Rift Valley fever

Officials with the Midwest Research Institute have announced that they have won a $1.6 million federal contract to study a virus that could be a biological threat.

A new pneumococcal vaccine will replace the existing one used in Hong Kong government’s Childhood Immunization Program, officials have announced.

Novartis has announced that it will open a new vaccine facility in Brazil.

A lower court's findings rejecting a causal connection between childhood vaccines and the onset of autism have been upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

A link between the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine and the sleeping disorder narcolepsy will be probed by the European Medicines Agency after concerns have been raised in Finland and Sweden.

With California reporting more than 3,000 cases of whooping cough and sitting on the cusp of its worst whooping cough outbreak in 50 years, a new Rasmussen Reports study has shown that more than half of American adults are concerned about the safety of va

A recently released report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology outlines ways to improve the nation’s response to global pandemics.

Shingles

GlaxoSmithKline announced on Monday that is has begun final trials for a new vaccine meant to prevent shingles.

The World Health Organization has granted Pfizer Inc.'s Prevenar 13, a children's pneumococcal vaccine, prequalification status, which opens the door for United Nations agencies and governments to begin ordering the vaccine.

Tim Walsh

Researchers recently warned that the ease of global travel has helped to give bacteria an increased resistance to antibiotics and will leave doctors in a struggle to help infected patients.

Bali Pulendran

Officials with the NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have awarded $15.5 million grant to the Emory Vaccine Center to study human immune responses to vaccination.

Fuad El-Hibri

Emergent BioSolutions, Inc., of Rockville, Maryland, has announced it will acquire the Seattle-based Trubion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

HIV

Officials with the Siberia-based State Research Center for Virology and Biotechnology, Vector, reported that they have successfully accomplished development of a candidate HIV vaccine.

Joshua Sharfstein

Fewer and fewer antibiotics are being restocked, leading some doctors to fear that this practice could have a devastating overall impact.

Rowen Chang

Protein chemists from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston are working towards the development of a therapeutic vaccine for the Parkinson’s disease.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has recommended that doctors not use one specific brand of flu vaccine this upcoming influenza season due to problems with the vaccine in Australia and New Zealand.

The French drug manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis announced on August 3 that one of its subsidiaries in India, Shantha Biotechnics Ltd., had failed to meet quality standards for the World Health Organization with regards to its Shan5 combination vaccine.

Scientists from the Infectious Disease Research Institute of Seattle hope to have a new leprosy vaccine ready for safety trials by 2011.

Officials with Immunovaccine Inc. recently announced that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Albert Scardino has joined its board of directors.

Antigenics, a Massachusetts-based biotech firm, recently reported positive results for a human trial of a potential herpes vaccine.

J. Tyler Martin

J. Tyler Martin has been promoted by Dynavax Technologies to the newly-created position of president.

Steve Reed

Immune Design, a biotech company based in Seattle, Wash., has received $32 million in Series B investment to finance the next stage of its development plans for new and better vaccines.

Shipments of FluMist have begun to influenza vaccine distributors servicing healthcare providers nationwide today, MedImmune has announced.

Celiac disease

It has been 60 years since scientists found the link between gluten and celiac disease, but only recently have they found the precise cause of the immune reaction that can cause so much pain and discomfort to sufferers.

MabVax Therapeutics, Inc., has announced the enrollment of patients into a Phase II clinical trial to assess the efficacy and safety of a vaccine to prevent or delay the recurrence of sarcoma.

A new vaccine against the deadly rotavirus is being developed in Melbourne, Australia that, unlike current vaccines, has the potential to protect infants from birth.

Michael Horberg

A recent study showed that nearly half the HIV-negative people who participate in clinical trials for potential vaccines end up testing positive although they are not infected with the virus.

Mark Prausnitz

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in collaboration with researchers from Emory University, have developed a new method of vaccine delivery that requires a simple patch and could potentially be done at home.

Francis Nano

By replacing some of the genes in mammalian pathogens with those found in arctic bacteria, Francis Nano of the University of Victoria in Canada may have found the key to make a new class of vaccines.

An anti-vaccination group in Australia has been ordered by the Health Care Complaints Commission to include disclaimers on its Web site after the group was found guilty of providing misleading information on immunizations,.

HIV

Researchers have discovered three human antibodies that neutralize HIV, raising hopes of a breakthrough HIV vaccine.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has called for an investigation into the vaccine pricing polices of two pharmaceutical companies.

Tularemia

Scientists from the University of Texas at San Antonio's South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases have been granted a U.S. patent that covering the development of a process to create a vaccine for tularemia.

Marburg

According to research published online in the July edition of Emerging Infectious Diseases, an experimental post-exposure vaccine for the Marburg haemorrhagic fever virus allowed five of six monkeys to survive infection.

The drug and medical device manufacturer Abbott Laboratories is considering selling its vaccine unit.

American and Chinese health officials have opened en epidemiology center in Shanghai this week that will be used to train professionals in detecting and preventing epidemic diseases.

Type 1 diabetes

Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, a vaccine that could reverse Type 1 diabetes, has passed a Phase 1 clinical trial.

Stony Brook University biologists and computer scientists announced recently that they have used a novel approach to weaken the influenza virus.

Rift Valley Fever

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research have announced two new approaches that could possibly lead to the first vaccine for Rift Valley Fever.

Swiss researchers recently announced that they have created a “one size fits all” shot that could be used to combat multiple ailments, including asthma and hay fever.

The global economic downturn is now threatening the launch of new vaccination projects, according to the head of the UN-backed Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisation.

DNA

Officials with Inovio Pharmaceuticals have announced the publication of an article exploring the “rebirth” of DNA vaccines in the July issue of Scientific American magazine.

Malik Peiris

An international influenza conference, titled Options for the Control of Influenza VII, will be held this September in Hong Kong.

Kenneth Shea

Researchers in California have reported a first – that a plastic antibody works in the body of a living animal.

Carlos Slim

Bill Gates and Carlos Slim, two of the wealthiest men in the world, will team up with Spain to donate $150 million to fight dengue fever, malaria and malnutrition in Mexico and Central America.

Yellow fever

Government officials, researchers and pharmaceutical representatives agreed last week at the Congressional Malaria and NTD Caucus in Washington, D.C., that progress is being made to curb neglected tropical diseases.

Bill Gates

Officials with the Argentine government announced recently that a local scientist’s vaccine development program will soon receive funding from Bill Gates’ foundation, according to a news report in the Latin American Herald Tribune.

A solar powered refrigerator has been developed by Appropriate Technology Collaborative that will allow vaccines to be cooled in parts of the world without electricity.

Pollen

For many, hay fever could be a thing of the past, thanks to a vaccine that may be available as early as 2011, according to the London Daily Mail.

Gardasil

Time Magazine reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says men can also benefit from the HPV vaccine Gardasil and that it is a safe method of preventing genital warts.

Scientists at the University of California - Berkeley have found that molecular pumps in Listeria bacteria that expel antibiotics, which make the bug harder to kill with standard drugs, also expel small signaling molecules that stimulate a strong immune r

Brain tumor

Officials with the vaccine company Antigenics announced on May 20 that data from a clinical trial for its product Oncophage was encouraging.

The Coalition for Vaccine Safety

The Coalition for Vaccine Safety has called for creation of an independent vaccine safety agency according to a news report by the Biloxi Sun Herald.

The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists' National Biotechnology Conference will be held this weekend in the Hilton San Francisco Union Square starting this Sunday, May 16.

According to a news release from MarketWire, a second human safety study of a Cleveland BioLabs, Inc., drug used to treat Acute Radiation Syndrome is underway.

Sandhya Vasan

Brief electric shocks may help the body better respond to certain kinds of experimental AIDS vaccines, U.S. researchers said Oct. 22.

Dr. Tachi Yamada

ARUSHA, Tanzania — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced 76 grants of $100,000 each to pursue bold ideas for transforming health in developing countries.

Dr. Francis Collins

CHICAGO — There is nothing unique or scary about the new H1N1 flu vaccine that should keep people from getting it, said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Anthony S. Fauci

The first clinical trials to test whether the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine can safely elicit a protective immune response in HIV-infect

With all the attention on H1N1 and the seasonal flu, it might be easy to forget about other infectious diseases.

The Oxford-Emergent Tuberculosis Consortium Ltd. has signed an agreement with Vivalis to evaluate large-scale commercial production capabilities for MVA85A, the consortium’s new TB vaccine candidate.

ROCKVILLE, Md. — Novavax has received a grant to support preclinical research of a vaccine for the most commonly identified cause of lower respiratory illnesses in infants and young children.

When promising results from a large clinical trial of an AIDS vaccine regimen were announced recently, it was good news to the inventor of one of the vaccines used in the trial.

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Virginia Tech will use $27 million to support infectious disease research around the world.

A cholera vaccine has proved to be safe and effective in young children in a part of India where the disease is endemic, a new study in The Lancet says.