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While psychological predictors of suicide have been studied extensively, less attention has been paid to the effect of biological factors, such as infection. Helene Lund-Sørensen, B.M., of Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark, and coauthors used Danish nationwide registers to investigate associations between infectious diseases and the risk of death by suicide. All individuals 15 or older living in Denmark from 1980 through 2011 were included, resulting in study population of more than 7.2 million individuals. A history of infection was defined as one or more infection diagnoses since 1977. Infections were grouped into categories, including pathogen (i.e. bacterial, viral, others) and infection type (i.e. sepsis, hepatitis, genital, central nervous system, HIV or AIDS, etc.). Among the more than 7.2 million individuals, there were 809,384 (11.2 percent) hospitalized with infection during follow-up. There were 32,683 suicides during follow-up and of those 7,892 (24.1 percen...

Postdoc Jinsen Chen, left, and chemistry professor Shiyue Fang within the lab the place Fang's group found a brand new approach to synthesize DNA. Credit score: Michigan Tech Michigan Technological College scientists have developed a course of that might result in stickier -- and higher -- gene remedy medication. The medication, referred to as antisense DNA, are constituted of quick, single strands of artificial DNA. They work by blocking cells from making dangerous proteins, which may trigger maladies starting from most cancers to Ebola to HIV-AIDS. Solely a few these artificial DNA medication are in the marketplace, however a quantity are in medical trials, together with a possible remedy for ALS, also referred to as Lou Gehrig's illness. Illness organisms can inject dangerous proteins into our our bodies, and so can mutations in our personal genetic materials. When Messenger RNA Goes Rogue This...

New research from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine shows that just over two-thirds (66.9 percent) of college-aged women engaged in unprotected sex during their last sexual encounter involving alcohol. The study, published online in the  Journal of Behavioral Medicine , set out to understand how one's beliefs about alcohol and sex affect condom use during sexual encounters involving alcohol. Based on participants surveyed, sex without a condom was significantly and positively related to both one's motivation for sexual activity to satisfy personal physical needs and stronger beliefs that alcohol promotes sexual risk-taking. "Understanding the factors that may underlie the association between alcohol and condomless sex among young women is of considerable public health importance," says Jennifer Brown, PhD, lead author and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the UC College of Medicine. "Particular...

Influenza A is one of the most prolific and diverse viruses on Earth; its ability to rapidly mutate to resist treatment challenges the management of future pandemics. Now, A*STAR researchers have identified thousands of segments of RNA that could act as potential new antiviral drug targets, and provide protection against all strains of Influenza A. During a pandemic, which could take only two months to spread across the world, the creation of a new vaccine to target a specific strain of Influenza A could take up to six months. A new avenue being explored includes antiviral drugs created using so-called antisense oligonucleotides (AONs) -- synthetic polymers that can block disease progression by altering viral RNA activity. "The next Influenza A pandemic is inevitable, given how easy it is for an animal-based subtype to mutate and infect humans," says Keng Boon Wee at the A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing, who worked on the project with scientists across Sin...