The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is recommending that health care practitioners temporarily suspend use of the Rotarix vaccine for rotavirus immunization in the United States while the agency learns more about components of an extraneous virus detected in the vaccine. There is no evidence at this time that this finding poses a safety risk.
It is noteworthy that Jenner was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1789 thanks to his research on cuckoos (the birds, not the clocks). He was a 'natural scientist' and studied a variety of issues ranging from fossils to animal behaviour, and from balloons to medicine. It was in 1796 when he carried out his famous experiments, showing that people could be protected against the deadly smallpox by inoculating them with cowpox (a mild, related disease). Although the basic rationale behind Jenner's technique was not novel (but this was not the reason why the Royal Society rejected his original report!), his careful studies and his tenacity were fundamental for a wide progressive adoption of vaccination. Now --two centuries later-- the world can celebrate the 30th anniversary of smallpox eradication. This deserves a stamp or two, doesn't it?
Now, let's turn our look to Joseph Lister. He introduced phenol (carbolic acid) to sterilise surgical instruments and to clean wounds. As a result, post-operative infections were greatly reduced, and many lives (and body parts that otherwise would be amputated) were saved. Because of these achievements, Lister was not only elected fellow but president of the Royal Society (between 1895 and 1900), and his name was given to a bacterium ...and a mouthwash (what an honour!). Anyway, it seems that there was some kind of infectious hunger for 'small knowledge' at the Listers' house, as Joseph was not the only one interested in the microscopic world. His father, Joseph Jackson Lister (1786-1869), made crucial advances toward correcting image aberrations in microscopes (and he was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1832). After his work, the improved microscopes became powerful instruments, allowing more detailed observations of specimens and, hence, the birth of modern histology. Now this may not come as a surprise to you, but (at least) two other members of the family were also elected fellows of the Royal Society. They were Arthur Lister (1830-1908, Joseph's brother) and Gulielma Lister (1860-1949, Arthur's daughter). Arthur and Gulielma became renowned botanists and mycologists, and world experts in mycetozoa (myxomycetes, slime molds). I'm wondering if they started by playing with J.J.'s old microscope? Gulielma's achievements are especially remarkable in a time (early 1900's) when very very few women were allowed to excel in science: she was a founding member of the British Mycological Society (and president in two occasions), as well as fellow, council member and vice-president of the Linnaean Society. Does anybody know of a stamp featuring Gulielma? Probably not (yet) but this could be a good topic for the next International Women's Day...
 U-M Health System News |
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The virus that causes AIDS can hide in the bone marrow, avoiding drugs and later awakening to cause illness, according to new research that ... HIV Hides Out in Bone Marrow Cells Palm Beach Post UM scientists identify reservoirs where HIV-infected cells can lay-in-wait U-M Health System News Giving hope to HIV + Times of India New Zimbabwe.com all 193 news articles » |
"HIV causes a chronic infection characterized by depletion of CD4+ T lymphocytes and the development of opportunistic infections. Despite drugs that inhibit viral spread, HIV infection has been difficult to cure because of uncharacterized reservoirs of infected cells that are resistant to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and the immune response. Here we used CD34+ cells from infected people as well as in vitro studies of wild-type HIV to show infection and killing of CD34+ multipotent hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs). In some HPCs, we detected latent infection that stably persisted in cell culture until viral gene expression was activated by differentiation factors. A unique reporter HIV that directly detects latently infected cells in vitro confirmed the presence of distinct populations of active and latently infected HPCs. These findings have major implications for understanding HIV bone marrow pathology and the mechanisms by which HIV causes persistent infection." http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nm.2109.html
Recommended viruses for influenza vaccines for use in the 2010-2011 northern hemisphere influenza season
It is recommended that the following viruses be used for influenza vaccines in the 2010-2011 influenza season (northern hemisphere):
— an A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)-like virus;
— an A/Perth/16/2009 (H3N2)-like virus;*
— a B/Brisbane/60/2008-like virus.
Which invader could steal past the Tower of London?
Heritage Key are holding a competition, asking for blog posts about “Which invaders have had the biggest impact on London?” I can’t enter for various reasons, but it’s an interesting question. In the spirit of creatively coming up with the wrong answer, I’m going to go for:
Y. pestis is without doubt the invader who has had the biggest impact, for certain definitions of invader and impact. I think it’s an invader, because it’s thought to have come from the Gobi desert originally. It’s certainly had impact, because no other invader has come close to killing half of London’s population. If you’re wondering which invader killed so many people, it’s thought that Y. pestis in one form or another was the bacterium that caused the Black Death.
It arrived in the UK in 1348. One record is the Grey Friars Chronicle, which has the best description:
In this year 1348 in Melcombe, in the county of Dorset, a little before the feast of St. John the Baptist, two ships, one of them from Bristol came alongside. One of the sailors had brought with him from Gascony the seeds of the terrible pestilence and through him the men of that town of Melcombe were the first in England to be infected.
In reality it probably came in on several ships from across the channel. News of the plague spread much faster than the plague itself, so Gloucester was able to prepare by shutting the gates of the city. As a plan this would have worked if the rats had been trained to enter the city by the commercial routes. For somewhere like London this was not a remotely plausible strategy, and so the population would have been awaiting what seemed like the judgement of a wrathful god. It arrived in London by autumn of the same year, almost certainly aboard a ship rather than from an overland route.
If you were a killer bug with a penchant for pestilence then 1300s London would have been paradise. Hitching a ride in the gut of a flea, you could have transferred to a human or one of the many millions of rats which thrived in the squalor of the city. The hygiene practices of the time, and I use the word hygiene wholly incorrectly, meant that there was a plentiful supply of fresh rats to incubate a travelling plague. It gave the disease a tremendous longevity, in sad contrast to its many victims. If you measure impact purely in terms of people dead, then it’s hard to find anything with greater impact than Y. pestis, which hung around till 1665. Yet it’s not just death that made Y. pestis London’s greatest invader.
Across Britain a third of the population died. The landscape is littered with what archaeologists call DMVs, Deserted Medieval Villages. You can still see them around today with the occasional church in the middle of nowhere, with no obvious congregation. You can’t remove that many people without something breaking, and in the Middle Ages, this was Feudalism. Before the plague serfs had been tied to their master’s estates. The massive culling of the population by the Black Death increased the value of labourers, and set in motion a series of revolts and uprisings which would eventually end Feudalism.
Another effect was the abandonment of land. This helped place more wealth in hands of the church. This wealth helped fuel the conflicts between church and state in later times. More controversially, it’s also been proposed that agricultural use of land could have affected the climate. Bill Ruddiman has argued that the plague led to reforestation of the land, reducing the carbon concentration of the atmosphere, ultimately leading to cooling in the Little Ice Age. This is not a mainstream idea, but it is taken seriously by many climate researchers and does appear in climate change journals, rather than social sciences journals.
Regardless of the climactic consequences, it’s interesting to ask if the Renaissance would have happened without the Black Death. Some of the social changes were happening before the arrival of the plague, but at the very least Y. pestis amplified them. The removal of so many people from the population wasn’t just a quantative change, it was a qualitative change, because it meant rethinking how people were valued in an economy. The Black Death fuelled social changes in the Late Middle Ages which would eventually blossom as the Renaissance. Still, this is one historical character who might not stay in the past. Y. pestis may yet have a role to play in the future.
If you’re interested in reading more about the arrival of the Black Death as an invasion, there’s a very readable chapter in Benedictow’s book The Black Death, 1346-1353: the complete history available in Google Books.
AJC Says: Nice views of virus plaques forming.
One of the most important procedures in virology is measuring the virus titer – the concentration of viruses in a sample. A widely used approach for determining the quantity of infectious virus is the plaque assay. In this technique, the spread of progeny viruses released by individually infected cells is restricted to neighboring cells by a semisolid medium. Consequently, each infectious particle produces a circular zone of infected cells called a plaque. By imagining live, virus-infected cells using a microscope, beautiful movies have been made which show how a plaque develops in real time.
To produce the movies, cells were infected with vaccinia virus, covered with a semi-solid medium, and placed in an incubator. The monolayers were examined periodically until a small plaque became visible. The infected cells were then placed on an inverted microscope fitted with a camera. Images of the plaque were taken every hour for 12-19 hours and assembled into a movie.
The first movie shows plaque formation on monkey cells infected with vaccinia virus. The virus infection begins at a small focus in the center, then spreads radially outwards. As the infection spreads, the cells undergo changes know as cytopathic effect. The large circle of dead cells would appear as a plaque if the monolayer were stained.
The second movie, made at higher magnification, shows spread at the edge of a viral plaque. The vaccinia virus used for this experiment carries the gene encoding enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP). Hence the infected cells fluoresce green as viral replication proceeds.
By showing very clearly how a viral plaque develops, these movies will be an invaluable teaching resource for years to come. I am grateful to the authors of this study for providing an up-close view of a technique that animal virologists have been using since 1952.
Doceul, V., Hollinshead, M., van der Linden, L., & Smith, G. (2010). Repulsion of Superinfecting Virions: A Mechanism for Rapid Virus Spread Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1183173
AJC Says: Nasty, Chikungunya.
 India Talkies |
San Francisco Chronicle
US researchers have developed a prototype vaccine that protects monkeys and mice against the emerging chikungunya virus, a major step toward the production ... Experimental vaccine works against Chikungunya Reuters Virus-Like Particle Vaccine Protects Monkeys from Chikungunya Virus Science Daily (press release) AFP - DailyIndia.com all 43 news articles » |
AJC Says: Respiratory Syncytial Virus can be a serious problem in some people , but the worse aspect of this virus is how it frequently interferes with healthcare, e.g. by closing hospital wards. And we have no weapons against this common virus.
 State Journal |
myfoxny.com
Dr. Sapna Parikh reports about respiratory syncytial virus, which infects nearly all infants by the age of 2. In adults and children, RSV usually causes ... Virus leads to cancelled elective surgeries at CHEO CTV.ca CHEO cancels surgeries due to virus CBC.ca RSV: What Parents Need to Know State Journal WKOW-TV.com -EmpowHer (blog) -Ottawa Citizen all 12 news articles » |
AJC Says: This was always going to be a long shot. Acyclovir is such a great drug because it's very specific to HSV (with very low toxicity for host cells). The idea was that hitting Herpes virus would affect HIV transmission. It didn't work, but it was worth trying.
 AFP |
Daily News & Analysis
London: Acyclovir, a drug widely used as a safe and effective treatment taken twice daily to suppress herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2), does not reduce the ... Herpes drug fails to cut HIV risk: study AFP Daily Acyclovir Therapy May Not Reduce Risk for HIV-1 Transmission Medscape Herpes Therapy Doesn't Bar HIV Transmission MedPage Todayall 24 news articles » |
AJC Says: Well they've outsmarted us for millions of years ;-)
 Khaleej Times |
Daily Times
Bacteria are a lot smarter in complex decision-making than believed, new research says. Gladys Alexandre, associate professor of biochemistry, cellular and ... Bacteria Are More Capable of Complex Decision-Making Than Thought Science Daily (press release) Understanding how bacteria 'think' UPI.comall 10 news articles » |
