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Zika virus, feared for causing microcephaly in babies whose mothers were infected during pregnancy by attacking the cells that will give rise to the fetus's cerebral cortex, could be an alternative for treatment of glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive kind of malignant brain tumor in adults. This discovery was made by researchers at the University of Campinas's School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (FCF-UNICAMP) in São Paulo State, Brazil. "Zika virus, which has become a threat to health [...]

In order to help farmers in the fight against pests with resistance to both insecticides and transgenic plants genetically engineered to express proteins with insecticidal action, a group of Brazilian scientists have come up with computational tools that can give clues on the pests' habits, thus enabling decision-makers to choose from a wider range of new and more efficient strategies of pest control. An article published in Scientific Reports shows some results from a study supported by the [...]

A group of Brazilian scientists achieved promising results using isolated compounds from the venom of the South American rattlesnake in combat of hepatitis C. The investigation was based on records in scientific literature in which animal venom have shown activity against some viruses, such as yellow fever, measles and dengue - the latter belongs to the same virus family as hepatitis', the Flaviviridae family. There is a great need for new methods in the fight against hepatitis C. The [...]

The Asian citrus psyllid Diaphorina citri is only 2 mm long, yet it strikes terror into the hearts of citrus growers in Brazil, China and the United States because it acts as a vector for the bacteria that cause citrus greening, best known as Huanglongbing (HLB), which means yellow dragon in Chinese. HLB originated in Asia and now affects most citrus groves worldwide. The disease is devastating for the citrus industry because infected trees must be eradicated. To prevent the insect from [...]

Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a multifactorial brain disorder in which patients experience radical shifts in mood and undergo periods of depression followed by periods of mania. It has been known for some time that both environmental and genetic factors play important roles in the disease. For instance, being exposed to high levels of stress for long periods, and especially during childhood, has been associated with the development of BD. Immediate early genes (IEGs) are a class of genes that [...]

Neural progenitor cells (NPC) derived from congenital Zika syndrome (CZS) affected and non-affected twins show different rates of virus infection and different RNA expression of genes associated to neural development. The expression imbalance happens even before the infection with the Zika virus in vitro. These results confirm the hypothesis of a genetic or epigenetic influence on susceptibility to CZS and microcephaly. The findings were published in Nature Communications on Friday, 2 February [...]

Microcephaly, brain calcification, skeletal alterations, auditory and visual deficits - these are examples of the damage that can be caused by Zika virus in babies born to mothers infected during pregnancy. However, these problems are observed in only 6%-12% of cases, and scientists suspect other factors besides viral infection are associated with the development of congenital Zika syndrome. A new study published on February 2 in the journal Nature Communications offers strong evidence that [...]

A study published on January 25 in the journal Science shows how the presence in the atmosphere of ultrafine aerosol particles (less than 50 nanometers in diameter) can intensify the cloud formation process and rainfall in the Amazon region. According to the authors of the article, these nanoparticles have always been thought too small to play a significant role in regulating the hydrologic cycle. While this is indeed the case in polluted areas such as European and US cities, or São Paulo in [...]

The search for vaccines, treatments and preventive methods against infection by emerging viruses is one of the major challenges of global epidemiology. New pathological agents continue to emerge, such as the arbovirus transmitted by insects (in this case mosquitoes) that causes West Nile fever, named after being identified in Egypt, during the 1950s. The disease affects thousands of people each year and is asymptomatic in 80% of cases. Roughly one in five infected people develops fever and [...]