“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
— William Wilberforce
In an attempt to reduce use of pesticides on crops, scientists are exploring the concept of “vaccinating” food plants to prevent them from being infected with viruses and other pathogens. Experiments are utilizing an external application of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), a naturally occurring product that is found in most organisms, to make plants resistant to certain microbes.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that infants and children can be given a new typhoid conjugate vaccine when it is released in 2019. After collecting five years of follow-up observation data for seroconversion, WHO officials put forward recommendations to introduce the first typhoid conjugate vaccine for infants and children over six months of age as a single dose.
On Mar. 19, 2018, the White House announced the “President Donald J. Trump’s Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand.” The program will include “supporting research and development for a vaccine to prevent opioid addiction and non-addictive pain management options.”
Welsh scientists from Cardiff University in the United Kingdom have developed the first synthetic, non-biologic influenza vaccine, suggesting the discovery may herald a dramatic change in the way vaccines are produced and delivered. The new vaccine can be given orally in pill form and does not need to be refrigerated, both doing…
Bharat Biotech of India announced that the World Health Organization (WHO) awarded the its rotavirus vaccine, Rotavac, prequalification status. The company introduced Rotavac into India’s national immunization program in 2016. However, the prequalification designation by the WHO is necessary for United Nations…
The World Health Organization (WHO) has prequalified the first conjugate vaccine for typhoid fever. The new typhoid fever vaccine, Typbar-TCV, is produced by Bharat Biotech International of Hyderabad, India. Prequalification means that the vaccine meets the WHO’s “acceptable standards of quality, safety and efficacy” and will now be available to be purchased by…
Glucose—the natural sugar generated from the foods we eat— is our energy source for all cell functions. The cells, however, cannot directly access the glucose on their own. In the normal course of events, glucose crosses from the blood stream to the cells with help from a hormone…
Seeking an alternative to using live poliovirus to create the polio vaccine, scientists are infecting a relative of the tobacco plant with a virus “containing the genetic material of polio” to manufacture a new polio vaccine from the modified plant leaves. If the experimental technique is considered successful once the vaccines have been tested in…
The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) of La Jolla, CA has completed pre-clinical testing of a vaccine to block the “high” effect stimulated by the opioid drug heroin and is now ready to test it in humans following tests that showed the vaccine’s effectiveness in nonhuman primates.
Acne, one of the more universal causes of teenage angst, affects many adults as well. A chronic inflammatory disease condition, the role of inflammation in the pathology of acne has been confirmed but there are questions about exactly how and why some people develop severe types of acne and others do not. Some researchers believe the chronic inflammatory skin condition may…