First Two Cases Of XDR-TB Confirmed In Botswana, Ministry Of Health Say

First Two Cases Of XDR-TB Confirmed In Botswana, Ministry Of Health Say
Botswana's Ministry of Health on Wednesday said it has confirmed the country's first two cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, which is resistant to the two most potent first-line treatments and some of the available second-line drugs, the AP/Google.com reports.

EPIX Pharmaceuticals Announces Updated Results From Phase 2a Clinical Trial Of PRX-03140 In Alzheimer's Disease
EPIX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPIX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing novel therapeutics through the use of its proprietary and highly efficient in silico drug discovery platform, today announced revised results from its Phase 2a clinical trial of PRX-03140, its novel 5-HT4 agonist, in Alzheimer's disease.

Scientists Discover Virus Linked To Deadly Skin Cancer
A new way of searching for human viruses has helped scientists at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute in the US find a previously unknown one that is linked to a deadly form of skin cancer called Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC).

Abbott Announces Approval Of First Fully Automated Blood Screening Test For HTLV-I/HTLV-II
Abbott (NYSE: ABT) announced it received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its fully automated HTLV-I/HTLV-II blood screening test for use on the ABBOTT PRISM instrument. The test is intended for use by laboratories to screen individual donations of blood and plasma for antibodies to human T -- lymphotropic virus Type I and/or human T -- lymphotropic virus Type II (anti-HTLV-I/HTLV-II).

Can Hantavirus Infection Spread Among Humans?
In connection with last year's epidemic, a research team at Umeå University in Sweden has managed for the first time to show that hantavirus exists in human saliva. This raises the question of whether this contagion can spread among humans.In Sweden, a form of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome called nephropathia epidemica occurs primarily in the northern parts of the country.

A Tricky Tumor Virus: Epstein-Barr Virus Reprograms The Biological Properties Of A Signal Protein Of Its Host Cells
Viruses use many tricks to gain control over their host cells and to reprogram them to their own advantage. Dr. Arnd Kieser and his colleagues of the Department of Gene Vectors of the Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany, were able to show in a recent publication in PloS Biology by which mechanism Epstein-Barr virus exploits a signal protein of its host cell, which normally mediates programmed cell death (apoptosis), in order to convert the cell into a cancer cell.