A study published  this month in Clinical Immunology, the official journal of the Clinical Immunology Society (CIS), describes a new method that facilitates the induction of a specific type of immune suppressive cells, called 'regulatory T cells' for therapeutic use. These immune suppressive cells show great potential for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and improving transplantation outcomes.

SARS – severe acute respiratory syndrome – alarmed the world five years ago as the first global pandemic of the 21st century. The coronavirus (SARS-CoV) that sickened more than 8,000 people – and killed nearly 800 of them – may have originated in bats, but the actual animal source is not known.

Every type of disease has a specific treatment program. We have drugs to treat symptoms of countless illnesses and maladies, but viral infections continue to elude treatment. While we have vaccines to prevent initial infection of some viruses and other medications to treat problematic symptoms, there is little one can do to prevent a virus from replicating and causing disease. Viral infections can be lethal and without treatment options, we are left with our own natural defenses to fight off viral invaders. This is about to change.

The Secretariat of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has lost valuable ground by ignoring for years the contribution of long-term concurrent relationships to Africa's AIDS epidemic, claims says Helen Epstein, an independent consultant on public health in developing countries, ahead of World AIDS Day on British Medical Journal (www.bmj.com) today.

A new species of bacterium that causes leprosy has been identified through intensive genetic analysis of a pair of lethal infections, a research team reports in the December issue of the American Journal of Clinical Pathology.

All cases of leprosy, an ancient disease that still maims and kills in the developing world, previously had been thought to be caused by a single species of bacterium, said lead author Xiang-Yang Han, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in Laboratory Medicine at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. 

Bacteria that can cause serious heart disease in humans are being spread by rat fleas, sparking concern that the infections could become a bigger problem in humans. Research published in the December issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology suggests that brown rats, the biggest and most common rats in Europe, may now be carrying the bacteria.

Since the early 1990s, more than 20 species of Bartonella bacteria have been discovered. They are considered to be emerging zoonotic pathogens, because they can cause serious illness in humans worldwide from heart disease to infection of the spleen and nervous system.

Scientists writing in PLoS Pathogens have reported the discovery of a new species of Ebola virus, provisionally named Bundibugyo ebolavirus. The virus, which was responsible for a hemorrhagic fever outbreak in western Uganda in 2007, has been characterized by a team of researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia the Uganda Virus Research Institute; the Uganda Ministry of Health; and Columbia University.

A virus that causes cold-like symptoms in humans originated in birds and may have crossed the species barrier around 200 years ago, according to an article published in the December issue of the Journal of General Virology. Scientists hope their findings will help us understand how potentially deadly viruses emerge in humans.

"Human metapneumovirus may be the second most common cause of lower respiratory infection in young children. Studies have shown that by the age of five, virtually all children have been exposed to the virus and re-infections appear to be common," said Professor Dr Fouchier. "We have identified sites on some virus proteins that we can monitor to help identify future dominant strains of the virus."

Asma Elsony led the tuberculosis programme in Sudan at the same time as she took her doctoral degree under the supervision of Professor Gunnar Bjune of the Department of General Practice and Community Medicine, University of Oslo in Norway. 

During her doctoral degree studies she became President of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease as the first African and the first President from south of the globe. During her presidency the Board moved with the DOTs model to other public health lung problems – one of many other achievements.

One of the problems – and this applies to very many countries – is that it takes far too long to diagnose tuberculosis.

Developed more than 200 years ago and found in households around the world, chlorine bleach is among the most widely used disinfectants, yet scientists never have understood exactly how this familiar product actually kills bacteria.   New research from the University of Michigan  reveals key details in the process by which bleach works its antimicrobial magic.

In a study published in the Nov. 14 issue of Cell, a team led by molecular biologist Ursula Jakob describes a mechanism by which hypochlorite, the active ingredient of household bleach, attacks essential bacterial proteins, ultimately killing the bugs.

It sounds like a science fiction movie: A killer contagion threatens the Earth, but scientists save the day with a designer drug that forces the virus to mutate itself out of existence. The killer disease? Still a fiction. The drug? It could become a reality thanks to a new study by Rice University bioengineers.

The study, which is available online and slated for publication in the journal Physical Review E, offers the most comprehensive mathematical analysis to date of the mechanisms that drive evolution in viruses and bacteria. Rather than focusing solely on random genetic mutations, as past analyses have, the study predicts exactly how evolution is affected by the exchange of entire genes and sets of genes.

HIV is a master of disguise, able to rapidly change its identity and hide undetected in infected cells. But now, in a long-standing collaborative research effort partially-funded by the Wellcome Trust, scientists from Oxford-based Adaptimmune Limited, in partnership with the Universities of Cardiff and Pennsylvania have engineered immune cells to act as "bionic assassins" that see through HIV's many disguises. 

Montana State University scientists concerned about lethal mold infections have found a gene that regulates the mold's resistance to drugs.

The gene, called srbA, allows molds to thrive during infections even when inflammation reduces its oxygen supply, said Robert Cramer, senior author of a paper published in the Nov. 7 issue of PLoS Pathogens. When the gene is removed, the mold becomes much more vulnerable to lack of oxygen and can no longer grow to cause disease.

It took less than a decade for native rats to become extinct on the Indian Ocean's previously uninhabited Christmas Island once Eurasian black rats jumped ship onto the island at the turn of the 20th century.

But this story is more than the typical tale of direct competition: according to new genetic research published in PLoS One, black rats carried a pathogen that exterminated two endemic species, Rattus macleari and R. nativitatis. This study is the first to demonstrate extinction in a mammal because of disease, supporting the hypothesis proposed a decade ago that "hyperdisease conditions"—unusually rapid mortality from which a species never recovers—can lead to extinction. 

Don't reach for that antihistamine just yet, if you have allergies.  A new article in the December issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology provides evidence that allergies are much more than just an annoying immune malfunction - they may protect against certain types of cancer.  So suppressing cancer fighting defenses may not be the best idea.

An international team of researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Basel in Switzerland have issued a report on the mechanism of toxicity of a chemical compound called Dibutyltin (DBT).

DBT is part of a class of high toxic and widely distributed chemical compounds called organotins, DBT is most commonly used as an anti-fouling agent in paint, for example in the fishing and shipbuilding industries. It is also used in the production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic tubes and bottles.

Viruses are nasty opponents, as anyone who has followed the battles against influenza, SARs and HIV/AIDS can attest. They are diverse and in many cases evolve at rates that confound efforts to contain them. Anyone who has gotten a flu shot, and then came down with the flu a few months later because the “strain” of virus that the vaccine was not the same as the “strain” that they were infected with, knows just how fast viruses can evolve. In many cases, medical professional never really know which virus has caused the symptoms in their patients, and this complicates treatment and often leads to the misuse of antibiotics, which, of course, are never effective against viruses.

Today, scientists from Procter&Gamble (P&G), the University of Calgary and the University of Virginia announced results from the first study to examine the entire human genome's response to the most common cold virus, human rhinovirus.

In the UK, the government has chosen the vaccine Cervarix for their human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program.

But actual UK doctors choose Gardisal for their own children, says Phil Hammond, general practitioner, writer, and broadcaster, on bmj.com today.

The reason has nothing to do with the effectiveness of either vaccine, but rather with genital warts.    "You’d be mad not to protect your daughter against genital warts if you can afford to." he quotes Peter Greenhouse, a sexual health consultant, as saying.   

Amoebas glide toward their prey with the help of a protein switch that controls a molecular compass, biologists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered.    Their finding is important because the same molecular switch is shared by humans and other vertebrates to help immune cells locate the sites of infections.