much more likely to respond if they had supposedly mismatch repair mutations in their tumors. This could also help explain why, so far, PD-1 inhibitors have produced the best results in people with lung cancer and melanoma, both are often heavy mutation of tumors.

What does all this mean for individual patients such as cancer Carter is still uncertain. "I had a wonderful life," he said in a conference television news from the Carter Center in Atlanta, with a grin. "I'll be ready for whatever comes."

dirty diapers are the most unlikely of crystal balls, but they could not hold the answer to why some children develop asthma . Only four types of intestinal bacteria in the stools seem to do all the difference, predict who will get the disease and who will not, researchers say. The discovery could help identify children at high risk of asthma and could also lead to the development of probiotic mixtures that prevent disease.

The new study "puts a lot of epidemiological observations from over the years into a new perspective," says researcher Marsha Wills-Karp asthma Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, who was not involved in the latest work.

a growing body of research has led to a new appreciation during the past decade to how the microbiome-collecting bacteria and viruses that live in the human health of those body shapes . And studies have suggested that the differences between microbiomes young babies, caused by biological methods, diet, environment and exposure to antibiotics could affect their chances of developing diseases such as asthma and allergies.

"There are all these smoking guns to indicate that the microbiota may be involved [in asthma], but there was no experience to prove it," says microbiologist Brett Finlay of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, lead author on the paper.

as part of the Child in Canadian Longitudinal Health Development (CHILD) Study, Finlay and his colleagues collected fecal and urine samples of more than 300 babies at 3 months and 1 year, as well as information on their health 1, 3 and 5 years. They then used the genetic high-throughput sequencing to detect levels of the intestine of microbes in each stool sample. Babies who had low or undetectable levels of four [1945003auxbactéries] Lachnospira Veillonella Faecalibacterium and old Rothia -at 3 months are all went to show the first signs of asthma wheezing and skin-allergies in one year. Babies who develop these symptoms still had high levels of the four bacteria in their stool samples to 3 months.

The Association held "fairly regularly" and "very" statistically significant, Finlay said. In addition to differences in bacteria stool, the team found differences in the urine of babies who developed asthma. Some bacterial byproducts were at higher or lower levels, suggesting that these chemicals produced in the gut, but distributed throughout the body could act on the immune system to make it more susceptible to disease.

Next stool samples used from the asthmatic 3-month-olds subject to colonize the intestines of mice that had been raised in a bacteria-free environment. The animals continued to develop indicative inflamed lungs of asthma. But when the researchers added a mixture of the four missing microbes in the digestive tract of mice and feces, the mice had more increased risk of developing asthma, scientists report online today in Science Translational Medicine .

discovery has immediate application: identifying children at high risk of asthma in their first 100 days of life, said pediatrician Stuart Turvey University of British Columbia in Vancouver, a co-author on the paper. "These children could be followed or processed faster if they end up with asthma". But it also suggests he adds that providing this group with the unique mix of four bacterial combination not found in current commercial probiotics could prevent the occurrence of asthma.

But the development of therapies will be more difficult than a simple mixture of microbes together in pill form, Wills-Karp said, because babies have guts that are teeming with other bacteria. These "early settlers" can prevent new strains easily take over. and another study suggested various protective bacteria. "it is unclear at present exists for it means induce growth of these particular bacteria in children, "she said. "But it certainly begins to open the door to that possibility."

Finlay team Turvey and continues to monitor the health of the first group of children, the study will develop the real-asthma to date, more than a third of those who developed the first signs of the disease have the full version. In addition, since the microbiomes of people in different cultures are known to vary: they repeat the experience in a wider range, more diverse children, including some of Ecuador, to see if the four strains bacteria are universally important.

NEW Delhi- Manoj Kumar Yadav came into this world with cataracts. In developed countries, a simple surgery heals this disabling eye disease in the first months of life. But as the vast majority of people in India, Yadav was born in a village, with limited access to health care. His parents are poor and uneducated. They do not even realize their infant son was blind until he starts banging crawling. Years later, when regional doctors examined Yadav, they told him he would never see. "We have given up," recalls Yadav, now 22. "We thought it was useless to run over trying to find a cure."

Then, in 2011, a team of specialists to New Delhi Yadav visited village in Uttar Pradesh. They he and other blind children examined and kindled hope that Yadav could one day be able to see after all. This August, he and his father took a train trip 13 hours in the capital of India. Here at the Hospital Dr Shroff Charity Eye, a surgeon excised his cataract lenses mounted and slid in synthetic for them.

When doctors removed the bandages a day later, the world Yadav was filled with light, and shapes that were impenetrable to him. He could not tell people objects, or if something has ended and another began. His brain, private information of his eyes for 18 years, did not know what to do with the flood of visual stimuli. But over the next few months, his brain gradually learned to interpret the signals he was getting from his eyes, and blurred and confused world began to come into focus.

Yadav is among hundreds of blind children, adolescents, and young adults who are now able to see through a project called Prakash, which means "light" in Sanskrit. India may have the largest number of blind children in the world. Estimates range from 360,000 to nearly 1.2 million. The vast majority live in rural areas, their quality of life worsened by poverty, lack of access to health care, and a lack of facilities for the disabled. Almost 40% of these children are considered preventable or curable blindness, caused by congenital cataracts, damaged corneas, and eye infections.

Led by neuroscientist Pawan Sinha, Prakash project began in 04 as a humanitarian effort to address this problem. But there was also a scientific purpose. Sinha, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, speculated that the newly observed children could help answer a question that had long intrigued him: How the brain learns to see? Initially funded by the US National Institutes of Health as an exploratory grant, Prakash has since become a revolutionary effort in neuroscience. For years, doctors assumed that once a blind person passed a critical age in infancy, without vision, their brain would never be able to make sense of the visual world. With patients like Yadav, Prakash demolished this hypothesis.

"It took me years about a year and a half before I could see everything clearly," said Yadav. Light and short Yadav is polite and soft-spoken, his eyes darting nervously back and forth. The condition, nystagmus, is a relic of his congenital blindness. But disappeared with the cataracts, it does not stop to see. "Now I can even ride a bicycle through a crowded market," he said.

Prakash "beautifully demonstrates that there is still room for plasticity and recovery" in patients who have grown blind, said Collignon, a neuroscientist at the University of Trento in Italy. This does not mean the new psychic will be able to see as well as those born seers, he warns. "Not supported by the data."

Yet the surprising ability of Prakash patients to obtain an important vision is rewriting visual neuroscience. As the medical gain their efforts became clear, the project leaders have launched a series of studies, low-tech patient responses tests to visual illusions functional MRI (fMRI) imaging of their brain reorganization in response to visual input. While the survey how the newly preview process visual cues, project scientists are peeling away layers of mystery about aspects of the view that come pre-programmed and are shaped by experience.

OPHTHALMOLOGY MANUALS have long suggested that trying to give sight to adolescents who have been blind from birth is unlikely to succeed. In a series of groundbreaking studies in cats and monkeys who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1981, Torsten Wiesel and David Hubel have shown that if the brain is deprived of visual signals during a critical period shortly after the birth, vision is impaired for life. There was no similar experiments in humans for ethical reasons, but scientists took our slams critics windows closed between 6 and 8. This belief guided surgeons Shroff, who turned away the blind children over 8 years.

However, Sinha unearthed some studies it decades ago that suggested congenitally blind adults could earn at least some vision after cataract surgery. Then in 02 and 03, while traveling across India to understand the extent and causes of blindness, Sinha met four people who all had cataracts removed as teenagers and had gained some vision. Anecdotal evidence was enough to convince Sinha that, given recent advances in medicine, Prakash project was worth pursuing, and it convinced the Shroff surgeons to give it a try.

The eye specialists and team of health workers set up screening camps in rural areas to identify children who might benefit from surgery and nonsurgical interventions such as eyeglasses, drops eyes, and medications. So far, more than 1,400 children received nonsurgical care and nearly 500 children and young adults have undergone cataract surgery. About half of these patients-those that scientists believe blind research topics-birth became.

Their recent studies show that the experience is not critical for certain visual functions. Instead, the brain seems to be wired to interpret at least some simple aspects of the visual world. The evidence comes from tests of visual illusions that also help settle a longstanding debate about why the brain misinterprets particular types of images.

When our perception of an image differs from reality, we experience a visual illusion. Some neuroscientists believe that the innate wiring of our brain is responsible illusions; others think they are a product of learning. The resolution of this debate has been difficult, said Susana Martinez-Conde, a neuroscientist at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center who studies delusions. "Babies can not realize the visual experience," she said. "And it would be unethical to deprive a baby of visual experience to test." The answer was "anybody's guess," said up Prakash this project began studying newly observed children whose vision it at the first acquisition, is close to.

in 2010 and 2011, the team Sinha took newborn nine children of those about to undergo surgery for cataracts. the subjects had been blind since birth, according to parents and surgeons Shroff Charity Hospital Eye. Shortly after their bandages were removed, scientists have shown their Ponzo illusion. first shown there is more than a century, this illusion usually involves converging lines on the horizon (such as railroads) and two short parallel lines cut through them. Although the lines horizontal are identical, one near the horizon is more like.

The prevailing explanation of the Ponzo illusion is that it is the result of brain experience interpreting 2D images as 3D scenes, with the individual elements of the images perceived as different depths and distances. "This learning brings us to combine these two identical rows in this illusion as being at two different distances from us," says Sinha. The brain interprets the line closer to the apparent horizon further and thus longer than the other identical line.

If the Ponzo illusion were the result of visual learning, Prakash children would not fall for it. But to the surprise of the team, the children were equally sensitive to Ponzo illusion as were the control subjects with normal vision. They consistently found the line near the horizon addition, the team reported in Current Biology May

children also fell for the illusion Müller-Lyer, a pair of lines with arrows on both ends; a tip assembly arrowheads outwardly, the other inwardly toward the line. The line with the arrows inwards seems. "All we can say on the basis of these results is that this is not the experience," says Sinha. "It's something else. It is probably driven by very simple factors in the image that the brain is probably naturally programmed to respond to. "

Martinez-Conde is willing to hazard a guess on how the Müller-Lyer illusion works. His previous research has shown that our eyes tend to notice more corners than straights. Maybe be, she said, our brain focuses on the corners arrows outward, making the line between watching shorter than the arrow line inward. "But this should be taken with a large grain of salt because I have no data to prove it. "

Whatever the mechanism, the new study adds to the evidence increasingly" that we are not blank slates when we born, "says Martinez-Conde. other evidence comes from a recent study by Amir Amedi, a neuroscientist at the Hebrew University, and his colleagues in which they have used fMRI to compare the visual cortex congenitally blind individuals with that of those normally observed. They found that the basic organization of the visual cortex of blind people of birth is similar to that of normal vision, and both have similar connections between different parts of the cortex. This means that "we are born with this machinery to see that in a sense does not require visual experience to emerge," said Amedi. "The visual system comes with some connections and means of calculation."

SUCH cabling May HELP children acquire Prakash functional vision in the months following surgery, Amedi speculates. But experience and learning seem to play a more important role in the visual acquisition. "This n 'there is more evidence that [even] adult brain can change in the structure and function, "says Brigitte Roeder, a neuropsychologist at the University of Hamburg in Germany. for example, studies have shown that adults who regularly play video action games are better at certain visual tasks, such as reading the fine print on a bottle of prescription or monitoring several friends who are moving through a crowd.

More relevant to Prakash children is the ability to create a mental image of a 3D space. "Satellite imagery is very important in our lives," said team member Prakash Tapan Gandhi, a neuroscientist at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, New Delhi. "If I ask you, think of your kitchen where you kept that, you can visualize it. This is very important for our daily lives. "But blind people are not able to imagine spaces. When tested for this ability using a die and moving ankles, Prakash children before the poor results of surgery compared with people normally seen, said Gandhi. Few after surgery, however, they begin to get better at spatial imaging tasks. the vision must be crucial to help the brain create mental maps of the areas, he said. and the brain is not no critical window for this ability, or the window remains open until much later in life, Gandhi and colleagues reported in 2014 12 March issue of Psychological Science.

the team . found similar adaptability in the ability to distinguish a human face from pictures facelike Shortly after surgery, Prakash patients can not differentiate it also contradicts the dogma. Homing on the faces is an ability visual scientists think is innate. But after a few weeks, the new seer can recognize a human face and begin to recognize different faces. The team also found that their patients quickly learn to connect contacts view. In other words, they are soon able to recognize objects they have touched blindfolded when they see these remote objects.

But plasticity has its limits. Collignon and his colleagues studied a group of adults in Canada who were born with cataracts, but underwent corrective surgery before turning 1. Despite at least two decades of sight restored, each individual had slightly blurred vision. Their 3D perception and their ability to detect motion has also been compromised, according to unpublished results. The researchers found that the brains of these people seem to be wired differently. Unlike people normally seen, their visual cortexes also sound process, they reported in August in Current Biology

"What is really striking here is that we're talking about people who are deprived [of sight] for a few weeks a few months, but it leads to a reorganization longtime brain to better respond to sound, "says Collignon. Prakash patients who are blind for years, are also likely to have them reorganized visual cortex, he said, which could hamper the recovery. "They have a record of their past [in their brains], and their past is blindness," he said. "These people will never be able to recover the vision as one who has seen before."

The findings from Sinha confirmed. The Prakash patients do not develop a vision as sharp as normally seen others. "Despite following these children for many years, we do not find an increase in the acuity to normal," says Sinha. This suggests a critical window of acuity that closes some time before they turn 8 young age Prakash to this Treaty.

Yadav's experiences are typical. "I can read the headlines with my glasses," he said. But 4 years since his operation, he still has trouble reading the fine print in newspapers and books

The window also appears close early for contrast sensitivity :. The ability to discern contrasts, shades and patterns, one of the most basic functions of vision. In one test, the team of Prakash Sinha shows children four models-a house, a square, an apple, and a circle and asks them to identify patterns as they change size and contrast. Normally sighted people can detect these patterns for a range of sizes, if the contrast is above a certain threshold. Prakash for children, their contrast sensitivity significantly improves until several months after the surgery, but never reached normal levels. They remain blocked in the detection of a limited number of sizes, and only when the contrast is quite high.

Taken together, the results demonstrate that no single critical period governing vision says Amy Kalia, a postdoctoral fellow with Sinha. "is recoverable vision or not," she said, "is a more complex story."

The training could help children recover Prakash most visual function, said Uri Polat, a neuroscientist at the University of Tel Aviv in Israel. "The window did not close," he said. "It becomes less sensitive."

In 04, Polat was the first to show that training can restore vision in adults with amblyopia, or lazy eye. A lazy eye prevents the normal development of the visual cortex in infancy. Patients have a binocular visual impairment and low acuity and contrast sensitivity; the diminished view was considered irreversible after age 10. Patients Polat was watching a computer screen with variations of an image Gabor Patch, who fuzzy patterns in black and white that change size and contrast . After only a month of training, patients had greater acuity and contrast sensitivity.

Amedi agreed that training is the key, but think it should involve touch and sound, too, meaning that blind people rely on to navigate the world. His research showed that her interpreting or touch, they rely on some of their visual cortex normally devoted to vision. For example, they use the same part of the brain that use of sighted Braille for reading. Project Prakash plans to open a boarding school the next year for the rehabilitation and education of children after cataract surgery using physical exercises and multisensory experiences.

FINALLY , the team will reveal how Prakash restore vision changes the visual cortex. They begin to fathom the changes in the brain with fMRI.

When the image of the visual cortex of a patient before and 2 days after surgery, different areas of the cortex appear to work in synchrony. "So if you have high activity in a part of the cortex, you will have a similar activity in another part of the cortex," says Sinha. "It is as if a large part of the visual cortex is pulsating together."

However, only a few months after surgery, fMRI picture begins to change. Different regions of the visual cortex light up differently, suggesting a division of labor. Pictures of human faces presented to patients, for example, activate a zone the cortex known to meet the faces of people normally observed.

"It makes a lot of sense," said Amedi. "When they begin to process visual information, they can not perform tasks. They can not identify an object, a person. It is all the same nonsense for them." But as time passes, and the brain learns to distinguish objects, shapes and faces, different areas of the visual cortex begin to specialize.

Sinha, for one, do not expect these changes in the brain. "I'm amazed by how much, how massive change is and how it happens quickly, and how the end of life, it can happen, "he said. He did not wait for the geyser of project results generated. "I was afraid of having to work with children old enough, we were ourselves up for failure." Instead, the project has brought hundreds of young people like Yadav in light while keeping the field visual neuroscience in a new light well.

See our slide show Project Prakash.

Listen to a podcast with the author Rhitu Chatterjee.

More than half of Americans over the age of 70 have cataracts caused by masses of collection of proteins in the lens of the eye. The only way to remove them is surgery, an option unavailable or unaffordable for many of the 20 million people worldwide who are blinded by the condition. Now a new study in mice suggests eye drops made with a natural steroid could reverse cataracts by teasing apart the protein clusters.

"This is a game changer in the treatment of cataracts," says Roy Quinlan, a molecular biologist at the University of Durham in the UK, who was not part of the study. " it takes decades for cataracts to get to this point, so if you can reverse that in a few drops into the eye over a couple of weeks, which is amazing. "

the proteins that make up the lens human are among the oldest in the body, forming about 4 weeks after fertilization. the majority are crystalline, a family of proteins that allow the eye to focus and keep a clear lens. Two of the most abundant crystalline , CRYAA and CRYAB are produced in response to stress or injury. They act as chaperones, identifying and binding to misfolded or damaged proteins in the lens, preventing aggregation. But over the years, such as damaged proteins accumulate in the lens, these chaperones become overwhelmed. The mutated proteins clump together and blocking the light and producing cloudiness revealing cataract.

To treat the disease without surgery, which is out of reach for many patients in developing nations, researchers studied the drug treatments. While strengthening the function and CRYAA CRYAB seems a good target, the development of a therapeutic has been difficult. Most drugs that act on proteins associated with the disease work by changing the way the protein functions, scientists can measure something by monitoring the enzyme activity of the protein. CRYAA, CRYAB and similar proteins are known as "undruggable" because their activity can not be measured, said Jason Gestwicki, a biochemist at the University of California (UC), San Francisco, and lead author of the new study, published in online today science .

Gestwicki team decided to use a technology called differential scanning fluorimetry, allowing scientists to measure the temperature at which a target protein begins to melt. They analyzed CRYAA and CRYAB and found that, in a type of hereditary cataract CRYAB takes a mutant form having a melting temperature much higher than the normal version. If we could find a molecule that bind to the mutant protein CRYAB and lower its return melting temperature than that of a healthy CRYAB, they speculated, CRYAB should function normally and prevent lumps damaged proteins in the lens . The researchers turned to a bank of 2450 molecules that had similar properties and CRYAA CRYAB. They added molecules mutant CRYAB, seeking a which stabilize their target. They are installed on the compound 29, a naturally occurring steroid in the blood, but not in the lens, which has no blood supply. Mice with cataracts and age-related hereditary received drops in his right eye while the left eye went untreated. After only a few weeks, the treated eye was visibly clearer, said Gestwicki, who led the work while at the University of Michigan. Cataract gravity is measured on a scale of zero to four, with four being the worst case. On average, the mice in the study had an improvement of one grade in serious cataracts after 4 weeks of treatment.

This is the second study this year to find that eye drops made from a class of steroids called sterols can successfully reverse cataracts. In July, the UC San Diego researchers reported that lanosterol, a steroid found in the human eye, inverted dogs cataracts.

"There is a me-too document in the sense that this new study also dealt with a sterol cataract," says Quinlan. "But they came to the same conclusion in completely different ways. This is how scientific excellence is done, and [it’s] something that should get philanthropists and pharma excited."

An essential difference between the two studies is how different steroids were administered. The dog study drug administered both by injection into the eye drops and eyes. The new study only used eye drops.

There is still a lot to discover before the two studies can move into clinical trials, Quinlan notes. The lens of the human eye is very different from those mice or dogs, and neither study explains how steroids work on cataract. "Mechanically, we do not really know what is going on here. It is a black box."

Understanding how the reverse cataract treatment is the next task of the team, a key step towards clinical trials which Gestwicki hopes to launch in the next year. ViewPoint Therapeutics, a biotechnology company he co-founded in San Francisco, California, holds the license for the technology and launch additional animal studies soon.

Of the estimated 36.9 million people infected with HIV worldwide, 70% live in sub -saharienne. Of these, 49% do not know their HIV status and about 57% do not receive antiretroviral drugs, according to a report released today by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV / AIDS.

The report, which arrives on the eve of World AIDS Day on December 1st, celebrates the progress that has been made in getting antiretrovirals to 15.8 million people in June 2015. But he also notes how many countries are to meet the World health Organization guidelines health issued in September, calling for each infected person to receive treatment.

huge ongoing push to start all infected people on antiretroviral emerged from recent evidence that early initiation of treatment benefits the health of infected people, and also makes it very unlikely that they will transmit the virus (if fully suppress their own infection). But in sub-Saharan Africa, the report notes, it is estimated that 68% of those infected have not removed their HIV levels

Other statistical highlights from the report :.

• About 36.9 million people living with HIV at the end of 2014. (This is the medium in an estimated range of 34.3 to 41.4 million people ).
• 2 million (from 1.9 to 2.2 million) people were infected with HIV at the end of 2014. New HIV infections have fallen by 35% since 00.
• 1.2 million (980,000-1.6 million) people died of AIDS-related illnesses in 2014.
• as of June 2015, 15.8 million people living with HIV had access to antiretroviral therapy, against 13.6 million in June 2014.

concludes Just a "small subset" of studies that handle dangerous pathogens for their provide new capabilities pose potentially serious risk to the public, an advisory panel to the US government concluded in a new draft report released today. But the current patchwork of US policies to regulate such risky experiments "not enough," and "may require supplementation," concludes the report. He said there are a few so-called gain of function (GOF) of experiences that can never justify the risk.

Some outside scientists, however, say the apparent approval of the report for greater government oversight of these studies may not be sufficient to ensure public safety. "as usual, the devil is in the details," Harvard University epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch wrote in an email to Science Insider. "I'm glad to see some recognition experiences should not be doing, but I fear the exaggerated perception of the benefits and shortcomings in existing processes to weigh the risks and benefits, would thus neutralize this recognition anything de facto "will approach. "

The 70-page document, released today by a working group of the National Scientific Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), is the latest contribution to a long -Operation debate on how best to regulate potentially risky research with infectious agents. such studies are needed to develop treatments and vaccines, but the accidental or intentional release of pathogens changed is always a risk.

this debate gained prominence in 2011 when two groups of researchers announced that in experiments that seek to understand what makes influenza viruses spread, they had changed the deadly H5N1 bird flu for to transfer more easily between mammals. Some scholars have objected to the publication of results, fearing that they could help bioterrorism, while others fear the risks of a pandemic if the new virus escaped from a laboratory. The controversy eventually led researchers around the world to voluntarily declare a 1 year moratorium on these experiences GOF.

The work of GOF finally resumed, but the debate has taken a new turn in late 2014 when the US government made the unprecedented decision to end 18 GOF US studies funded involving making virus responsible for the flu and new diseases such as respiratory syndrome Middle East (MERS) or SARS pathogen or more likely to spread in mammals. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) later exempted some of the studies to the prohibition of funding, but government officials said it would remain in place while NSABB and the National Research Council (NRC) reviewed risks and rewards of GOF studies.

This discussion began with a meeting of the NRC in December 2014 where all sides have broadcast issues. And earlier this year the NIH has commissioned a private firm to conduct a risk analysis GOF-benefit studies; some documents of 1000 pages was published earlier this month and should be discussed at a meeting on 7-8 January NSABB in Bethesda, Maryland.

Risks and benefits

The draft report released today aims to inform and guide this discussion. He concluded that the benefit-risk, conducted by scientific Gryphon Takoma Park, Maryland, is "[o] ... GLOBAL complete, objective and reasonable and generally well documented." The Gryphon report includes a review of the probability both laboratory accidents and security breaches, the draft report notes. After examining a number of scenarios, it concluded that "[o] nly a small fraction of laboratory accidents would result in a loss of containment; of these, only a small fraction would result acquired laboratory infection, and of those, only a fraction would spread throughout the surrounding community (or of the world population) "

the. Gryphon report also suggests that certain types of GOF experiences are not likely to present significant risk to the public, the report notes NSABB. This includes experiments to improve the growth of influenza viruses for vaccines and efforts to adapt human stem in animal models.

Yet Gryphon analysis "has some weaknesses and limitations," the NSABB working group concludes. Data on GOF risks are often scarce, he notes, and some tests can "obscure material risks associated with GOF studies." For example, some scenarios have compared the risks of potential manipulations of certain strains of human influenza with influenza virus that caused a pandemic in 1918 and killed millions of people. But the use of the 1918 flu as a criterion could even relatively new deadly flu strains seem tame by comparison, the report notes.

The risk-benefit study also identified potential gaps in the current patchwork US regulatory systems that have evolved over the past decades to oversee risky research. Some pathogens are regulated as "agents selected" for example, with work restricted to laboratories with certain security and safety systems. But others are covered by less stringent systems and GOF studies involving a small number - , including the MERS virus and virus seasonal influenza - do not seem to fall easily into any single regulatory system. "Control Policies vary in scope and applicability, therefore, the current monitoring is not enough for all GOF studies of concern," the draft concludes NSABB.

Is it "of concern?"

to reduce risk, the draft report proposes a phased approach to the assessment of GOF studies before they are financed. in the first step, the evaluators will determine whether a study of GOF three criteria that would "concern" and in need of a special assessment. the pathogenic agent is to create researcher should be "highly communicable" and "significantly virulent" in a model mammal concerned, "probably resistant" to existing treatments, and more "able" to spread in human populations that existing strains.

GOF studies considered potentially problematic would be subject to a review that considers seven criteria. The reviewers would determine whether the study was "scientifically meritorious," for example, and if the benefits outweigh the risks. They also examine whether the sponsoring institution could achieve safely study, and if there are safer alternatives to achieve the same knowledge. "Proposals that do not meet these criteria will not be financed," the proposal of NSABB States. In a last step, the funded studies would be systematically reviewed and considered by the nominating institution and federal funding agencies.

This framework, and the many other issues raised in the draft report, are likely to attract many comments NSABB next meeting. Lipsitch, which helped catalyze the current moratorium on research funded by GOF US because of concerns about biosecurity, said he is still absorbing the document. But his first catch is that NSABB and Gryphon "agree very credulous statements not approved by those who make and fund GOF concern studies that these studies offer unique practical advantages ... [T] he NSABB draft report seems to show much more optimism than I think is justified that existing structures can take care of the matter. If that were the case, there would not have needed the funding break. "

With reporting by Jon Cohen. Reference materials from reports before by Jocelyn Kaiser.

There was a brief celebration. Hours after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa on Thursday, Sierra Leone has reported a new case of the disease at WHO. At 22, the woman, who had died earlier in the week, had tested positive for the virus. WHO confirmed the case Friday. "A joint team of local authorities, WHO and partners are studying the origin of the case, identifying contacts, and initiate control measures to prevent transmission," WHO said in a statement .

The details of the case are troubling. The young woman was a student at Lunsar, a town in the district of Port Loko, said Christopher Dye of the WHO. Around Christmas, she traveled from there to the Kambia district, near the border with Guinea, and stayed there until January 6. "We suspect that was the time of onset of the disease," said Dye. "He became ill, she decided to go home, and the family home is in Tonkalili." The young woman went to the hospital, but was not recognized as a case of Ebola. "It gets progressively worse and died. The body preparation process for the funeral and the burial itself were done unsafely," said Dye. "This is of course not what we would have liked to see happen in the light of all the Ebola cases we had."

Accordingly, there are a number of people who came in contact with women who are at high risk of being infected by the Ebola virus. There were 27 contacts listed Thursday night, said Dye. "But I would certainly expect that figure to be revised upwards." A vaccine produced by Merck that protected people from the deadly virus in a trial in Guinea last year may be granted to such persons and their contacts. "The plan is to ring vaccination with this vaccine," said Dye. "Obviously, it must be done very quickly. There is vaccine available and there is support for vaccination teams in Guinea, some will cross the border to assist health authorities in Sierra Leone perform the vaccinations. "

Even as leaders of WHO said Thursday that for the first time in 2 years, West Africa was free of Ebola transmission, they had warned against the risk of outbreaks. Because ebolavirus can persist in some tissues and body fluids surviving for months, there is a risk they can transmit the virus to others, for example, through unprotected sex. it also seems a likely explanation in the new case, said Vincent Munster, a virologist at Rocky Mountain Laboratories of the uS National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases in Hamilton, Montana. "I think we must remain vigilant for a while."

The new case was discovered because the authorities in Sierra Leone Swab regularly corpses for Ebola. This case was not recognized earlier and women had a hazardous landfill point of weaknesses in the system, however, says Dye. "We are really concerned about these things and it is a huge disappointment." possible Ebola patients testing should be done just as effectively as the unclogging of the bodies, he said.

Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola, November 7, 2015, and was in a 0-day period of increased surveillance. media reports that the woman who died of Ebola had gone to the hospital and sent the call to the house in question the way hospitals are ready in West Africa to treat the virus, even after the largest Ebola outbreak on record.