Research advances from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Research Program (IRP) often make headlines. Read the news releases that describe our most recent findings:
Whether you’re shedding pounds with the help of effective new medicines, slimming down after weight loss surgery or cutting calories and adding exercise, there will come a day when the numbers on the scale stop going down, and you hit the dreaded weight loss plateau.
In a recent study, Kevin Hall, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health who specializes in measuring metabolism and weight change, looked at when weight loss typically stops depending on the method people were using todrop pounds. He broke down the plateau into mathematical models using data from high-quality clinical trials of different ways to lose weight to understand why people stop losing when they do. The study published Monday in the journal Obesity.
Results from US government-sponsored phase 1 trial of VSV vaccine reported
An early-stage clinical trial of an experimental Ebola vaccine conducted at the National Institutes of Health and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) found that the vaccine, called VSV-ZEBOV, was safe and elicited robust antibody responses in all 40 of the healthy adults who received it. The most common side effects were injection site pain and transient fever that appeared and resolved within 12 to 36 hours after vaccination. A report describing preliminary results of the NIH-WRAIR study appears online today in The New England Journal of Medicine. The VSV-ZEBOV candidate is one of two experimental Ebola vaccines now being tested in the phase 2/3 PREVAIL clinical trial that is enrolling volunteers in Liberia.
The status of the patient with Ebola virus disease being treated at the NIH Clinical Center has improved from serious to fair condition. No additional details about the patient are being shared at this time.
Liberia–U.S. partnership planning Phase 3 trial and study of Ebola survivors
Two experimental Ebola vaccines appear to be safe based on evaluation in more than 600 people in Liberia who participated in the first stage of the Partnership for Research on Ebola Vaccines in Liberia (PREVAIL) Phase 2/3 clinical trial, according to interim findings from an independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board review. Based on these findings, the study, which is sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, may now advance to Phase 3 testing.
NIH physicians have changed the status of the patient with Ebola virus disease being treated at the NIH Clinical Center from serious to critical condition. No additional details about the patient are being shared at this time.
NIH has no pending admissions of additional individuals with Ebola virus disease or exposed to the Ebola virus.
Valacyclovir, a drug commonly used to control the virus that causes genital herpes, appears to reduce the levels of HIV in patients who do not have genital herpes, according to a study by researchers from the National Institutes of Health, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Emory University, Atlanta and Lima, Peru.
Update: NIH physicians have evaluated the patient with Ebola virus disease and have determined that the patient’s condition is serious. No additional details about the patient are being shared at this time.
An American healthcare worker who tested positive for Ebola virus while volunteering services in an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone has arrived safely at the NIH Clinical Center for care and treatment. The individual was transferred from Sierra Leone via private charter medevac in isolation and admitted to the NIH Clinical Center at 4:44 a.m. ET. The patient’s condition is still being evaluated.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) expects to admit to its hospital tomorrow an American healthcare worker who has tested positive for Ebola virus disease. The individual was volunteering services in an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone and will be transported back to the United States in isolation via a chartered aircraft. The individual will be admitted and treated at the NIH Clinical Center Special Clinical Studies Unit, a high-level containment facility which is one of a small number of such facilities in the United States. No additional details about the patient are being shared at this time.
NIH study analyzes data from more than 450 men attempting to conceive.
Working in a physically demanding job, having high blood pressure, and taking multiple medications are among health risks that may undermine a man’s fertility, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Stanford University, Stanford, California. The study is the first to examine the relationships between workplace exertion, health, and semen quality as men are trying to conceive. The results were published online in Fertility and Sterility.
Officials from the National Institutes of Health and the city of Washington, D.C., launched a clinical trial to examine whether primary care physicians and other health care providers, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, can use a new antiviral therapy as effectively as specialist physicians to treat people with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The trial, which will involve 600 adult D.C. residents infected with HCV alone or co-infected with HCV and HIV, also will examine the long-term effects of the treatment.
Innovative collaboration, rapid data-sharing opens research to wider community.
A National Institutes of Health-led public-private partnership to transform and accelerate drug development achieved a significant milestone today with the launch of a new Alzheimer’s Big Data portal — including delivery of the first wave of data — for use by the research community. The new data sharing and analysis resource is part of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP), an unprecedented venture bringing together NIH, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, industry and academic scientists from a variety of disciplines to translate knowledge faster and more successfully into new therapies.
