H5N1 Adaptation
Immunologist Scott Hensley, to Nature : ”There is reason to be concerned,” he says. “But not reason to totally freak out.” I wish I were so eloquent in my post . /g
gizn
E. Coli and elephants Tout ce qui est vrai pour le Colibacille est vrai pour l'éléphant* ...
Latest posts
The End of Polio Is Not in Sight
ProMED-mail : Pakistan reported another polio case as Balochistan's polio cases reached 24 in the ongoing year [2024], ARY News reported. As per details, this is the 24th polio case reported from Jafarabad this year, highlighting concerns about the ongoing transmission of the virus in the region. It's worth mentioning here that the recent rise in polio cases in Pakistan has sparked concerns for…
7% of Dairy Workers Showed Serologic Evidence of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1)
In a study of 115 dairy workers , eight (7%) had serologic evidence of infection with A(H5N1) virus: Abstract Since April 2024, sporadic infections with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5) viruses have been detected among dairy farm workers in the United States. To date, infections have mostly been detected through worker monitoring, and have been mild despite the possibility of more…
Richard A. Cash, Inventor of Oral Rehydration Therapy, Dies at 83
Richard A. Cash Obituary in The New York Times: Richard A. Cash, who as a young public-health researcher in South Asia in the late 1960s showed that a simple cocktail of salt, sugar and clean water could check the ravages of cholera and other diarrhea-inducing diseases, an innovation that has saved an estimated 50 million lives, died on Oct. 22 at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 83. He worked…
Protein Hallucination
This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the developers of AlphaFold. An article in Nature describes five protein-design questions that still challenge AI: Building reliable binders for proteins that bind to small molecules Designing new catalysts Accounting for conformational changes Creating complex protein structures Learning from mistakes But honestly, it seems that researchers face…
The US Election Again (sorry)
Matthew Parris, in defense of the liberal elite : The second irony is that excusing Trump supporters for believing nonsense and placing their faith in a rascally demagogue on the grounds that they know not what they do, and college-educated people drove them to it, is deeply if subtly insulting. It’s as if we consider them to be children, unable to make informed decisions. Be clear: we liberals do…
Influenza Season 2024-25
Influenza is caused by influenza A or B viruses and occurs in annual winter epidemics. The surface molecules of the virus are constantly changing, which often results in a lack of immunity between seasons and requires vaccines to be updated each season. Twice a year, the World Health Organization (WHO) therefore recommends which vaccine antigens should be included in the season’s vaccine. For the…
The US Election
This blog is about beautiful things—like microbiology—and distinctly not about US politics. But, as a statistics junkie, I found this amusing. Nate Silver ran 80,000 simulations, and Harris won 40,012 of them. The outcome of this election isn’t a coin flip, it's closer: From the model’s standpoint, though, the race is literally closer than a coin flip: empirically, heads wins 50.5 percent of the…
Causes of False Positive HIV Test Results
At my lab we use Elecsys HIV Duo for HIV screening. The HIV Duo is a fourth-generation HIV test meaning that it detects both p24 antigen (Ag) and antibodies (Ab) to HIV, shortening the time of detection to 2-3 weeks after infection. The HIV Duo is an Electrochemiluminiscence Immuno Assay (ECLIA) : For HIV p24 Ag detection, two types of monoclonal antibodies are mixed with the blood sample. The…
Update on "COVID-19 No Longer the Leading Cause of Death from Infectious Diseases"
There seems to be a misconception about my previous post with multiple people on Reddit believing this is due to COVID-19 making us all immunocompromised. There is no such evidence. The WHO cites TB underfunding as a major issue: Global funding for TB prevention and care decreased further in 2023 and remains far below target. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which bear 98% of the TB…