http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A Boston University School of Medicine-led research team has discovered a more efficient way to create induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells, derived from mouse fibroblasts, by using a single virus vector instead of multiple viruses in the reprogramming process. The result is a powerful laboratory tool and a significant step toward the application of embryonic stem cell-like cells for clinical purposes such as the regeneration of organs damaged by inherited or degenerative diseases, including emphysema, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and Alzheimer's Disease. http://www.physorg.com/news150558593.html Biology Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:49:53 EST news150558593 Five-year-old Kate Levschan and her 18-month-old brother, Jacob, have never sat on Santa's lap. Their mother, Marti Levschan, wants to keep it that way. http://www.physorg.com/news150398444.html Medicine & Health Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:20:44 EST news150398444 By mixing and matching a contemporary flu virus with the "Spanish flu" - a virus that killed between 20 and 50 million people 90 years ago in history's most devastating outbreak of infectious disease - researchers have identified a set of three genes that helped underpin the extraordinary virulence of the 1918 virus. http://www.physorg.com/news149793752.html Biology Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:22:32 EST news149793752 (PhysOrg.com) -- Peering at structures only atoms across, researchers have identified the clockwork that drives a powerful virus nanomotor. Because of the motor's strength--to scale, twice that of an automobile--the new findings could inspire engineers designing sophisticated nanomachines. In addition, because a number of virus types may possess a similar motor, including the virus that causes herpes, the results may also assist pharmaceutical companies developing methods to sabotage virus machinery. http://www.physorg.com/news149793675.html Biology Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:21:15 EST news149793675 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have discovered the atomic structure of a powerful "molecular motor" that packages DNA into the head segment of some viruses during their assembly, an essential step in their ability to multiply and infect new host organisms. http://www.physorg.com/news149344139.html Biology Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:28:59 EST news149344139 Researchers at Northwestern University have discovered a critical new way a man can transmit the HIV virus to a woman. http://www.physorg.com/news148656888.html Medicine & Health Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:34:48 EST news148656888 Research led by Johns Hopkins Children's Center scientists has figured out why a respiratory syncytial virus vaccine used in 1966 to inoculate children against the infection instead caused severe respiratory disease and effectively stopped efforts to make a better one. The findings, published online on Dec. 14 in Nature Medicine, could restart work on effective killed-virus vaccines not only for RSV but other respiratory viruses, researchers say. The new findings also debunk a popular theory that the 1966 vaccine was ineffective because the formalin used to inactivate the virus disrupted critical antigens, the substances that stimulate the production of protective antibodies. http://www.physorg.com/news148577725.html Medicine & Health Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:35:25 EST news148577725 HIV is so deadly largely because it evolves so rapidly. With a single virus as the origin of an infection, most patients will quickly come to harbor thousands of different versions of HIV, all a little bit different and all competing with one another to most efficiently infect that person's cells. Its rapid and unique evolution in every patient is what allows HIV to evade the body's defenses and gives the virus great skill at developing resistance to a pantheon of antiviral drugs. http://www.physorg.com/news148278749.html Medicine & Health Fri, 12 Dec 2008 04:32:29 EST news148278749 Research conducted at The University of Queensland could contribute to the development of a vaccine and cure for West Nile virus and Dengue fever. http://www.physorg.com/news148228029.html Medicine & Health Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:27:09 EST news148228029 Pharmaceutical companies and universities are racing to develop drugs that use the gene silencing mechanism known as RNA interference to treat a host of diseases. Now, a new study opens up an entirely new possibility for this powerful tool: Researchers at the University of Georgia have demonstrated for the first time that RNA interference can be used as a tool in the development of vaccines. http://www.physorg.com/news148148345.html Medicine & Health Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:19:05 EST news148148345 By blocking PD-1 (programmed death-1), an immune receptor molecule known to inhibit the immune response to chronic viral infections, scientists have safely and significantly reduced the plasma viral load and also prolonged survival of rhesus macaque monkeys severely infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), the nonhuman primate version of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The therapeutic strategy worked by boosting the function of anti-viral killer cells (CD8 T cells) and improving antibody response to the virus. http://www.physorg.com/news148138372.html Medicine & Health Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:32:52 EST news148138372 Combination therapies similar to those used for HIV patients may be the best way of treating hepatitis C virus (HCV), say researchers from the University of Leeds. http://www.physorg.com/news148057523.html Medicine & Health Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:05:23 EST news148057523 (PhysOrg.com) -- The virus behind cold sores is a major cause of the insoluble protein plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer`s disease sufferers, University of Manchester researchers have revealed. http://www.physorg.com/news147971732.html Medicine & Health Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:15:32 EST news147971732 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from Purdue and Stony Brook universities have determined the precise atomic-scale structure of the poliovirus attached to key receptor molecules in human host cells and also have taken a vital snapshot of processes leading to infection. http://www.physorg.com/news147968790.html Biology Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:26:30 EST news147968790 Use of the drug interferon as a long-term maintenance strategy to slow the progression of liver disease associated with the hepatitis C virus is ineffective, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers and their colleagues from nine other institutions have found in a multicenter study. http://www.physorg.com/news147619689.html Medicine & Health Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:28:09 EST news147619689 Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have determined that the immune-system protein interferon plays a key role in "teaching" the immune system how to fight off repeated infections of the same virus. http://www.physorg.com/news147506941.html Medicine & Health Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:09:01 EST news147506941 Mosquitoes are like Typhoid Mary. They can spread viruses which cause West Nile fever, dengue fever, or yellow fever without themselves getting sick. Scientists long thought that the mosquito didn't care whether it had a virus hitchhiker, but have now discovered, "There is a war going on," said Zach Adelman, assistant professor of entomology at Virginia Tech. http://www.physorg.com/news147374555.html Biology Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:22:35 EST news147374555 Increasing the production of naturally occurring proteins that contain selenium in human blood cells slows down multiplication of the AIDS virus, according to biochemists. http://www.physorg.com/news147081032.html Medicine & Health Fri, 28 Nov 2008 07:50:32 EST news147081032 Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have synthetically reconstructed the bat variant of the SARS coronavirus (CoV) that caused the SARS epidemic of 2003. http://www.physorg.com/news146830540.html Medicine & Health Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:15:40 EST news146830540 Bavituximab, an anti-viral drug developed by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers, shows promise as a new strategy to fight viral diseases, including potential bioterrorism agents. http://www.physorg.com/news146667439.html Medicine & Health Sun, 23 Nov 2008 12:57:19 EST news146667439 It is said that timing is everything, and that certainly appears to be true for autumn infants. Children who are born four months before the height of cold and flu season have a greater risk of developing childhood asthma than children born at any other time of year, according to new research. http://www.physorg.com/news146473162.html Medicine & Health Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:59:22 EST news146473162 Scientists report the discovery of a new species of Ebola virus, provisionally named Bundibugyo ebolavirus, November 21 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens. 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. http://www.physorg.com/news146472322.html Biology Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:45:22 EST news146472322 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. http://www.physorg.com/news146399764.html Biology Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:36:04 EST news146399764 (PhysOrg.com) -- Ninety years after the sweeping destruction of the 1918 flu pandemic, researchers at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt have recovered antibodies to the virus - from elderly survivors of the original outbreak. http://www.physorg.com/news145643890.html Medicine & Health Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:38:10 EST news145643890 Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University's School of Dentistry have found that a significant percentage of dental patients with the inflammatory diseases irreversible pulpitis and apical periodontitis also have the Epstein-Barr virus. The Epstein-Barr virus is an important human pathogen found in more than 90 percent of the world population. It is associated with many diseases, including infectious mononucleosis, malignant lymphomas, and naspharyngeal carcinoma. http://www.physorg.com/news145557902.html Medicine & Health Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:45:02 EST news145557902 (PhysOrg.com) -- Using data collected at Advanced Photon Source at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, researchers at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif., have for the first time solved the structure of a virus that can infect specific cancer cells. http://www.physorg.com/news145284574.html Medicine & Health Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:49:34 EST news145284574 A protein found in the virulent avian influenza virus strain called H5N1 forms tiny tubules in which it "hides" the pieces of double-stranded RNA formed during viral infection, which otherwise would prompt an antiviral immune response from infected cells, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in an online report in the journal Nature. http://www.physorg.com/news145110178.html Biology Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:22:58 EST news145110178 In a new study reported in PLoS Medicine, Mammen P. Mammen Jr. of the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (AFRIMS) in Bangkok and colleagues investigated the spread of dengue virus infection in rural Thai villages. http://www.physorg.com/news145004625.html Medicine & Health Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:03:45 EST news145004625 An entomologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey, a division of the new UI Institute for Natural Resource Sustainability, says smaller mosquitoes are more likely to be infected with viruses that cause diseases in humans. These findings can be found in the November issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. http://www.physorg.com/news144947242.html Biology Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:07:22 EST news144947242 The rapid spread of West Nile virus in North America over the past decade is likely to have long-lasting ecological consequences throughout the continent, according to an article in the November issue of BioScience. The mosquito-borne virus, which was little known before its emergence in New York in 1999, has since been found in all 48 contiguous states. http://www.physorg.com/news144912524.html Biology Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:28:44 EST news144912524