Encephalitis News and Research

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Encephalitis is an acute inflammation of the brain.

Zika and Dengue Virus Use Different Strategies to Infect Dendritic Cells

Zika virus and dengue virus are very close relatives. Both are mosquito-borne flaviviruses, and both specialize in infecting a host's dendritic cells.

26 Mar 2025

Cryo-EM Reveals 3D Structure of Nipah Virus RNA Polymerase

The replication of the Nipah virus's genetic material in infected cells has been demonstrated for the first time by researchers from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences and the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG). In humans, the virus can cause fatal encephalitis.

11 Mar 2025

Unveiling the Genetic Basis of Mating Behavior in Fruit Flies

The way fruit flies mate could be crucial to preventing mosquitoes from spreading disease.

27 Jan 2025

New Insights into the Structure and Function of a Key Viral Protein

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine have mapped a crucial part of the Nipah virus, a deadly bat-borne infection that has been responsible for human outbreaks every year since its discovery in 1999.

21 Jan 2025

Study Reveals T Cells as Key Players in Complete Viral Infection Control

Scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School and the Singapore General Hospital have discovered that T cells-white blood cells that can destroy harmful pathogens-can completely prevent viral infection, to an extent previously thought only possible due to neutralizing antibodies.

13 Jan 2025

How Neuroimmune Cells Modulate Immune Responses and Neuroinflammation

The brain, traditionally considered an immune-privileged organ due to the blood-brain barrier (BBB), has its own sophisticated immune defense system.

7 Nov 2024

A New Understanding of Viral Infection

Scientists studying animal viruses with the potential to infect humans have discovered a critical protein that could facilitate the spread of a family of organisms known as arteriviruses.

1 Nov 2024

Flavivirus Hijacks Importin-7 for Nuclear Transport and Replication

Viruses of the family Flaviviridae, including Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), Dengue virus (DENV), Zika virus (ZIKV), West Nile virus (WNV), and Tick-borne encephalitis virus, are significant arthropod-borne pathogens.

15 Aug 2024

Harvard Researchers Crack the Code on Western Equine Encephalitis Decline

The story of the rise and fall of western equine encephalitis as a lethal disease offers essential lessons about how a pathogen can gain or lose its ability to jump from animals to humans.

29 Jul 2024

Unlocking the Potential of CRISPR/Cas13 for Antiviral Therapy

RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2 demand new solutions. CRISPR/Cas13 tools work well against these viruses in the cell's nucleus, but not in the cytoplasm, where many replicate.

15 Apr 2024

Zika's Enzyme Cascade Holds the Key to Viral Replication

Viruses operate with limited genetic material and a sparse protein repertoire, requiring efficient utilization of their components. The Zika virus serves as an illustrative case, producing only 10 proteins.

11 Dec 2023

Study Provides Increased Understanding of How Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus Behaves in the Brain

The dreaded tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus infects different types of brain cells in different parts of the brain, depending on whether the affected person's immune system is activated or not.

18 Apr 2023

Deactivating mosquito sperm to control populations of Culex

New UC Riverside research makes it likely that proteins responsible for activating mosquito sperm can be shut down, preventing them from swimming to or fertilizing eggs.

22 Mar 2023

Herpesvirus infection boosts host cellular immunity: Study

A new editorial was published in Genes & Cancer on January 19th, 2023, entitled, "Severe herpesvirus infection beats adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma."

27 Feb 2023

Researchers capture images of antibodies attacking neuron receptors using Cryo-Electron Microscopy Facility

Scientists have for the first time photographed an autoantibody coupled to a receptor on the surface of a nerve cell using the Cryo-Electron Microscopy Facility at UT Southwestern.

14 Jul 2022

Researchers detect major contamination in organic vegetables, likely to cause fatal illness

According to a new study proposed at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23–26 April, 2022), disease-causing amoebas that reside on natural leafy vegetables can preserve human pathogens such as Pseudomonas, Salmonella, and Helicobacter, posing a public health hazard. Dr Yolanda Moreno and colleagues from Spain’s Universitat Politècnica de València conducted the research.

25 Apr 2022

INTEGRA’s ASSIST PLUS pipetting robot helps to streamline sample pooling for arbovirus testing

INTEGRA Biosciences’ ASSIST PLUS pipetting robot is helping the Arbovirus Testing Lab at the New Hampshire Public Health Laboratories in Concord, USA, to streamline sample pooling for West Nile and Eastern equine encephalitis virus testing.

23 Mar 2022

Study identifies protein complex that confers neuroprotection against HSV-1 infection

Recent research by scientists from the University of Illinois demonstrates a process that halts the herpes simplex virus 1 from inducing severe brain damage and death.

15 Oct 2021

Study finds a correlation between zika-induced neurological complications and Gas6 protein

An article by Brazilian researchers published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity elucidates one of the mechanisms whereby zika virus causes neurological complications in adult patients and microcephaly in fetuses. The discovery paves the way for future research to develop drugs that combat the virus.

4 Oct 2021

Scientists isolate monoclonal antibodies against alphaviruses

A research group has isolated monoclonal antibodies that, in laboratory and animal studies, prohibited infection by alphaviruses.

From Vanderbilt University 24 Aug 2021