26 December 2016 – 01 January 2017
New York officials report the first ever case of bird flu spread from cat to human
According to the NYC Department of Health, this is the first reported case of a human contracting H7N2 – a strain of influenza A virus – due to exposure from an infected cat. While the risk to humans is extremely low, officials advise that local cat owners be on the look-out for symptoms. Find source
It's official: We finally have an Ebola vaccine that's up to 100% effective
Researchers have developed an Ebola vaccine which provides 100 percent protection against one particularly dangerous strain of the disease, based on final field tests on thousands of people in West Africa. Find source
A centuries-old Chinese herbal medicine could help us to fight TB
The compound, called artemisinin, comes from a form of wormwood known as Artemisia annua, and its identification as an effective malaria treatment led to a Nobel prize for Chinese pharmaceutical chemist Tu Youyou in 2015. Now, new research shows the molecule could also help us to control the bacteria that causes tuberculosis. Find source
Scientists develop novel assay to decode functional elements of genome
This week in Nature Methods, Giraldez and colleagues present a novel way to decipher the genetic code that embryos use to instruct many maternal messages (mRNAs) to be destroyed, and others to become stabilized. Find source
Antibiotic resistance just became more complex
Bacteria that are susceptible to antibiotics can survive when enough resistant cells around them are expressing an antibiotic-deactivating factor. This new take on how the microbial context can compromise antibiotic therapy was just published by a team of microbiologists. Find source
