You are here:home > Perspectives
16 April 2009 Dr. Evi Wollscheid-Lengeling & Dr. Kristen Kerksiek
Infectious Diseases and Aging
How old is old? For most of human history - from the Stone Age to modern times - the average life expectancy remained fairly constant: 20 to 35 years, just enough time to allow production of a few offspring, ensuring continuation of the human race. Average life expectancy is now ~75 years for men and somewhat over 80 years for women. Have we reached the maximum, or will future generations live even longer?
10 March 2009 Dr. Kristen Kerksiek
Vaccine fatigue: the danger of measles
In 1963, the first vaccine for measles appeared. At that time, measles was a common childhood disease, infecting – alone in the United States - 3 to 4 million individuals each year. In 2000, the United States was declared free of endemic measles, and Europe has set the goal to be measles-free by 2010. Another vaccination success story! So it seemed.
10 February 2009 Dr. Kristen Kerksiek
Infections and Neurodegenerative Diseases: Prions and beyond
It’s a success story: All over the world, people are living longer, and effective prevention and treatment of infectious diseases has played a large part. But at the same time, cancer, autoimmune syndromes and many other chronic ailments are on the rise. This includes neurodegenerative diseases, with the number of patients afflicted with the two most prevalent - Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s - estimated to double by 2030.
12 January 2009 Dr. Kristen Kerksiek
A Virus in the Limelight - Papilloma and the Nobel Prize
The cause of warts – papillomaviruses - has only recently come to light. In 2006, the approval of a vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), the cause of cervical cancer, was met with enormous enthusiasm…and waves of controversy that are still reverberating. And two years later, Harald zur Hausen, whose findings made the HPV vaccine possible, was awarded the greatest honor a researcher can receive, the Nobel Prize. Two pretty eventful years for a tiny little virus!
16 December 2008 Dr. Kristen Kerksiek
We wish you a Merry Microbe!
‘Tis the season of feasts and treats. And what does that have to do with Infection Research? It’s true that’s we’re usually interested in the “bad guys” among microbes, but in the spirit of the season it seems appropriate to remember the other – helpful – side of the microbial world as well. Chances are, whatever your dietary indulgence(s) in the name of holiday celebration, microbes have a role in its production.
10 November 2008 Dr. Kristen Kerksiek
Parasites and the hygiene hypothesis
In the 20th century, quality of life in developed countries was dramatically improved by reducing bacterial, viral and parasitic infections, the result of combined efforts of improved sanitation, hygiene, vaccines and antimicrobials. However, the last 50 years have seen startling increases in the frequencies of allergy and other atopies. At the same time, the frequency of autoimmune diseases seems to be on the rise. Is there a connection?
15 October 2008 Dr. Kristen Kerksiek
Parasites - the uninvited dinner guests
We think of living beings as existing in either aquatic or terrestrial environments, but there’s a third category: the bodies of other organisms, occupied by life forms termed parasites. From a biological standpoint, parasitism seems to be a fruitful lifestyle; more than half of all species are parasitic at some point in their lifetime. Every free-living, non-parasitic species of plant and animal has its own species-specific parasites but also shares parasites with other species. We, as non-parasites -at least in the biological sense of the word-, are outnumbered!
03 September 2008 Dr. Kristen Kerksiek
A life in slime – biofilms rule the world
In 1905, Robert Koch (1843-1910) was awarded the Nobel prize for his identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis as the causative agent of tuberculosis. More than a century later, the methods Koch used to grow bacteria in culture, which have enabled the identification of countless microorganisms as well as insight into the way they "work", are little changed and still form the foundation of medical microbiology. It therefore seems ironic that the pure cultures that have proven so valuable in the laboratory are virtually absent in nature: >99.9% of bacteria exist in heterogeneous communities called biofilms.
11 August 2008 Dr. Kristen Kerksiek
Infectious hospitals - The dangerous side of healthcare
In the United States alone, approximately 2 million infections occur during treatment in a healthcare facility – infections that patients didn’t bring with them and that are not related to the cause of hospitalization. The annual cost for treatment of these infections is estimated in the billions, and some 100,000 patients never go home.
17 June 2008 R. John Davenport
The Next Pandemic: Bird flu and the 1918 scourge yield harbingers of threats to come
In 1918, a flu virus swept across the world, killing 50 million or more people. Recently, a bird flu virus swept through domestic bird populations, and occasionally hopped from birds to people. The virus bears resemblance to the 1918 virus, so the bird flu outbreak raised fears of an imminent pandemic. Research over the last few years has provided some clues as to what the next pandemic flu virus might look like and how to prepare.
