Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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Jyothi Rengarajan

New animal model for elimination of latent TB

The significance of a recent Tulane/Yerkes study on eradicating latent tuberculosis in non-human primates may not be apparent at first glance. After all, it used the same antibiotic regimen (isoniazid + rifapentine) that is recommended by the CDC for human use.

But consider whether someone who was exposed to TB in childhood might still have it in their lungs somewhere. It’s difficult to know if treatments get rid of the bacteria completely.

“The antibiotic treatment we used for this study is a new, shorter regimen the CDC recommends for treating humans with latent tuberculosis, but we did not have direct evidence for whether it completely clears latent infection,” says Yerkes/Emory Vaccine Center researcher Jyothi Rengarajan, who was co-principal investigator along with Deepak Kaushal of Tulane. “Our experimental study in macaques showing almost complete sterilization of bacteria after treatment suggests this three-month regimen sterilizes humans as well.”

In an editorial in the same journal, CDC and Johns Hopkins experts call the results “dramatic” and say application of the drug regimen “could presage a major step forward in TB prevention and control.” Read more

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment