3D Human Medical Models and Human Medical Animations

Key Peptides Identified That Could Lead To A Universal Vaccine For Influenza
Researchers at the University of Southampton, University of Oxford and Retroscreeen Virology Ltd have discovered a series of peptides, found on the internal structures of influenza viruses that could lead to the development of a universal vaccine for influenza, one that gives people immunity against all strains of the disease, including seasonal, avian, and swine flu...

Biosecurity Runs Up Against Scientific Endeavor: NSABB And H5N1 Redactions
In response to recent actions of the U.S...

How New Viruses Evolve, And In Some Cases, Become Deadly
Researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) have demonstrated how a new virus evolves, shedding light on how easy it can be for diseases to gain dangerous mutations. The findings appear in the journal Science. The scientists showed for the first time how the virus called "Lambda" evolved to find a new way to attack host cells, an innovation that took four mutations to accomplish...

Newly Engineered Highly Transmissible H5N1 Strain Ignites Controversy About Balancing Scientific Discovery And Public Safety
Scientists have engineered a new strain of H5N1 (commonly known as bird flu) to be readily transmitted between humans. Two perspectives being published early online in Annals of Internal Medicine, the flagship journal of the American College of Physicians, raise concerns about if and how this research should be continued, and how the data should be shared for the benefit of public health...

Decision Of Researchers To Temporarily Halt Research On H5N1 Applauded By Georgetown Professor
A Georgetown University Medical Center professor says the voluntary action taken by two research teams to temporarily halt work involving the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 is "laudable...

News From The Journals Of The American Society For Microbiology
Saturated Fatty Acids Lead to Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Insulin Resistance Excessive levels of certain saturated fatty acids cause mitochondria to fragment, leading to insulin resistance in skeletal muscle, a precursor of type 2 diabetes, according to a paper in the January issue of the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology...

Bird Flu Kills Duck Farmer In Vietnam And Toddler In Cambodia
On Thursday the Vietnamese authorities reported that a duck farmer has died of bird flu, coinciding with reports that a two-year-old boy in Cambodia has also died of the virus this week. The Vietnamese victim died on 11 January. According to the authorities this was the first human death from avian flu for nearly two years...

Flu Pandemics May Follow La Niña
US scientists propose that flu pandemics follow La Niña weather conditions in the equatorial Pacific. The conditions alter bird migration patterns and this promotes new strains of flu (migrating birds are known to be primary pools of human influenza virus)...

Shenzhen Man Dies Of Bird Flu
The Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection (CHP) received notification from the Ministry of Health (MoH) on the 30th December concerning a suspected human case of influenza A (H5N1) in Shenzhen. The man has unfortunately died...

Hong Kong Bans Poultry After Chinese Man Dies Of Bird Flu
Authorities in Hong Kong have banned imports of poultry products from certain places in neighbouring Shenzhen, a major city in the south of Southern China's Guangdong Province, following the death there of a man confirmed as having the deadly form of bird flu known as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1...

Mutated Bird Flu Research Worries World Health Organization
Research on the H5N1 influenza (bird flu) virus' human transmissibility is seriously starting to worry WHO (World Health Organization) experts - in a written statement, the authors express concern about the potential risks linked to this research. The possible negative consequences of some experiments are serious and potentially dangerous...

US Govt Asks Scientists To Keep Lab-Bred Bird Flu Blueprint Secret
Imagine this, our worst nightmare becomes our reality: as anticipated, the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus that kills most people it infects has acquired the ability to transmit easily from bird to human and then from human to human and has reached pandemic proportions...

News From The Journals Of The American Society For Microbiology
First Molecular Evidence Links Live Poultry Markets to Human H5N1 Infection in China Sequences of H5N1 virus from live bird markets in China matched sequences from patients who had recently visited the live bird markets, according to a paper in the December 2011 Journal of Virology...

Report Of Rare Flu Co-Infection In Southeast Asia Hot Spot
Researchers conducting influenza-like illness surveillance in Cambodia have confirmed a rare incidence of individuals becoming infected with a seasonal influenza and the pandemic strain at the same time, a reminder of the ongoing risk of distinct flu viruses combining in human hosts to produce a more lethal strain, according to a report in the November issue of the American Jou...

Avian Flu Vaccine More Effective When Primed With DNA Vaccine
The immune response to an H5N1 avian influenza vaccine was greatly enhanced in healthy adults if they were first primed with a DNA vaccine expressing a gene for a key H5N1 protein, researchers say. Their report describes results from two clinical studies conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health...