Narrow Results

AUSTRALIA – Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression share genetic roots: study.

INDONESIA – Bio Farma launches pentavalent vaccine, combining 5 antigens.

JAPAN – Researchers uncover brain molecule regulating human emotion, mood.

KOREA – Meeting booming Asian pellet demand: How competitive are regional players?

SINGAPORE – New strategy to disarm the dengue virus brings new hope for a universal dengue vaccine.

SINGAPORE – An organized approach to 3D tissue engineering.

SINGAPORE – Thermo Fisher Scientific opens its first dry powder media facility in APAC region.

SINGAPORE – World's largest supplier of custom nucleic acids opens SGD 6 million manufacturing facility in Singapore.

EUROPE – CeMM and Haplogen make available the world's largest collection of engineered human cell lines.

EUROPE – Shaping the stem cell genome.

MIDDLE EAST – Off-grid solar sterilizers could aid remote areas.

NORTH AMERICA – Exercise improves sleep, but not overnight.

NORTH AMERICA – GM rice delivers antibodies against deadly rotavirus.

NORTH AMERICA – Lampreys hint at how immune cells evolved.

UNITED KINGDOM – Anxiety may start in the womb.

SINGAPORE – Singapore Scientists Provide New Insights on How Cancers Evade the Immune System.

SINGAPORE – NUS Scientists Discover Novel Vulnerabilities in Dengue Virus.

UNITED STATES – New Study Suggests that Vitamin D Decreases Risk of Cancer.

UNITED STATES – Study Reverses Thinking on Genetic Links to Stress, Depression.

UNITED STATES – Antibody Helps Detect Protein Implicated in Alzheimer’s, Other Diseases.

UNITED STATES – Fruits and Vegetables’ Latest Superpower? Lowering Blood Pressure.

AUSTRALIA & KOREA – Novotech Signs MOU with South Korea’s Leading Medical Center, the Asan Medical Center.

The following topics are under this section:

• 50 young scientists awarded with the inaugural XPLORER PRIZE
• Chinese scientist find new possibilities in dengue virus control
• Optimizing microbial microenvironment for development of novel Biophotovoltaics System
• Novel drug for chronic pain relief enter clinical trials
• China taps into artificial intelligence to improve pharmacy services
• Patient in China who received world’s first pig cornea regains eyesight
• China sees its first childbirth through cryopreservation of ovarian tissue
• China toughens crackdown on illegal African swine fever vaccines

The following topics are under this section:

• ASIA-PACIFIC — Research Institute in Singapore to help empower oral health research and innovation in Asia
• ASIA-PACIFIC — Lien Centre for Palliative Care celebrates tenth year of providing quality palliative care services for citizens
• ASIA-PACIFIC — Smartphone device for monitoring water quality provide fish farmers with high-tech and low-cost solution
• ASIA-PACIFIC — Discovering possible treatments for liver cancer
• ASIA-PACIFIC — Existing treatments and vaccines no longer effective against dengue virus
• ASIA-PACIFIC — Singapore-led global diabetes study relevant on an international stage
• ASIA-PACIFIC — Genetic analyses reveals new species of seaweed
• ASIA-PACIFIC — Preliminary results draw attention to the need to understand risk factors of influenza
• ASIA-PACIFIC — New strategy for rice plant resilience to change in climate conditions
• REST OF THE WORLD — Study finds that cancer patients have higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease
• REST OF THE WORLD — Researchers discover signs of damage due to brain inflammation in obese adolescents
• REST OF THE WORLD — Shedding light on healthcare-associated infection pathogens
• REST OF THE WORLD — Nutrient-producing silk coats can help seeds germinate in unfavourable conditions

This paper deals with dengue virus transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti. A reaction–diffusion model is proposed incorporating both human and the A. aegypti population, where we divided mosquitoes into two sub-populations: the winged population and an aquatic form, with the winged mosquito population divided into the susceptible and infected classes. The threshold $Q_0$ depending on spatial heterogeneity is introduced for the mosquito population. Moreover, we introduce the basic reproduction number $R_0$ for the infected classes, as well as its analytical properties. $Q_0$ and $R_0$ are utilized to investigate the stability of the mosquito-established equilibriums. Our results show that the mosquitoes persist if $Q_0>1$, while the transmission of dengue virus depends on the condition whether $R_0<1$ or $R_0>1$.

Dengue is among the most important infectious diseases in the world. The main contribution of our paper is to present a mixed system of partial and ordinary differential equations. This combined model is a generalization of the two presented mathematical models (A. L. de Araujo, J. L. Boldrini and B. M. Calsavara, An analysis of a mathematical model describing the geographic spread of dengue disease, J. Math. Anal. Appl.444 (2016) 298–325) and (L. Cai, X. Li, N. Tuncer, M. Martcheva and A. A. Lashari, Optimal control of a malaria model with asymptomatic class and superinfection, Math. Biosci.288 (2017) 94–108), describing the geographic spread of dengue disease. Our model has the ability to consider the possibility of asymptomatic infection, which leads to investigate the effect of dengue asymptomatic individuals on disease dynamics and to go into the possibility of superinfection of asymptomatic individuals. In the light of considering these factors, as well as the movements of human and mature female mosquitoes, more realistic modeling of dengue disease can be achieved. We present a mathematical analysis and show the global existence of a unique non-negative solution to this model and then establish ways to control dengue disease using numerical simulations and sensitivity analysis of model parameters (which are related to the contact rates and death rate of winged mosquitoes). To show different biological behaviors, we provide several numerical results, showing the role of parameters in controlling dengue disease transmission. From our numerical simulations, it can also be concluded that local control of dengue transmission can be done at a lower cost.

Climate change, travel, and urbanization contribute to increasing exposure to Zika, Dengue and Chikungunya. Lab-based diagnostics are required because of overlapping clinical presentations. Here we review the current diagnostic methods, and find them poorly adapted to point of care use in resource-limited settings: generally, serologic assays are hindered by cross-reactivity while molecular assays require laboratory conditions. We conclude that a differential diagnostic device is critically needed, requiring a simpler molecular assay kit that maintains high sensitivity and specificity.

Dengue virus causes serious diseases and deaths in the world. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms of dengue virus is highly demanded to develop treatments for dengue virus caused diseases. Here, we present a computational work which focused on the stability of dengue viral capsid. The interactions among E proteins on the dengue viral capsid were studied using several computational approaches. It was found that the electrostatic distribution on a single E protein monomer is highly inhomogeneous, which makes an E protein strongly binding with another E protein. This is the reason why all the E proteins form homodimers as the basic units on the whole dengue viral capsids. The pKa calculations of E proteins demonstrated that the folding energy of an E protein is low and stable in the range of pH 6–10, which is different from many other proteins that are stable at certain pH. The pH dependence of binding energy of E protein homodimer shows that the binding energy is low and independent from pH when the pH is also in the range of 6–10. This finding implies that the dengue virus can survive in a wide range of pH, which can explain why the dengue virus is so widely distributed in the world and spreads fast.

Curcumin can interact with a variety of molecules implicated in a wide range of disorders. It can also hinder dengue virus’s (DENV’s) ability to infect cells. This work used computational analysis to identify and forecast the most potent curcumin analogs against the DENV NS2B/NS3 protease. In this study, curcumin-like compounds were screened using a rational in-silico study, with the least similarity score, docking analysis, and then additional screening for suitable pharmacokinetic properties. According to the findings, DB11672 has been identified as the primary inhibitor of DENV NS2B/NS3 protease. It is recommended that additional research be done on this antiviral property of the lead compound as a part of the process of finding and developing a new drug against DENV.