A few days ago, results from the landmark NASA’s “Twin Study” were published in the scientific journal Science (April 12, 2019). The study was carried out in 2015/2016 to understand the health impact of long-duration spaceflight, and centered around astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly, who are identical twins. One of the twins, Scott Kelly, was […]
Climate change is expected to significantly influence the geographical distribution and impact of infectious diseases worldwide, especially those that require vectors such as mosquitoes and ticks for transmission. However, undernutrition has been identified as the greatest effect of climate change on health. Now, results from a new study published February 19, 2019, in the Proceedings […]
Influenza is a serious disease that can lead to hospitalization and sometimes even death. Every flu season is different, and influenza infection can affect people differently, but millions of people get the flu every year, hundreds of thousands of people are hospitalized, and thousands or tens of thousands of people die from flu-related causes every […]
Vaccines induce memory responses that allow the generation of rapid and heightened immunity—once exposure to the corresponding infectious microbe occur. How do vaccines induce memory responses? They do so by tricking the immune system into thinking it is experiencing an infection caused by the corresponding live microbe. Vaccines consist of either live (attenuated) or killed microbes, […]
Most current vaccines are administered through needles and syringes. Injections are given either subcutaneously (below the skin), intradermally (into the skin) or intramuscularly (into the muscle). However, the use of needles presents several disadvantages. For example, needle fears are a documented barrier to immunization in children and adults. It’s not surprising, then, that much research […]
Tuberculosis, a preventable and curable disease, ranks alongside HIV infection/AIDS as a leading cause of death worldwide. Indeed, new data from the World Health Organization reveal that the global tuberculosis burden is higher than previously estimated. The risk of developing tuberculosis is between 26 and 31 times greater in people living with HIV than among […]
During the past year, Zika virus has been moving north from Brazil into the Caribbean—bringing along several cases of microcephaly, a genetic defect characterized by small heads and brain damage in newborns. Indeed, infections caused by Zika virus are linked to microcephaly in children born to infected mothers, and to Guillain-Barré syndrome, a form of […]
Memory can be defined as the capacity of a system (usually the brain) to store and recall information on previously encountered events. Immunological memory—which can be induced by either natural infection or by a vaccine—refers to the ability of the immune system to respond more rapidly and effectively to an infectious microbe that has been […]
In 2007, the Human Microbiome Project — an international effort to characterize the microbial communities found in the human body and to identify each microorganism’s role in health and disease — was launched. As a result of this effort, our understanding of the human microbiome expanded appreciably and, in the past few years, we’ve come […]
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) continues to be a major global public health issue, having claimed more than 39 million lives so far. According to the most recent fact sheet on HIV/AIDS (Fact sheet N°360) published by the World Health Organization (WHO), about 1.5 million people died from HIV-related causes in 2013, globally. There were […]