See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including Legionnaires’ cases at Disneyland, slowing agriculture antibiotic abuse, and a pathway to a universal flu vaccine.
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- US, world still not ready for another flu pandemic (Global Health NOW)
- What should the US national biodefense strategy look like? (BOTAS)
- Is China ground zero for a future pandemic? (Smithsonian Institute)
- Frameworks for preventing, detecting, and controlling zoonotic diseases (EID)
- Grant helps Iowa State pursue biosecurity in wake of 2015 bird flu (The Gazette)
- Biopreparedness and biosecurity with Gigi Kwik Gronvall (ASM)
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- Top 5 challenges in emergency preparedness: An island perspective (Pandora Report)
- Groups of concern: Constructing and containing citizens in synthetic biology (SAGE)
- Under Trump, biologists fear political risks of controversial research (MIT TechRev)
- Lamar Smith of House science panel leaves a controversial legacy (Science)
- Health security: The global context (ETH Zurich)
- How to handle DURC experiments in the 21st Century (Lab Equipment)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- No excuses, people: get the new shingles vaccine (NY Times)
- Fighting antimicrobial resistance on all fronts (The Lancet)
- WHO is urging agribusiness to stop using antibiotics on healthy animals (Fortune)
- Flu vaccine “factories” create errors that reduce protection (SciAm)
- Takeda takes on Sanofi with new global dengue vaccine data (Reuters)
- Experts outline pathway to a universal influenza vaccine (NIH)
- New deal would keep Pentagon out of product approvals (Axios)
SELECT AGENTS
- Build the Ebola database in Africa (Nature)
- Characterization of membrane proteins from F. tularensis strains (ASM)
- Uganda fights Marburg outbreak while hosting high-level GHSA summit (OutObvs)
- The evolution of Ebola zoonotic cycles (Contagions Blog)
- Mechanisms of resistance to folate pathway inhibitors in B. pseudomallei (ASM)
- Personal Protective Equipment strikethrough: risk or rhetoric? (ICT)
- Enhancing surveillance and diagnostics in Anthrax-endemic countries (CDC)
- Petrobactin exported from B. anthracis by RND-type exporter ApeX (ASM)
- NBAC: A fortress of research (Hutch News)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Disneyland shuts down 2 cooling towers after Legionnaires’ disease cases (LA Times)
- Death toll from Legionnaires’ disease in Lisbon hospital up to four (Reuters)
- Mumps makes a comeback, even among the vaccinated (NY Times)
- Here’s why the 2017 flu season was so bad (The Conversation)
- Surveillance for waterborne disease outbreaks in U.S. drinking water (CDC)
- Bulgaria reports two more outbreaks of virulent bird flu (Reuters)
RESEARCH & TECH
- Asia is cradle of almost every cholera epidemic, genome studies show (Science)
- To save a young woman besieged by superbugs, scientists hunt a killer (STAT)
- New evidence that dengue antibodies trigger life-threatening infections (Science)
- Multiplex real-time PCR assay for detection of Escherichia coli O157:H7 (BMC)
- Regulatory elements that influence antibiotic production in gram-neg bacteria (ASM)
- Targeting a single protein might treat a broad range of viruses (Phys.org)
- Giving molecular combing the golden coat it deserves (Labiotech)
- El Niño southern oscillation and influenza pandemic timing (Frontiers in PH)
- ‘Null’ research findings aren’t empty of meaning. Let’s publish them (STAT)
