Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), as a major agent of non-A, non-B hepatitis (NANBH), has been described as an insidious disease and a silent epidemic, mainly because the infection is often sub-clinical. Acute infection is recognized in a minority of patients and in most cases the virus results in chronic infections taking 10-20 years before the emergence of liver disease. In the US, almost four million individuals are infected and up to 170 million worldwide.

Background

An imbalance

Scientists from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and their colleagues have unraveled some of the fundamental mysteries about the genetic mechanisms that endow the immune system with its life-saving ability to generate specialized antibodies.

Without genetic fine-tuning, antibodies would be relatively ineffective in finding a good match on the surface of viruses, parasites, and other potentially dangerous foreign pathogens. The findings also reveal the workings of a gene mutation process

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Material has been discovered moving at nearly 10% the speed of light away from the centre of the nearby quasar PDS456 – the most powerful object in the local universe. Like all quasars, PDS456 is thought to be powered by matter converting into energy when material is swallowed by a supermassive black hole. New observations show that its energy output is so large that it is “choking on its food” and radiation is literally blowing the top off the inner region of the disc of in-falling material that su

Spinning black holes could be responsible for at least some of the immensely powerful gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) astronomers observe coming from distant galaxies. On Tuesday 8 April, Sheila McBreen of University College, Dublin, will tell the UK/Ireland National Astronomy Meeting in Dublin that her analysis of the way gamma-rays were emitted over the course of outbursts from a large sample of GRBs has revealed particular signatures, most likely to be those of a rotating black hole either being “spun up”

An international team of astronomers has discovered that “dark matter”, the mysterious material that seems to make up most of the mass of galaxies, is not as all-pervasive as previously believed. Surprising new results from studies of several elliptical galaxies show they are not surrounded by halos of dark matter as was expected. The findings will be presented at the UK/Ireland National Astronomy Meeting in Dublin on Wednesday April 9th by Dr Aaron Romanowsky of the University of Nottingham.