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(University of rochester medical Center) Children who receive all recommended flu vaccine appear to be less likely to catch the respiratory virus that the CDC estimates hospitalizes 20,000 children every year. This study found that, even though the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 flu seasons had poor matches between the vaccine and the circulating flu strains, the shots were clearly protective during the 2004-05 year and possibly even during the 2003-04 year.

(Harvard Medical School) Influenza vaccination rates are still far too low for adolescents who suffer from asthma and other illnesses that predispose them to complications from the flu.

(University of Massachusetts Medical School) Medarex, Inc. and the Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories of the University of Massachusetts Medical School today announced that a Phase 2 trial of an anti-C. difficile antibody combination treatment in patients with C. difficile associated diarrhea successfully met its primary objective. The top-line results from the recently completed multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 trial indicated a statistically significant reduction in recurrences of CDAD when compared with placebo.

(Rockefeller University Press) In September 2007, a phase II HIV-1 vaccine trial was abruptly halted when researchers found that the vaccine may have promoted, rather than prevented, HIV infection. A new study by a team of researchers at the Montpellier Institute of Molecular Genetics in France shows how the vaccine could have enhanced HIV infection. The study, lead by Matthieu Perreau, will be published online on Nov. 3 of the Journal of Experimental medicine.

(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) An entomologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey, a division of the new UI Institute for Natural Resource Sustainability, says smaller mosquitoes are more likely to be infected with viruses that cause diseases in humans.

(St. Jude Children's Research Hospital) St. Jude Children's Research hospital scientists have discovered a mechanism by which intracellular pathogens can shut down one of the body's key chemical weapons against them: nitric oxide.

Win Tickets to MTV Movie Awards, Opportunity to Participate in Trip to Africa with UN Foundation's Nothing but Nets (PRWeb Nov 3, 2008) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/United_Nations_Foundation/MTV/prweb1565324.htm

AcroMetrix, the leading provider of quality control standards for clinical diagnostic and blood testing laboratories, announced today at the Association of Molecular Pathology 2008 Annual Meeting, the release of the ValiQuant HBV Quantification Panel designed for validation and verification of new Hepatitis B real-time PCR assays and for training of laboratory personnel. (PRWeb Nov 3, 2008) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/11/prweb1565124.htm

(Washington University School of Medicine) The tonsils and lymphoid tissues in the intestinal tract that help protect the body from external pathogens are the home base of a rare immune cell newly identified by researchers at Washington University School of medicine in St. Louis. the researchers indicate that the immune cells could have a therapeutic role in inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

(Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation) A discovery from the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation has put scientists are one step closer to finding a defense against dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria, sometimes called "superbugs." In the new study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers have obtained the first visual evidence of a key piece in the puzzle of how deadly superbugs spread antibiotic resistance in hospitals and throughout the general population.