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Pentagon shifts $1 billion from WMD-defense efforts to vaccine development
The Obama administration has shifted more than $1 billion out of its nuclear, biological, and chemical defense programs to underwrite a new White House priority on vaccine development and production to combat disease pandemics; Defense Department projects under the budget-cutting ax include the development and acquisition of biological and chemical detection systems; gear to decontaminate skin and equipment after exposure; systems to coordinate military operations in a chem-bio environment; and protective clothing for military personnel entering toxic areas, the document indicates
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BioterrorismNew method to protect foods from anthrax contamination
An antibacterial enzyme found in human tears and other body fluids could be applied to certain foods for protection against intentional contamination with anthrax
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BioterrorismThwarting bioterrorism: Castor bean's genome sequenced
The sequencing of the castor bean genome shows that it has an estimated 31,237 genes. The research team focused on the genes in the castor bean that can be used to create biofuel and ricin
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Public healthIn-Q-Tel-like venture fund would help fight bioterrorism, pandemics
A report from Health and Human Services (HHS) officials urged development of a $200 million fund that would invest in new ways to thwart potential public health threats from viruses or biological agents; a separate panel of scientists and technology industry executives, created by President Barack Obama, said the United States needs to spend $1 billion annually to expand and modernize vaccine production; The panel also urged the United States to conduct research into the use of chemical additives that could increase the available number of doses in future pandemics
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Public healthU.S. to bolster defense against infectious threats
The Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise Review, released yesterday at a press conference by HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius, concludes that despite the massive investments in biodefense after 9/11 and the 2001 anthrax attacks, the United States is still way too slow when it comes to responding to emerging health threats
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Public healthMedicago awarded $21 million for rapid vaccine development
DARPA is putting money in a burgeoning Accelerated Manufacture of Pharmaceuticals, or AMP, program, which aims to revolutionize current, egg-based vaccine production models, and yield vaccines within three months of "emerging and novel biological threats"
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BioterrorismGenomic test developed to prevent bioterrorism
Researchers are working on develop a genomic test that can quickly determine whether a disease outbreak is caused by a natural pathogen or one that was grown in a lab by terrorists; the test is designed to provide homeland security and public health officials with the tools they need quickly to determine how to respond to an outbreak
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Public healthNew smallpox vaccine delivered to U.S. national stockpile
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the last case of smallpox in the United States was in 1949, and the last naturally occurring case in the world was in Somalia in 1977; the virus still exists in laboratory stockpiles, however, and after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, "there is heightened concern that the variola virus might be used as an agent of bioterrorism," the CDC says
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BioterrorismTexas A&M bioterrorism research may yield rabies cure
Rabies infection is an unusual event in the United States, but it is a problem that kills more than 50,000 people around the world every year; the U.S. Department of Defense is funding research at Texas A&M on counter-measures to bioterrorism -- but one of the most immediate outcomes of A&M's research could be a cure for rabies
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Public healthNDM-1 may herald the end of antibiotic era
Researchers warn that the spread of a drug-resistant bacterial gene could herald the end of antibiotics; the bleak prediction follows his research into a drug-resistant bacterial gene called NDM-1, or New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase 1, which was first identified in India; researchers identified 143 cases of NDM-1 across India and Pakistan, but 37 -- a surprisingly high figure -- in the United Kingdom
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BioterrorismBioterrorism experts criticize cuts in BioShield to pay for teacher retention
In order to find funds which would prevent teacher layoffs, House Democrats craft an appropriations bill which takes $2 billion from a bioterrorism emergency program; security experts criticize what they call a lack of foresight
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BioterrorismFinding a smallpox vaccine for the event of a bioterror attack
Smallpox is a potentially fatal and highly contagious infectious disease, estimated to have killed between 300 million and 500 million people in the first half of the twentieth century; the world was declared free of smallpox in 1980 -- concern about the use of smallpox by bioterrorists spurs new research into vaccines
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BioterrorismEmergent sells anthrax vaccine to U.S. allies
European countries, worried about bioterror attacks, are working on a plan to stock vaccines regionally -- a Baltic stockpile, a Nordic stockpile, and so on would help in covering countries that have not expressed a desire to form their own stockpiles; a Maryland-based companies is providing these European countries with anthrax vaccine
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BioterrorismNorth Carolina prepares for bioterrorism, epidemics
North Carolina universities and state and federal agencies create the new North Carolina Bio-Preparedness Collaborative; the idea is to use computers to link all the disparate forms of data collected by various agencies quickly to root out indicators of new disease, or food-borne illness, or, in a worst-case scenario, an attack of bio-terrorism
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The optimal balance of vaccine stockpiles
Once a disease has been eradicated there is a danger it could reappear, either naturally or as a result of an intentional release by a terrorist group; how much vaccine should be produced and stored for a disease that may never appear again -- or which may infect hundreds of thousands tomorrow? modelers target optimal vaccine storage for eradicated diseases
The Long View
Scientists closer to a safer anthrax vaccine
The currently available, 40-year-old anthrax vaccine, can prevent disease, but it has significant drawbacks: Immunity is temporary, and five injections over the course of eighteen months are needed to sustain it; one in five vaccine recipients develop redness, swelling, or pain at the injection site, and a small number develop severe allergic reactions; researchers offer a better vaccine
Researchers show promising approach to avian flu vaccine
Terrapin researchers are developing a universal flu vaccine for animals; it could ultimately help prevent or delay another avian flu pandemic in humans
