In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, another source of deadly and increasingly frequent disease outbreaks goes largely unnoticed by much of the world. Stanford researchers working in rural Kenya have identified the most productive breeding habitats for certain mosquitoes—spreaders of untreatable viruses that sicken millions every year—and revealed related community perspectives that could inform […]
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Study supports new approach for treating cerebral malaria
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health found evidence that specific immune cells may play a key role in the devastating effects of cerebral malaria, a severe form of malaria that mainly affects young children. The results, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, suggest that drugs targeting T cells may be effective in treating […]
National group publishes approach to improve pediatric sepsis surveillance
Sepsis is a major public health problem, contributing to substantial disability, death, and healthcare costs in the United States among both adults and children. Though sepsis is the focus of worldwide prevention and quality improvement efforts, tracking sepsis rates and outcomes is challenging because a definitive diagnostic test does not yet exist. Sepsis is particularly […]
New diagnostic approach rapidly identifies the right antibiotics
Patients with bacterial infections who are promptly diagnosed and treated with the most effective antibiotic fare better than those who wait. But current methods of identifying which drug will kill the pathogen take days to yield results, and thus patients are often prescribed broad-spectrum antibiotics while waiting for a diagnosis. The overuse of these types […]
Researchers identify possible approach to block medulloblastoma growth
University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have identified a potential approach to stop the growth of the most common type of brain tumor in children. UNC Lineberger’s Timothy Gerson, MD, Ph.D., and colleagues reported in the journal Development that by blocking a signal called GSK-3, they could control tumor growth in a […]
Stepwise approach effective for primary care dementia screening
Assessment of dementia risk using three common screening tools at baseline predicts incident dementia over the course of about seven years, according to a study published in the September/October issue of the Annals of Family Medicine. Lennard L. van Wanrooij, from the University of Amsterdam, and colleagues used data from 3,454 community-dwelling older persons who […]
New approach to drug discovery could lead to personalized treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders
Researchers have developed a method that could drastically accelerate the search for new drugs to treat mental health disorders such as schizophrenia. Mental health disorders are the leading cause of disability worldwide, accounting for 31% of total years lived with disability. While our understanding of the biology behind these disorders has increased, no new neuropsychiatric […]
Screen time for children: the WHO’s extreme new approach may do little to curb obesity
Get children more active. That’s the aim of the World Health Organisation’s new guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under five years of age. The guidelines make specific recommendations about the amount of sleep, physical activity and screen time children should have each day. For screen time, the guidelines state that […]
HIV prevention study finds universal ‘test and treat’ approach can reduce new infections
New HIV infections declined by 30 percent in southern African communities where health workers conducted house-to-house voluntary HIV testing, referred people who tested positive to begin HIV treatment according to local guidelines, and offered other proven HIV prevention measures to those who tested negative. Local guidelines evolved during the study from offering HIV treatment based […]
An integrated approach to finding new treatments for breast cancer
Unraveling the complexity of cancer biology can lead to the identification new molecules involved in breast cancer and prompt new avenues for drug development. And proteogenomics, an integrated, multipronged approach, seems to be a way to do it. “Our approach to finding new treatments for cancer is to conduct integrated analyses of multiple components of […]