Scientists from the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech and the University of Maryland School of Medicine have unveiled some of the evolutionary intricacies of rickettsial pathogens by analyzing over a decade’s worth of genomic data.

Researchers from the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech and their colleagues have identified a key function of a large family of virulence proteins that play an important role in the production of infectious disease by the plant pathogen Phytophthora sojae.

Plants are not only smart, but they also wage a good fight, according to a University of Missouri biochemist. Previous studies have shown that plants can sense attacks by pathogens and activate their defenses.

Researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory have developed a powerful sensor that can detect airborne pathogens such as anthrax and smallpox in less than three minutes.

An international research team has provided the first scientific evidence that deadly emerging diseases have risen steeply across the world, and has mapped the outbreaks’ main sources. They say new diseases originating from wild animals in poor nations are the greatest threat to humans.

In one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health assessed the risk of exposure to bloodborne pathogens among non-hospital based registered nurses (RNs), and found that nearly one out of 10 of the more than 1100 nurse participants reported at least one needlestick injury in the previous 12 months.

New research identifies a previously unknown enzymatic mechanism that subverts the early host immune response and promotes pathogenicity by manipulating a common signaling pathway in host cells.