EurekAlert! InContext Modules

Public Release: 13-Sep-2012
'Saving brains' in developing countries: $11.8 million for innovative ideas worldwide
With the goal of helping children in resource-poor countries meet their full intellectual potential, 11 projects in Asia, Africa and South America will receive in all some $11.8 million from the Government of Canada via Grand Challenges Canada to test innovations to address four impediments to cognitive development -- inadequate nurturing, nutrition deficiency, premature birth, and infection.

Grand Challenges Canada

Public Release: 11-Sep-2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Genetic make-up of children explains how they fight malaria infection
Researchers from Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center and University of Montreal have identified several novel genes that make some children more efficient than others in the way their immune system responds to malaria infection.

Public Release: 11-Sep-2012

Lancet
Dengue Vaccine Initiative welcomes latest progress in vaccine development
Today, the Dengue Vaccine Initiative welcomed new clinical trial results that reveal progress in developing the first-ever dengue vaccine. In a publication in the Lancet, pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur reported results from the first study conducted to evaluate the efficacy of any dengue vaccine candidate against clinical dengue disease in a population naturally exposed to dengue.

Public Release: 11-Sep-2012

Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
Diet could combat adverse side-effects of quinine
Scientists at the University of Nottingham say adverse side-effects caused by the anti-parasitic drug quinine in the treatment of malaria could be controlled by what we eat.

Public Release: 11-Sep-2012

European Heart Journal
Results from world's first registry of pregnancy and heart disease
Results from the world's first registry of pregnancy and heart disease have shown that most women with heart disease can go through pregnancy and delivery safely, so long as they are adequately evaluated, counseled and receive high quality care. However, the research published in the European Heart Journal shows there are important differences: Mothers and babies in developing countries are more likely to die than those in developed countries, and women with cardiomyopathy also have worse outcomes.

European Society of Cardiology

Public Release: 11-Sep-2012

PLOS Medicine
Blood transfusion services in Africa should suit local contact -- funders take note
"Flexibility and pragmatism are necessary to reduce the unacceptably high rates of unnecessary deaths in Africa because blood for transfusion is lacking," according to a group of 20 international authors from high-, middle- and low-income countries writing in this week's PLOS Medicine.

Public Release: 10-Sep-2012

Journal of Clinical Investigation
'Humanized' mice developed at OHSU enable malaria research breakthrough at Seattle BioMed
A novel human liver-chimeric mouse model developed at Oregon Health & Science University and Yecuris Corporation has made possible a research breakthrough at Seattle Biomedical Research Institute that will greatly accelerate studies of the most lethal forms of human malaria.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, US Department of Defense

Public Release: 10-Sep-2012

Lancet
India's patent laws under pressure: The Lancet special report
In a special report published in the Lancet today, researchers from Queen Mary, University of London argue that pending cases against India's patent laws threaten public health and misinterpret international intellectual property agreements.

Public Release: 10-Sep-2012
Funding for neglected global diseases research at UBC exceeds $20 million
Researchers with the Neglected Global Diseases Initiative at the University of British Columbia have attracted more than $20 million in funding to find ways to eliminate diseases and conditions that kill millions of people in developing countries worldwide.

Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Canadian International Development Agency

Public Release: 10-Sep-2012

Nature
RV144 vaccine efficacy increased against certain HIV viruses
Scientists used genetic sequencing to discover new evidence that the first vaccine shown to prevent HIV infection in people also affected the viruses in those who did become infected. Viruses with two genetic "footprints" were associated with greater vaccine efficacy. The results were published today in the online edition of the journal Nature.

NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, US Deptartment of Defense

Public Release: 9-Sep-2012

Nature Medicine
OHSU research helps explain why an AIDS vaccine has been so difficult to develop
New research by Oregon Health & Science University scientists explains a decades-old mystery as to why slightly weakened versions of the monkey AIDS virus were able to prevent subsequent infection with the fully virulent strain, but were too risky for human use, and why severely compromised or completely inactivated versions of the virus were not effective at all.

National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 7-Sep-2012

Zoonoses and Public Health
Precautions for tick-borne disease extend 'beyond Lyme'
This year's mild winter and early spring were a bonanza for tick populations in the eastern United States. Reports of tick-borne disease rose fast.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 6-Sep-2012
Advocacy toolkit launched to halt the 'runaway train' of cancer in Africa
In order to try to create a better recognition of the rising burden of cancer in Africa where it is most needed –in Africa– a 'toolkit' for local cancer advocates will be launched Saturday, Sept. 15 at a conference.

Public Release: 6-Sep-2012

14th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology

Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics
New research: Soluble corn fiber plays important role in gut health and calcium absorption
Two new research studies supported by Tate & Lyle, the global provider of specialty food ingredients and solutions, provide further evidence that certain higher-fiber diets can be well-tolerated, and that fiber may play an important role in supporting a healthy gut as well as promoting calcium absorption.

Tate & Lyle

Public Release: 5-Sep-2012
Students create low-cost biosensor to detect contaminated water in developing nations
Diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of death in children under five years old -- killing as many as 1.5 million children worldwide every year. These startling statistics from the World Health Organization point to the reason why a team of nine Arizona State University students is participating in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition -- a global event that challenges students to design and build simple biological systems made from standard, interchangeable parts.

Public Release: 5-Sep-2012

PLOS ONE
The best strategy to defeat HIV in South Africa
Researchers at UCLA suggest a strategy being proposed by the World Health Organization to combat HIV in South Africa is badly flawed.

Public Release: 5-Sep-2012

New England Journal of Medicine
Call for a new approach to fighting tuberculosis
Each year, nearly two million people die from tuberculosis -- a treatable disease that has been brought under control in the United States, but continues to ravage other parts of the world. This health inequity should prompt a complete rethinking of the way tuberculosis is fought on a global level, argue Salmaan Keshavjee, M.D., Ph.D., and Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D., from Brigham and Women's Hospital. Their argument appears in an essay published Sept. 6 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Public Release: 4-Sep-2012
Global health requires new dynamics, suggests science panel
How can science better address global health crises? This week, Rita Colwell, Alice Dautry, Harvey Fineberg, and Kiyoshi Kurokawa discussed priorities and related topics at the 2012 Kavli Prize Science Forum, moderated by BBC's Pallab Ghosh.

Public Release: 4-Sep-2012

Mobilization: An International Journal
Deadly witch hunts targeted by grassroots women's groups
Witch hunts are common and sometimes deadly in the tea plantations of Jalpaiguri, India. But a surprising source -- small groups of women who meet through a government loan program -- has achieved some success in preventing the longstanding practice, a Michigan State University sociologist found.

Public Release: 4-Sep-2012

PLOS Medicine
'Benign' malaria key driver of human evolution in Asia-Pacific
The malaria species rampant in the Asia-Pacific region has been a significant driver of evolution of the human genome, a new study has shown. An international team of researchers has shown that Plasmodium vivax malaria, the most prevalent malaria species in the Asia-Pacific, is a significant cause of genetic evolution that provides protection against malaria.

MalariaGen Consortium, National Health and Medical Research Council, National Institutes of Health, Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, AusAID, Victorian Government

Public Release: 4-Sep-2012

PLOS Medicine
Southeast Asian ovalocytosis protects against P. vivax malaria
A multinational group of authors, led by Ivo Mueller from the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, Australia and the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research, have found a strong association between Southeast Asian ovalocytosis, an inherited disorder that affects the shape of red blood cells, and protection against malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax.

Public Release: 4-Sep-2012

PLOS Medicine
Increased mortality in HIV-positive South African men versus women is unrelated to HIV/AIDS
In South Africa, HIV-infected men who are receiving treatment with anti-HIV drugs (antiretroviral therapy) are almost a third more likely to die than HIV-positive women who are receiving similar treatment: however, these differences are likely to be due to gender differences in death rates in the general population rather than related to HIV, according to a study by a team of international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

Public Release: 3-Sep-2012

Environmental Pollution
High levels of DDT in breast milk
The highest levels ever of DDT in breast milk have been measured in mothers living in malaria-stricken villages in South Africa, where DDT has been sprayed indoors for many years to fight malaria.

Public Release: 3-Sep-2012

Society for General Microbiology’s Autumn Conference 2012
TB outbreaks could be 'solved' by DNA tracking
Reconstructing the spread of killer diseases such as tuberculosis from person to person using DNA sequencing quickly identifies the origin and movement of pathogens. This approach is directly informing public health strategies to control infectious disease outbreaks, says a scientist speaking at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn Conference at the University of Warwick.

Public Release: 3-Sep-2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
High doses of Vitamin D help tuberculosis patients recover more quickly
For decades before antibiotics became generally available, sunshine was used to treat tuberculosis, with patients often being sent to Swiss clinics to soak up the sun's healing rays. Now, for the first time scientists have shown how and why heliotherapy might, indeed, have made a difference. A study led by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London and published in PNAS has shown that high doses of Vitamin D, given in addition to antibiotic treatment, appear to help patients with tuberculosis recover more quickly.

British Lung Foundation, UK Medical Research Council


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