Health Meaning

The virus that causes the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was found in camel milk. Scientists do not know if the infected milk may put people off, but experts say the results are sufficient to warn against raw camel milk consumption, a widespread tradition in the Middle East right. The Qatari government has published new guidelines recommending that milk be boiled before consumption

The new findings come from a group of researchers from the Supreme Council of Health in Qatar. Ministry of Environment of the country; Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands; and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and Environment. They were announced at a press conference in Doha on Wednesday, and a document about them has been submitted to the journal Eurosurveillance today, says virologist Chantal Erasmus MC Reusken, the first author.

The researchers also found that nearly one in 10 who come into contact with camels at work have antibodies against MERS, a sign that they were infected with the virus at some point, although none of them was very sick of it.

Nearly 2 years after MERS emerged, it is still unclear how many patients are infected. Direct transmission occurs between people, and most of the more than 500 new cases of MERS as Saudi Arabia reported over the last 3 months seem to have occurred in hospitals due to inadequate controls infections. But there is no evidence of widespread human to human transmission outside of hospitals. And the researchers found more and more evidence that contact with camels may be a risk factor for MERS. Camels in nine countries in the Middle East and Africa were found to be infected with MERS and the virus seems to jump camel for people, the researchers reported. But how and where it crosses the species barrier is still very uncertain.

The international team working in Qatar has collected thousands of samples from animals, people and the environment and tested them for evidence of the virus or antibodies against it; their samples included milking camels at two locations in Qatar. Among the animals that shed virus from their nose or their faeces signaling an active infection more than half also had the virus RNA in their milk.

The milk was obtained using traditional methods, in which breasts aren 't cleaned regularly before milking and a calf is allowed to suckle for the milk flow started. As a result, the researchers can not say whether the infected camels secrete the virus directly into the milk; it is possible that the milk is contaminated through the saliva, traces of feces or the teat calves hands. It is also unclear whether humans can get sick from drinking unpasteurized milk, said Marion Koopmans, who heads the Dutch group.

In another recent study, researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the United States showed that MERS live virus added to pasteurized camel milk could survive for 3 days.

The World Health Organization (WHO) will soon issue revised guidelines, as the government of Qatar, recommend against raw milk consumption, said Peter Ben Embarek, a specialist in diseases of foodborne at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland; he says it never a good idea

Camel meat could be another route of transmission. the researchers found that 13% of lymph node samples collected at slaughter contained the virus. But they can not say whether this means that the meat is actually contaminated, or how much risk it poses to consumers.

The team also found that 8.7% of workers in camel farms and slaughter a camel had antibodies to the virus. The fact that none of them reported a serious illness suggests that MERS may be more common than scientists knew this day and cause a mild illness or not at all and more people. "We have always believed that if we knew were the tip of the iceberg," says Ben Embarek. The study gives scientists a better understanding of the extent of the virus really is, he said.

In guidelines published this week, the Qatari government has also indicated how to protect the camels workers. Among other things, they should wash their hands frequently, wear masks own protection temperatures up to 50 ° C make it almost impossible to Qatar and wear protective clothing and gloves, which should be washed every day.

Given the limited data to date about the MERS transmission, scientists praised the Qatari Dutch team for their work. Collaboration is a "showcase of what should happen in the region," said Ben Embarek. Ian Mackay, a virologist at the University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia that MERS follows closely on his blog, called the study "great stuff" in today and said Qatar tweet was "really be commended" to engage in this.

There's a reason people say "Calm down or you'll have a heart attack." Chronic stress such as that caused by the job, money or relationship problems-is believed to increase the risk of a heart attack. rodents Now researchers studying harassed residents and harassed doctors offered an explanation of how, at a physiological level, stress long term may endanger the cardiovascular system. It revolves around immune cells that circulate in the blood, they propose.

the new discovery is "surprising," said the doctor and atherosclerosis researcher Alan Tall of Columbia University, who was not involved in the new study. "the idea was there that chronic psychosocial stress is associated with increased cardiovascular disease in humans, but what is missing is a mechanism, "he notes.

epidemiological studies have shown that people who face many stressors-those who survive natural disasters to those who work long hours are more likely to develop atherosclerosis, accumulation of fatty plaques within blood vessels. In addition to fats and cholesterol, the plates contain monocytes and neutrophils, immune cells that cause inflammation in the blood vessel walls. And when the plates are detached from the walls where they are housed, they can cause more extreme blockages elsewhere, leading to a stroke or heart accident.

To study the effect of stressful intensive care unit (ICU) moves on resident physicians, biologist Matthias Nahrendorf from Harvard Medical School in Boston recently found that blood samples taken when doctors was the most stressed had the highest levels of neutrophils and monocytes. To probe whether these white blood cells or leukocytes are the missing link between stress and atherosclerosis, he and his colleagues turned to experiments on mice.

team Nahrendorf exposed mice for up to six weeks to stressful situations, including tilting their cages, rapidly alternating light with darkness, or regularly hover between isolation and neighborhoods overcrowded. Compared to control mice, mice-as stressed out doctors had increased levels of neutrophils and monocytes in the blood.

The researchers then housed in on an explanation of the higher levels of immune cells. They already knew that chronic stress increases the blood levels of the hormone norepinephrine; noradrenaline Nahrendorf discovered, binds to a cell surface receptor protein known as β ₃ of stem cells in bone marrow. In turn, the chemical environment changes of the bone marrow and there is an increase in the activity of white blood cells produced by the stem cells.

"It is logical that stress wakes these immune cells as an expanded production of leukocytes prepares you for danger, as in a fight where you might get hurt," says Nahrendorf. "But stress chronic is another story there is no injury to heal and no infection. "

in mice living with chronic stress, the team announced today in Nahrendorf Nature Medicine , atherosclerotic plaques more closely resemble known plates to be at greater risk of rupture and cause a heart attack or stroke. When scientists blocked the β ₃ receiver, however, stressed mice not only had fewer of these dangerous plaques, but also had reduced levels of active immune cells in their plates, β tracking ₃ as an essential link between stress and atherosclerosis.

The discovery could lead to new drugs to help prevent cardiovascular disease, suggests biologist Lynn Hedrick Jolla Institute for the Allergy and Immunology in San Diego, California. "I think it gives us a very direct idea that β ₃ receptor is important in regulating the response induced by stress from the bone marrow," says Hedrick. "If we can develop a drug that targets the receptor, this can be very clinically relevant. "

More immediately, the new findings suggest a way that clinicians could screen patients for their risk of atherosclerosis, heart attack, and stroke says Grand. "Rather than asking four questions about the level of stress, we could use the number of white blood cells to monitor psychosocial stress," he said.

- The efforts against polio epidemics by vaccinating adults and children are expensive and potentially misleading. This is the conclusion of an analysis of recent outbreaks in Tajikistan and the Republic of Congo. The researchers wanted to find out if adults and older children had spread the virus and, more importantly, whether giving adult booster vaccines to prevent transmission would do any good once the epidemic began. To find out, the team analyzed data from the real world with two computer models. The first was a standard model of polio transmission, in which people do not lose their immunity over time. According to this model, adults in Congo, but not Tajikistan, transmitted polio. This is not a surprise, because polio is transmitted when fecal matter is found in the stomach of someone else, and Tajikistan typically has a healthier Congo. More surprising is what happened when the researchers looked at a second computer model that takes into account that in the years since they have been vaccinated, adults and older children may have lost their immunity and could so help spread polio. Despite the change, the model predicts the same number of people will get sick, and the outbreak has taken on the same course, although some people have lost their immunity. This finding, announced today online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , means that the lost immunity is not to blame for spreading polio adults, and adults simply giving vaccinations against polio will not necessarily help stop an epidemic. In Congo, they say, adult boosters could have helped, but in Tajikistan it would have been expensive and probably unnecessary. In the future, the team argues, world health officials should spend their time and money to respond more quickly to the first signs of a polio epidemic. This way, children can get the protection of a vaccine before the epidemic gets out of control.

For the first time, a drug developed in part by a new controversy National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center to accelerate the development of drugs was picked up by a major pharmaceutical company. Baxter International acquired the biotech company developing Aes-103, a small molecule for the treatment of sickle cell disease.

Baxter's acquisition of this drug is a victory for 3 years NIH National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS). One of its programs is Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND), launched in 09 to help the NIH and university scientists to develop treatments for disorders that the pharmaceutical industry has ignored because the target population is too small or poor. The program of $ 23 million per year does not assign subsidies, but rather provides support such as chemists tweak compounds to work better and regulatory experts that help navigate the approval of clinical trials.

"This is the first drug to get him out of this process," said Director NCATS Chris Austin science Insider. "So it's really a nice validation" of the model center.

In sickle cell disease, which affects 100,000 Americans mostly of African origin, a defect in the hemoglobin causes red blood cells to form a sickle shape that blocks small blood vessels. This can cause pain and complications such as severe beatings, and patients often do not survive past middle age. The disease can be treated with a drug called hydroxyurea, not all patients respond and many suffer side effects

Aes-103 binds to hemoglobin and prevents red blood cells from sickling. in clinical trials, it reduced pain in patients. AesRx, a biotechnology company in Newton, Massachusetts, and has worked with NCATS NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to move the drug through Phase II trials. NIH has also provided more than $ 5 million for clinical trials, among other funding sources.

But it is the role of NCAT which prompted the NIH to boast the Baxter acquisition today. "This is a wonderful example of why NCATS was created," said the director Francis Collins NIH press release.

The sickle project was particularly attractive, said Austin NCATS because Aes-103 has the unusual chemistry and a new mechanism that made too risky for most commercial enterprises. "This project was dead in the water" until the NIH has picked up, he said. But with the help of experts from TRND, "in a year, we were in clinical trials." It could take years of investment, tweaking, and testing for the drug to reach the market.

NCATS drew skepticism, with critics arguing that he could not improve the industry's efforts and would siphon off funds fundamental research-although rare diseases is an area where many agreed the agency could play an important role. TRND has completed four projects; two focusing on drugs against schistosomiasis and fragile X syndrome were dropped, and two others "graduated early" to TRND, Austin said, and continued independently by companies.

When the gene for cystic fibrosis (CF) was discovered 25 years ago, hopes ran high that new treatments are just around the corner. But new drugs have proved difficult to design, and sometimes they do not work as expected. Now a pair of studies suggests why two advanced therapies may not help many patients as much as hoped.

CF is caused by mutations in the CFTR gene. Like many genetic diseases, a variety of different mutations may trigger the condition, and the average life expectancy for patients flat in the late 30s About 0% of patients with at least one mutation called F508 and it is one that is particularly difficult to repair. Mutation disables the CFTR protein in two different ways: It misfolds, and prevents it from reaching the cell surface, where it is believed to help control the balance of water and salt in the cells. When CFTR can not do its job, people develop a dangerous accumulation of mucus in the lungs and elsewhere.

One of the new CF drug, VX-770, was designed to address a much more rare mutation causing CF. Called G551D, he's behind about 4% of US cases; the protein reaches the cell surface as it is supposed to, but it is closed tight and can not work. VX-770, designed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, opens the protein in the proper configuration so it can do its job. VX-770 was approved in 2012 for patients with this particular mutation, under the brand name Kalydeco.

Although this is great news for patients with G551D, the much larger pool, with AF508, does not benefit from VX -770 alone. Scientists had hoped that the combination of VX-770 with yet another experimental drug Vertex VX-809, which moves the CF protein on the cell surface, would do. Two groups have decided to explore this idea further in lung cells.

What they found was surprising. A team led by cell biologist Martina Gentzsch at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, looked at a type of human lung cells that is often used in CF research, with the F508 mutation. They found that chronic exposure to VX-770, which is supposed to activate the mutated protein, made the other drug, VX-809, less effective, and this was particularly true with high doses of VX-770. "At high concentrations" of VX-770 when combined with VX-809, "there is a very strong inhibition" of how the functions of proteins, said Gentzsch. At lower doses, mutated protein was not always so touched. Labour disputes with previous studies of cells in which the VX-770 was given only briefly and showed the success. chronic exposure, it seemed, had a more complicated effect .

at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, cell biologist Gergely Lukacs and his team have seen something similar. They found that exposure of lung cells with the F508 mutation in the VX-770 long term mimicking what happens in patients who take the drug for long periods, often the function of the CFTR protein evil than the short-term exposure. the hypothesis is that Lukacs, although at VX-770 some respects could get CFTR into the right functional form, in other ways it is destabilizing. "He has that effect duality," he said.

What does this mean for patients? The documents, published today in Science Translational Medicine appear by accident a few weeks after Vertex announced results from a phase III trial in which patients with the mutation AF508 got both drugs for an extended period of time. Their lung function has improved, albeit modestly, to 2.6% to 4%.

"at first glance, this may seem at odds" with the cell studies, said Philip Thomas, a biochemist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, CF studying and was not involved in the current research. and it is clear that in people with the most common mutation, the two drugs work better together than either does on its own. But he and others believe the work of the cell is to teach something important CF community: drugs can interfere with each other, packing a punch less powerful than doctors and patients would like to see. The combo can work some patients because the dose of VX-770 is probably lower than in laboratory work, he suspects, cushion the negative impact of the cellular studies report.

"It really makes me think there is room for improvement," said John Clancy, a pediatric pulmonologist at the Medical Center Hospital of Cincinnati Children in Ohio who was not involved in the research. back in his lab, Lukacs also worked with a similar experimental compound VX-770 which did not have the drawbacks of the drug. in the long term, it suggests, this compound may be a better option for some patients.

An ethics committee of the World Health Organization (WHO ) gave the green light for the treatment of Ebola patients with experimental drugs for the deadly virus. There was "unanimous agreement among experts that in the particular circumstances of the Ebola outbreak, it is ethical to offer unregistered treatments," said Marie-Paule Kieny, Assistant Director General of the WHO, at a press conference today in Geneva, Switzerland.

"It is important that the committee has affirmed the moral compassionate use" writes Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University in New York, in an email. "But there are huge ethical problems that remain unaddressed and unanswered experimental interventions about." Caplan is not a member of the WHO committee.

The panel of 12 members was summoned by telephone Monday, as the largest Ebola outbreak in the file raging in West Africa. The virus has sickened 1,848 people and killed 1,013 of them in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, according to the latest figures released by WHO. There are no vaccines or treatments against Ebola in the market. But researchers are developing several drugs, most of them supported by funding from the US government and fueled by worries of bioterrorism.

Since the beginning of the epidemic, scientists discussed whether some of these drug candidates could be used in Africa West . They were concerned, however, that trying these drugs in Africa would be considered racist and could increase distrust of health workers, already a problem in the fight against the epidemic. But after two American health workers fell ill in Liberia and received zmapp, an experimental mixture of monoclonal antibodies, the discussion took a turn . Some people began arguing that the drug should be made available in Africa, where the majority of patients die.

The ethics committee, composed of researchers, ethicists, and advocates for patient safety, reached a consensus that in certain circumstances of this epidemic, "it is ethical offering unproven interventions with unknown efficacy and adverse effects, as a potential treatment or prevention. " They also concluded that "there is a moral obligation to collect and share all the data generated, including treatment provided for compassionate use" and "a moral duty to evaluate these interventions (for the treatment or prevention ) within the shortest possible clincial trials in the circumstances. "

conduct clinical trials in the middle of the Ebola outbreak will be" difficult, "writes Peter Smith, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the one member of the ethics committee. But they are the best evidence of effectiveness, he believes. "clear explanations for testing to those in the affected communities will be vital as obtaining informed consent patients or their immediate relatives, "he wrote in an email.

Many questions remain unanswered, said Caplan. For example: who should weigh the risks and benefits of a given therapy. "This can not and should not be left to potential subjects," he wrote. Other issues that will pay for unapproved drugs, which can give consent to use them, and how companies will be protected against liabilities if medications have harmful side effects.

Even more difficult is the question of how the limited amount of available experimental drugs should be distributed. According to several reports, the last deliveries of zmapp were sent to Liberia to treat two doctors there, and it will take months to produce more drugs. Other experimental drugs are also available in small quantities. When used, should health care workers are treated first, as some scientists have suggested? How supplies should be divided between countries?

"work ethics Many more must be done to create a solid infrastructure for compassionate use in humanitarian emergencies," Caplan writes. The Ethics Committee will meet in Geneva at the end of the month, Kieny said. Then they will have to address at least some of these difficult issues

* Ebola files :. Given the current epidemic of Ebola, unprecedented in terms of the number of people killed and the rapid geographic spread, science and Science Translational Medicine have a collection of articles research and news on the viral disease available for researchers and the general public.

A class of bacteria commonly found in the bowels of the population and rodent-seems to keep the mice immune to allergies food, a study suggests. The same bacteria are among those reduced by the use of antibiotics in infancy. The research is perfectly in an emerging paradigm that helps explain a recent alarming increase in food allergies and other conditions, such as obesity and autoimmune diseases, and refers to strategies to reverse the trend.

Food allergies have increased by about 50% in children since 1997. There are several theories as to why. The first is that the lifestyle of the 21st century, which includes a very different diet of our ancestors, "much of the use of antibiotics, and even an increase in cesarean deliveries, has profoundly changed the composition of microbes in gut of many people in developed countries. For example, the average child in the United States took three courses of antibiotics at the time he or she is 2 years, says Martin Blaser, an infectious disease specialist and microbiologist at New York University in New York City. (See here for details on the scope of the microbiome research these days.)

Cathryn Nagler, an immunologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, has spent years probing the links between the system immune, intestinal bacteria and the onset of allergies. In 04, she and her colleagues reported that erasing the intestinal bacteria in mice leads to food allergies. Since then, Nagler continued to try to understand which bacteria offer protection against allergies and how they accomplish this.

In one of the latest efforts, the team Nagler was first confirmed that mice given antibiotics early in life were much more sensitive to peanut sensitization, a model 'peanut allergy to human. Then they added a solution containing Clostridia, a common class of bacteria that is naturally found in the mammalian gut, mouth and stomach of rodents. food allergen sensitization of animals have disappeared, reports online today in the team Proceedings of the National Academy of Science . When scientists instead introduced another common type of healthy bacteria, called Bacteroides , to mice in the same allergy-prone, they do not see the same effect. The study of rodent more closely, the researchers determined that Clostridia have a surprising effect on the mouse intestine: Acting in certain immune cells, bacteria have helped to keep the peanut proteins that can cause allergic reactions blood flow. "Bacteria maintain the integrity of [intestinal] barrier," said Nagler.

The research "opens a new territory," said Blaser. It "extends the boundary of how the microbiome is involved" in immune responses and the roles played by specific bacteria. (Group Blaser reported earlier this month in cell that give penicillin mice shortly after birth has changed their gut microbiome and made much more likely to be obese as adults.) Nagler and his university have filed a patent application on the new results. the ultimate goal is to "interrupt [the allergy] process by manipulating the microbiota," she said of a probiotic consisting of Clostridia could be a new therapy of allergy, for example. Nagler not yet known on the market, and they need testing in people before becoming a treatment of choice.

Researchers and health professionals should be accelerated extraordinary efforts to give people unproven treatments and vaccines in communities hard hit by the Ebola virus, more than 0 experts attending a World health Organization forum (WHO) recommended today.

"We must change the sense that there is no hope in this situation in a realistic hope," said Deputy Director General Marie -Paule Kieny, who spoke at a press conference with two other participants of the consultation. More people became ill and died of Ebola in the last months in the 4 decades since the virus was discovered, she noted.

No treatment or vaccines exist that have been proven against Ebola, and when the epidemic in West Africa has begun to receive the attention ago 2 months, many rejected the idea that biomedical interventions might help. The epidemic grew up in what some call an epidemic despite containment efforts that have proven effective in the past, the idea of ​​deploying experimental treatments and vaccines moved to the scene.

The two days WHO consultation , which mixture researchers with ethicists, legal and regulatory authorities, and health officials from affected countries reached a consensus that the blood of people who had survived an Ebola infection, as a "priority", could be used to treat infected people. "There was a consensus that this has a good chance to work and also it's something that can now be produced in the affected countries now," said Kieny. "There are many people now who are convalescing, who survived and is doing well."

The hope is that the whole blood or plasma purified contain Ebola antibodies and possibly other immune warriors who can fight the virus. Kieny stressed that the international community must urgently assist the countries affected blood collection, purification and reinfusion safely. Some places have already started using the convalescent serum, she said. The treatment has never been formally tested, but whole blood was used in eight in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the outbreak in Kikwit 1995; one died.

As early as November, researchers can have enough human small studies of data from two Ebola vaccines to justify providing workers with health care and other health care providers first line for patients Ebola, Kieny said. "This will enable their use in countries infected immediately," said Kieny. "This is real. This is in the field. It does not remain in the laboratory."

Traditionally, regulators closely regulate vaccine trials as they move from small phase I studies evaluating the safety and immune responses in phase II studies that essentially the same question in a greater number of people. Phase III studies on the effectiveness of testing whether the products work, usually with a placebo control group.

In this current emergency scenario, however, vaccines can skip Phase I vaguely organized phase II / III studies, with little that has no regulatory oversight placebo control, but try to collect data that allows comparison of vaccinated and unvaccinated recipients who have similar health risks.

"It is quite unprecedented, there is no doubt," Kieny said. "Everybody has to move as quickly as possible and this includes regulators." She said that while regulators and ethics committees attempt "to preserve as much as possible, security," the objective is to allow the development to move very quickly.

only about 10,000 doses of vaccine will be available at the end of the year, so there is no possibility of their wide distribution. Kieny explained that this is something of a mixed blessing, as vaccines in the past have been proven safe and effective in small studies, but caused harm when used extensively. "We must be careful about this and deployment should be done as quickly as possible, but step by step."

involved in the press conference Oyewale Tomori, a virologist at the University Redeemer Redemption City, Nigeria, insisted that the attention to the consultation not affect what we know how to stop Ebola transmission. "If we had control of the appropriate infection in other countries where it has taken place, we would not be the same problem that we have now," said Tomori, whose own country has struggled to contain the spread, in part because infected people dodge the health care system.

Samba Sow general director of the center for vaccine development in Bamako, noted at the conference release that experimental vaccines could indirectly help control the epidemic by calming the fears of workers in the health field. "health workers are now afraid to come to the health center and take care of patients," Sow said, the center will soon begin phase I trials of a vaccine against the Ebola virus. he talked about his own risk of taking blood from 18 patients with suspected infections, including four years, had the autopsy. (Mali, which shares a border with Guinea severely affected, has not yet had any positive test person.) "If there is a potential vaccine coming I have to be the first to get this," he said. "Moreover, it will show the transparency, it will show confidence, it will show respect to the rest of the community."

* Ebola files: given the epidemic Ebola ongoing, unprecedented in terms of the number of people killed and the rapid geographic spread, science and science Translational Medicine have a collection of research and articles on the viral disease available for researchers and the general public.

* update, September 6th, 11:48 :. This article has been updated and includes links to clarify the practical test

allegations in federal oversight office has dismissed last year National Institutes of Health (NIH) improperly interfered with monitoring officials another federal office of the ethics of a controversial study funded by the NIH involving premature infants.

issue is the study of $ 20 million, 23-institution SUPPORT (surfactant, positive pressure and Oxygenation Randomized Trial), which from 05 to 09 studied the oxygen levels that preterm infants should receive. In early 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) found that parents of 1316 babies in the study had not been sufficiently informed of the risks and sent a letter impose sanctions at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, who led the study. NIH officials have publicly defended their support, they noted, used the oxygen levels in the standard of care.

Then, in May, a group of public defense, Public Citizen released a flood of emails between NIH, HHS, and officials OHRP in which NIH recommended revisions to OHRP a second letter to the university . Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Public Citizen asked the HHS inspector general (IG) to determine if the NIH had improperly intervened in the deliberations of the OHRP.

In six page report dated 15 September, the IG HHS found that officials NIH encouraged OHRP to reconsider and free entry to the follow-up letter . But e-mails "contained no directive or order" that OHRP take a specific position. And OHRP finally took a different position from the NIH, the report notes. "Our research revealed no law, regulation, or a written policy prohibits or restricts the kind of consultation that took place here and make these incorrect consultations, "the report concludes.

The NIH interactions with OHRP were acceptable because OHRP sitting within HHS and with no law bars HHS officials to consult with each other, the IG report found. He added that if Congress wants to OHRP independent, it could do so, as it has other offices.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on the IG and a second report concerning the report released this week noting that OHRP has followed the correct procedures when it looked in 2011 original public complaints Citizen SUPPORT. Public Citizen Michael Carome say Chronicle that the audit is "a complete whitewash."

OHRP working on new rules for the protection of human subjects for studies on the quality of care and should be free to the comments in the weeks and months ahead, the Chronicle reports.

Ebola almost killed Nancy Writebol in July and she also made her famous, which helped broadcast to the world the need to respond more aggressively to what had grown from a small outbreak in an epidemic out of control.

Writebol, an associate clinical nurse, fell ill with the disease while working for the SIM missionary group in Monrovia. She and her husband David talked with Science September 24 on a subject that has not received much attention: How health workers who are trained to protect nevertheless be infected Ebola? The Writebols also discuss how the epidemic has grown into an epidemic and the treatment she received both Liberia and then to the hospital of Emory University in Atlanta. Questions and answers have been written for clarity and conciseness

Q:.? Any idea how you became infected

NW: I do not know know how I became infected and how I contracted. There are some thoughts on how I could have gotten it. Nobody really knows, least of all me. I felt as dangerous and I felt like I walked into a situation where I was exposed. I was on the weak side risk things. I was never in crisis or Ebola center. I was always outside. I made sure the doctors and nurses were dressed properly before going, and I decontaminated before going out. We kept close control of each other to find out if people felt safe.

We had an employee who did the same job I was doing. He got sick and I did not know he was sick. He has not told anyone. He actually thought he had typhoid. The day I started having symptoms at least a fever, was the last day I saw him. It has Ebola. He did not survive.

I never remember to touch, but it's possible he could have picked up a spray to decontaminate someone, I would have picked up the sprayer. Or we hit the same. I have touched

Q:.? You have been educated about the transmission of Ebola virus

NW :. Oh my God, yes

Q: Do you have sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE)

NW: Yes, we did. It was my responsibility to make sure they were dressed properly before they entered EPI isolation. I did not want one of our doctors or nurses to be infected. I mean, I saw people dying of Ebola virus. We had and have followed every single protocol PPE [Doctors Without Borders (MSF)] had in their manual and had been trained by MSF

Q :. Do you wear PPE in your work, disinfection of doctors and nurses?

N.W :. gloves No, I was wearing and a disposable apron. There were times when I wore a mask. I was behind a line where I was disinfecting. They were on one side of a line and was on the other side. I crossed those lines. We have not even an idea of ​​what happened.

I've often wondered if I was back there now, having lived the experience, what I would do differently. The only thing is that I was taking temperatures of family members coming to see patients. I had to turn anyone away because they had a temperature, but it is possible that I might have been in contact with someone outside who had Ebola and perhaps shaken a hand? Although we are not really shake hands with everyone. Most people are afraid of ourselves. They felt like to be involved with Ebola, you

Q:.? On what date did you start feeling symptoms

NW: Tuesday, July 22. This afternoon I started to run a fever. I felt as if I had malaria. I contacted a SIM doctor. We did a test of malaria and it was positive. I had drugs against malaria at home, and I went home and I stayed at home. I was weak. I had headache. Had a fever. These are my symptoms. I took medicine against malaria, but was simply shaking fever at all. On Saturday, our doctor came and she said, "We'll just do the Ebola test to relieve everyone" I just still thinking malaria They made another test of malaria and it showed negative, because.. . I had taken the drug Then they made the Ebola test Saturday morning and Saturday night the results came back positive I

. Q: Do you think that you confused with malaria, Ebola

NW: I did that I tested positive for it

Q...? Qu 'is what happened next

NW :. They left me at home for the next 10 days

Q: is it David

NW:.. Yes it's just the grace of God that David did not come down with Ebola for all four days they thought that it was just malaria, David did the cooking in our house. I did not feel well. We were still sharing our room. Our doctor was exposed and she dined with us at night, she said that I had Ebola. I had malaria once this year. I knew how he felt and he was so similar

D.W: .. They isolated me after that. For a few days I went to see Nancy in PEP. Our home became a segregation unit. Then they said, "We can not let you do that anymore because you can not return to the United States by commercial aviation." They kept me away

NW :. Luckily there was a window near where my bed was, and David could stand outside and talk to me

Q:.? David, did you check your temperature every few hours

DW: Yep. I am close to 99.2 ° [37.3°C], but I realized after taking my temperature I had to have a cup of coffee

Q:.? What happened with Kent Brantly

NW: I got sick 22 and 23. Kent Kent was actually much sicker to begin with, and then I took a turn for the worse. Kent was released on Saturday, August 2. I went 4.

Q: You and Kent Brantly both received zmapp. Do you think it helped

N.W:. is given at three different times. I have had two doses of Liberia, and the third at Emory. I do not know what I can say when I was given the zmapp it made a huge difference in how I felt. I think I'm very, very, very sick, very sick. I'm not saying it did not help, I think he had some advantage to it, but it was not this big, dramatic "I had this zmapp and now I can sit down and take a shower."

they give zmapp via IV and give slowly, then rotate it a bit. When they turned up on me, my hands started itching terribly and then they turned back down, so I would not have a reaction. It's the only thing I remember the zmapp

Q:.? Were you very sick when you left Liberia

NW: I don 'know if I would survive the flight

DW :. I do not know either. She had to be carried in the aircraft. She did not walk or walk off

N.W: .. I was in the PPE entire trip back. And I am dehydrated. They had a terrible time in Liberia to find a vein in which to run fluid. At one point, they decided to try to get an IV into the bone. This was very painful. They do not really know what happened, if the slope of the needle when he entered in the bone, but once they have tried to push the fluid, it was awful and they decided to stop. When I arrived at Emory they just put a central line in

Q:.? Did you go back and work in an Ebola treatment unit

NW: I did some reading on this issue and spoke Emory doctors about it. My doctors at Emory are not sure how long the immunity would last. It has not been studied. I read that even if a survivor was willing and able to assist in the management of patients Ebola, because there are so many strains of Ebola, it would still be wise and necessary to operate and not PPE only guess you are. immune

Q: What do you think of your own role in this epidemic and the fact that it was not until you get sick and Kent Brantly that the world began to take notice that something was seriously amiss

NW: never in my life would I have dreamed that it would happen. We had been in Liberia for a year and had a doctor come into the country in March or April, which established a graph of other calendars Ebola and how the disease had gone along the Congo and Uganda, and how it was just that little balance disease its way along and spikes and peaks again and grows into a fungus. He covered when Liberia was on this graph. He made the observation that we had not yet seen the worst

D.W: .. People have calmed down and found. In early June, Monrovia began receiving multiple cases of Foya [a town in the north that borders both Sierra Leone and Guinea, the two other hard-hit countries]

N.W: .. We had not started to hit the fungus at all. And then the Samaritan's Purse had an epidemiologist who came into the country who sat with us and said: "I went to Foya. You have not seen the end of this. It will hurt "

DW: .. All along, we were concerned that there was not a broader response is the publicity that was generated. . from Nancy's story and Dr. Brantly who woke things it was amazing

. Q:? You knew he was madly out of control

NW. I never have predicted the WHO figures [the World Health Organization] and CDC [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] now predict I looked at it and thought, "Oh my God"; we had no idea he was going to that extent talk about one half million in Liberia

Q...? What do you think of the media coverage of zmapp

DW: Initially, it seemed a bit sensational: this is the magic formula is what they do, they gravitate towards that, but they also declined this and had a more balanced approach.. It is promising, but do not put too much hope in it until further studies are done

NW: .. I think they understand, too, nobody really knows how much it helped. Because there were so many other things that play into it. There was blood transfusions. The other care given to us

Q:.? Have you had a blood transfusion

N.W :. I did. I have had blood transfusions in Liberia and Emory. Neither was the convalescent serum, however. There was not a match

Q:.? How is your health now

N.W :. I recovered. I regain my strength. When I left Emory, I could barely walk up steps at all. I have some neuropathy in my feet. While at Emory was atrocious. They could not even put bed sheets or blankets on my toes. It's much better.

I wear easily. And of course, there's just the emotional side of it. I was working on it from the case on June 11, the first patient we had, to July 22, and I saw about 40 people and we saw a survivor during that time period. To watch the rest of these people die was difficult. I dealt with some of their families and try to encourage them and pray with them. To watch families watching their loved ones die, which is difficult, too.

For a story on the risk of infection with Ebola virus for health workers here.

* Ebola files: Given the current Ebola outbreak unprecedented in terms of the number of people killed and the rapid geographic spread, science and science Translational Medicine made a collection of research articles and news on the viral disease available for researchers and the general public.

A nurse in Dallas who treated the first Ebola cases diagnosed in the United States were infected with virus, even if she herself she was wearing protective equipment. "At some point, there was a breach in the" protocol said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at a press conference this morning.

L the nurse, who said Frieden had "numerous contacts" with the patient wearing full personal protective equipment (PPE). the patient Thomas Eric Duncan Liberia, died on October 8. Frieden noted that Duncan had intubation respiratory and renal dialysis as "a desperate measure to try to save his life," he suggested may have been linked to the transmission. "both procedures can spread contaminated materials and procedures are considered to high risk, "he said.

Frieden said CDC "conduct a thorough investigation to understand how this could happen and we ramp up infection control to do what we can to minimize the risk that there would be future infections. "

The case presents similarities to that of an infected nurse in a Spanish hospital after taking care of a priest who had contracted the disease in Sierra Leone, and both raise questions about procedures training the hospital staff receive before they come into contact with Ebola patients. "There is a need to improve the training and protocol to ensure that the protocols are followed," Frieden said today, and although all US hospitals need to know how to diagnose infection with Ebola virus it may be safer to provide care in designated facilities that received more training, he said. "that's something we'll definitely consider."

it is not known exactly how the Dallas nurse was prepared to take care of Duncan. But the extreme care needed to treat Ebola virus is a new experience for most health care workers, and they need to practice much to learn proper procedures. the video below, provided by the CDC, gives an idea of ​​how volunteers should help against Ebola in West Africa learn the heavy and clumsy process of wear and take off suits .

The sequence is one of the first of a series of training sessions on safety that the CDC remains at a former military base in Anniston, Alabama. Here is the schedule for the course and other details about it.

Doctors Without Borders, who led the clinical response to the current outbreak Ebola, leading to even training courses for health workers. The above video shows a course held recently in Brussels

* Ebola files :. Given the current Ebola outbreak unprecedented in terms of the number of people killed and the rapid geographic spread, Science and Science Translational Medicine made a collection of research articles and news on the viral disease available for researchers and the general public.

Scientists have identified a natural microbial advocate in the fight against the organization Clostridium difficile . The deadly bacteria inducing diarrhea and sometimes lurks in hospitals and develops in patients with intestinal microbes were decimated by antibiotics. Now, a series of experiments shows that a normal microbial resident mouse and the human intestine, called Clostridium scindens seems to help limit C. difficile infection in rodents, creating bile acids in the intestine. If this is true in people, pills containing bacteria can be both a preventive measure in patients at risk and an alternative to the successful strategy, putting to many, fecal transplants.

In the United States, about 14,000 people a year die of C. difficile , and cases are on the rise. The researchers learned that deplete resident microbes, antibiotics make the body to hospital C. difficile spores. More recently, they have found that fecal transplants appear to restore balance to the bacterial community, such as faeces-filled capsules.

But many researchers are eager to move beyond crap, said Trevor Lawley, a microbiologist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK "If you show a patient, you need to identify a donor, get them to poo in a pot, then put it in a pill. " the process takes time, unpleasant, and not without risks, he said. The ideal treatment would be an isolated mixture of beneficial bacteria, "You can just go to your fridge and take your capsules and tell them to take a few." First, however, scientists need to know which individual bacteria are most useful, and why.

For 4 years, researcher in infectious diseases Eric Pamer and his colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York studied the elaborate defense mechanisms of the body against C. difficile . In previous research, they found that certain antibiotics caused more severe and more lasting sensitivity to infection than others. Knowing that each treatment has a unique effect on the composition of the microbiome, the collection of microorganisms within us, "we used different antibiotics as tools," Pamer said, "to begin to identify which bacteria are associated resistance. "

The new research began in the mice who received one of three antibiotics and were then fed C. difficile spores. Having identified 11 bacterial guts of rodents that correlate with resistance to intestinal infection, Pamer and his group turned to humans. They sequenced the bacterial DNA in the stools of 24 bone marrow transplant patients who received antibiotics. Half of them had developed C. difficile infection, while the other half were colonies of C. difficile in their intestines, but no disease, which suggests something about their microbiomes made it more resilient. Senior microbial defenders in mice and people are not identical, but a senior species on both lists: C. scindens .

That news was encouraging, Pamer said, because what is already known about C. scindens fits right into the story of how C. difficile interacts with the intestine. Other groups have shown that C. scindens makes the enzymes that chemically modify bile acids produced in the liver, turning them into so-called secondary bile acids in the colon. And these secondary bile acids have been shown to inhibit C. growth difficult in a dish.

Indeed, the feeding mice a dose of C. scindens after antibiotics reduced the number of C. difficile bacteria that were able to proliferate in intestine about 100 times. And a group of mice treated with C. scindens mixed with three other similar bacteria strains identified by DNA sequencing lost less weight of about 10% to nearly 20% among witnesses- and had better survival rate-100% against 50% -after exposure to C. difficile . (The multibacteria cocktail gave better results than C. scindens alone, although researchers do not know its mechanisms of action.) C. scindens also increased the abundance of secondary bile acids in the intestine, Pamer and his colleagues report online today in Nature .

This is not the first study to suggest a role for certain bacteria to resist C. difficile , said Vincent Young, a microbiologist and infectious disease physician at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His group found that the bacterial family Lachnospiraceae also has a suppressive effect, for example. But the clear connection for bile production makes this important discovery because the precise mechanisms of bacterial defense were largely absent from existing studies, he said. "We know who is there, but we do not necessarily know what they are doing."

Lawley should understand how this bacterium protects against C. difficile , it will be a stronger candidate for potential tests in man down the line. "We must be careful what we put into the patients, because most of these bugs, we do not understand their biology," he said. "I think having a mechanism, it gives us a bit more confidence . "He says C. scindens does not completely get rid of the disease in mice, which is important to eliminate the risk of relapse. But as the group Pamer and several others begin concocting free excrement C. difficile treatments, Lawley believes that "this is probably a bug that could be considered in the mix."

More than half of infectious diseases, including SARS and emerging-human Ebola come from animals

more than half of the new infectious diseases that afflict humanity, including avian influenza, West Nile virus, SARS and even Ebola derived from animals. Now, new findings suggest that many of these outbreaks could have been detected earlier, and potentially prevented, had a wildlife monitoring program was in place.

-zoonotic diseases that jump from animals to humans have become more common in the last 60 years. Biologists blame people, who have increasingly encroached on wildlife habitats. It is expected more opportunities for diseases to jump from animals to humans. wildlife monitoring could signal in advance emerging diseases and give health authorities a chance to minimize the spread of an epidemic or better prepared when a human outbreak occurs. Yet little or no public health programs include wildlife monitoring.

In the new study, a team led by Isabelle-Anne Bisson, a conservation biologist with the Biology Smithsonian Conservation Institute in Washington DC, has undertaken to determine whether information on the health of wildlife could be used to predict the onset of disease in humans. The team examined historical records of nearly 150 pathogens known to jump from wildlife to humans. They searched through 60 years of scientific reports and logs to determine two things :. First, if the pathogens causing symptoms of visible disease or death in wild animals, and secondly, if human outbreaks were preceded or accompanied by evidence of the disease in animals

"These pathogens are invisible to the human eye, "said Bisson. "You can not see them moving through a landscape, but you can certainly identify with the sick and dead animals."

The team found that, of the nearly 150 studied pathogens, 75 caused visible symptoms in animals, such as seizures, lethargy, unprovoked aggression, or death, meaning signs of the disease could be easily detected. In reality, however, only 13 outbreaks of disease in humans have been preceded by reports of wildlife. This suggests that the early warning signs for 64 pathogenic agents-zoonotic 45% of the total-could have been missed, reports the online team this month Ecohealth .

"This study shows above the disconnect between monitoring of diseases in animals and in people," writes Craig Stephen, a veterinary epidemiologist at the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative in Saskatoon, which does has not been involved in the work, in an email. "He [demonstrates] the need to respond to the signals in nature and animal health."

"health of wildlife is an important signal of environmental change, not only infectious disease, and is a very useful tool to predict threats to human health," says Kathleen Alexander, an environmental disease and wildlife veterinarian at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, who was not involved in the study.

Ebola is an example. After previous outbreaks of the virus in northeast Gabon and the northwest of the Republic of Congo in 01, Gabon and the Congolese Ministries of Forestry and Environment, and several organizations of wildlife set up a temporary network monitoring animal mortality. Its purpose was to gather information from local hunters on their observations of dead primates and other mammals. Carcasses were then tested for the presence of virus. wild animal epidemics occurred before each of the five human outbreaks between 01 and 03, and twice the tracking information was used to alert health authorities of an imminent risk of weeks of exposure before a human epidemic occurred . a rapid response system had been in place, experts say, warning of the advance could be used to implement actions to prevent the spread of the disease. (Whether a wildlife monitoring program could have minimized the extent of the current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is unknown.)

Although an ideal surveillance program include sampling of both wildlife healthy and sick by trained professionals, the researchers propose that cheaper alternatives could be used to efficiently collect information. The widespread use of mobile technologies like cell phones could enable the public to participate in the declaration of death of the suspect animals.

Since the team finished their analysis, at least two new zoonotic diseases have emerged-the strain of avian influenza H7N9 and Middle East respiratory syndrome. "We really need to have in place surveillance systems," said Bisson. "It is a problem that will become more and more."

Regarding clinical research, the participation of people treated patients-ends, generally at the time the study is submitted to a journal. Some publishers based on U.K. now looking to change that. Last month, BioMed Central, an open access publisher, announced that in 2015 it will launch the journal Involvement of research and commitment , who work closely with patients in all aspects of its drafting process, including peer review.

Reflecting this unorthodox approach, the newspaper will Editors Joint Chief Sophie Staniszewska the University of Warwick, who directs the patient research program and public participation at the Royal College of research Institute of nursing, joining force with Richard Stephens, who became a well known defender of patients in the UK, after surviving two cancers and other serious diseases. The newspaper also plans to have peer connections, each section being typically reviewed by at least one university and one patient. "We wanted to send a signal to the community that the active cooperation [between academics and patients] is an essential part of high-quality research," says Staniszewska. Stephens adds: "More and more of us [patients] are increasingly involved in university research in health."

The new journal aims to capture the contributions of non-thinkers in scientific research; according to Stephens, the academic assessment of public participation and patients in science has been conducted for many years, but no newspaper was devoted to the theme, commonly known as PPI. Donors of the new point of the magazine to a document 2010 Health Expectations as the type of work they hope to publish. The study proposed guidelines for assessing the quality and impact of user participation in the published documents and grant applications. The guidelines represent a collaboration between patients and academics-many authors were patients. But according to Daniel Shanahan, associate editor for medical evidence to BioMed Central London study would have benefited from a review by the patient peers. "In the case of this article, a secular critique would have been able to provide valuable insight as to the quality and potential impact of user participation, which would help to improve the overall quality of the article" He suggests.

But patients will be able to review scientific documents that require technical knowledge? "We will select reviewers patients watching a particular document based on their area of ​​expertise, which often connects [medical] experiences they have had," says Staniszewska. After a certain medical condition makes patients "lay experts" for this condition, and the magazine aims to take advantage of that, she said. To help Biomed Central and others to evaluate the success of the new approach, the journal aims to make all the comments of articles accepted freely available online. "We believe that we add value, but are still grappling to capture the way we add value and how you can apply what we have done in a particular instance in another example," says Stephens. "This process of open peer review allows us to judge the way we do ... so it allows us to judge the research itself. "

Involvement of research and commitment is not the only journal that is peer review Embedding patient in its drafting process. The BMJ began to incorporate the views of patients and last year issued guidelines for peer reviewers of patients on their website. " The BMJ believes that the peer review of the research papers of patients is an important complement to the normal process of peer review, in which the documents are sent to clinical experts and statisticians" said Tessa Richards, who is the editor patient partnership the BMJ in London. "We are not looking for them to comment on the scientific reliability of paper or originality or importance for clinicians, but to tell us whether the research question concerns an issue that is important to them as patients. "

Stephens says the new Biomed Central newspaper will have a similar approach , allowing researchers to comment on the "robustness" of methods, statistics or data, and patients to focus on applications, providing feedback if work can be useful in other global initiatives such . Examiners patients will however be allowed to comment also on the data, methods or statistics if they have the technical knowledge to do so.

Stephens stressed that "academics" and "patients" often overlap. Many clinical researchers have their own medical problems, obviously, and patients often have jobs that require technical skills such as statistics that would be useful in examining the documents. "There is a growing number of patients who are co-creation of university research papers, essays and co-design engineering and assembling management teams of the trial," said Stephens. "So there basic skills that develops in patients throughout the world, and certainly in the UK "Stephens added that some patients already considering applications for clinical trials and even help in the development of academic papers, to create a simplified summary of them.

Do examiners patients of the magazine to be selected because of their experience with a disease or skills they have, as the statistical knowledge? "at currently, we are recruiting the lay reviewers who are already involved in, or interested in research. This is usually done either by direct referral of members of the editorial board or by patient organizations and charities " Shanahan said. "We also have to consider the training in place for reviewers lay in the future, so they will have a thorough understanding of the issues to consider when evaluating the articles." The newspaper is also to create a form template to help people who do not know the peer verification -process.

Stephens is excited by the potential of the new journal. "I actually think this approach will encourage patients," he said. "All we're doing with the magazine is a logical extension of patient choice agenda the idea of ​​the United Kingdom that there was no decision about us without us".

* editor's Note: the author worked in BioMed Central from September 2012 until June 2014, but had no participation in peer reviews the patient or the new journal.

For much of the last decade, a Boston research team eagerly exhumed and reburied dirt. This is part of a strategy to reach an untapped source of new antibiotic-estimated 99% of the microbes in the environment who refuse to grow in laboratories. Now their technique gave a promising: a previously unknown bacterium that is a compound having infection-killing capabilities. In addition, the team claims in a report today, the compound is unlikely to fall in the problem of antibiotic resistance. This suggestion has its skeptics, but if the drug is in clinical trials, it would be an indispensable weapon against several increasingly difficult to treat infections.

Many existing antibiotics, including penicillin, have been identified by culture naturally occurring microorganisms-bacteria often try to kill each other with chemical warfare, it is. But the supply of new microbes that grow in a laboratory has been widely exploited on. In 02, microbiologist Kim Lewis, and his colleague at Northeastern University in Boston, environmental microbial Slava Epstein, described a new technique for coaxing bacteria to grow: Put soil samples in tiny rooms sandwiched between permeable membranes and return these items to the ground. The bacterial strains confined in rooms form colonies, partly because the suspects of the team, to growth factors from organisms that pass through neighboring membranes. The resulting colony "domesticated" can then be removed from the chamber and sometimes be more easily call a Petri dish of home.

The researchers used a version of this approach to isolate and develop new colonies-many bacteria in soil dug in the courtyard of microbiologist Losee Ling, who heads the research and development of startup business NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals, formed to commercialize their approach. To test the antibacterial properties of the soil microbes, the team that each duel in a laboratory dish with S taphylococcus aureus , a cause of skin and severe respiratory infections. They then isolated and tested individual 10,000-compounds in all bacteria that killed the staph bacteria more effectively.

A bacterium, a field of grass in Maine, produced a compound with powerful abilities to kill a variety of other bacterial species, including many human pathogens. In addition, these pathogens have failed to develop resistance to the compound: There were no survivors individuals who had evolved to resist his attack. (Resistance usually develops when a small percentage of microbes evade antibiotic due to a mutation, then the bacteria multiply.) Lewis was initially taken this as a sign of total devastation it discourage brand "another detergent boring. "(Bleach, after all, is a strong antibiotic, but it is a little too effective in killing surrounding cells.) However, it appeared that the new compound, whose group named teixobactin, was not toxic to human cells in a dish.

and he showed other qualities of a good antibiotic, online team reports in Nature . on the growth of bacteria in lab dishes, he outclassed vancomycin, a long-drug invoked to treat stubborn methicillin-resistant S taphylococcus aureus (MRSA), by a factor 100, Lewis said. In mice infected with MRSA , teixobactin injections leads to a survival rate of 100% at lower doses than vancomycin.

The compound is effective against the so-called Gram-negative bacteria, increasingly feared in hospitals for their resistance to existing drugs. But the authors suggest that it may be of great value for people who are fighting MRSA, tuberculosis and infections with Enterococcus rare bacterial strains but-villain who do not respond to available drugs.

These results offer hope that other promising agents waiting to be discovered in the ground, said Helen Zgurskaya, a biochemist at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, who studies how bacteria become antibiotic sensitive. "This study demonstrates that non-culturable bacteria ... have new previously unrecognized biologically active compounds ,,," she said. "We now have proof of principle, and I hope more people will follow suit . "

But will teixobactin, like so many promising agents before finally reaching his match in a resistant strain? Lewis and his co-authors believe that it is unlikely. Employees of the University of Bonn in Germany teixobactin understood that works by interfering with two important lipids that bacteria use to build their cell walls. (Some other known compounds function similarly, including vancomycin). The authors suggest that the bacteria are not likely to change means to resist teixobactin because it acts on two different targets that are highly conserved in many bacterial species and are not easy to change.

The bacteria eventually develop resistance to vancomycin, but Lewis points out that it took 30 years. And he thinks that this compound may have even better chances than vancomycin. Based on soil screens of the team, the compound appears to be relatively rare, so Lewis doubt that many bacteria have evolved to produce an enzyme that could destroy it.

This is a logical argument says Michael Fischbach, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. But there are many ways to develop resistance, and if any bacteria there is one substance with limited activity against teixobactin, which could be "the starting point of evolution," he said. "The results they obtained were promising, no doubt about it," he says, but "I would never underestimate the wiliness of bacteria."

patients with diabetes future won, AOT be held in a needle; They, Äôll just need to do a tattoo. The researchers developed a temporary tattoo paper based which applies a mild electrical shock to the skin to measure blood glucose levels. In a study of seven men and three Individuals, Äîfour females, Äîwho bore the tattoo while eating a meal high in carbohydrates in the lab, the device (photo) was just as effective in measuring glucose levels than the traditional method, the stick finger monitor. None of the volunteers reported no discomfort during the tests, the team reports in the current issue of Analytical Chemistry , although some of them noted a tingling sensation when the tattoo took his measures. The device does not currently provide a digital readout that diabetic patients should monitor their condition, but it is in the cards. Other possible applications include sending information to the physician patient, AOS in real time using Bluetooth. Now the tattoo work for a whole day; researchers are working to make the tattoo last longer while keeping its current cost pennies.

Tokyo- A Japanese foundation will try to find innovative approaches for neglected infectious diseases with great challenge.

The Global Health Fund Innovative Technology (Ghit) announced that it would invest up to $ 1 million per candidate "for development at an early stage of radically new and improved drugs, vaccines or diagnoses to prevent and treat infectious diseases that are prevalent in developing countries. "

The challenge is modeled on, and being coordinated with Major Programme Challenges of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which high-risk supports high gain approaches to solving health and global development issues.

the challenge of Ghit, however, has some unique twists. applicants must be partnerships between Japanese entities and non-Japanese. "If you look at the Grand challenge portfolio [grants] right now, it n 'there really is not much out of Japan, our role is to tap into the innovative capabilities here in Japan, "said executive director Ghit BT Slingsby. the fund also sees the program extending its current efforts, which support the work preclinical and clinical on promising drugs for neglected diseases using the resources and capabilities Japanese challenge. the new Grand challenge "is to go even further upstream 'to support the work at an early stage of promising targets that could eventually enter the development pipeline funded more generously Ghit.

They are going to be selective, picking up two, three, or four projects a year and support for 2 years or more in the hope that they will then ready for the next step in development. Slingsby said they expect to allocate approximately $ 2 million in grants each year, he believes to be sufficient for ideas at an early stage they look.

Ghit was created in April 2013 and is supported by the Japanese government, six major Japanese pharmaceutical companies, and the Gates Foundation. The fund aims malaria, tuberculosis, Chagas disease, visceral leishmaniasis and other diseases that afflict the poor in developing countries.

Slingsby told Grand Challenge program will be coordinated with the efforts of the Gates Foundation and other organizations working on neglected diseases "to make sure that we find the most innovative things out there and we do are not repetitive. "

Applications are open from today; the first round of winners will be announced in August