WIKIMEDIA, JEFFREY M. VINOCURAcademic and industry researchers are working to develop better diagnostic tests for Zika virus infection. The current PCR-based test can detect viral RNA, but “by the time [patients] make it into the clinic, the virus is likely gone or it’s at the tail end, beyond the limit of detection,” Nikos Vasilakis at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston told The Scientist.
Antibody-based tests are desired, but distinguishing Zika from other flaviviruses such as dengue has been a challenge. “Where Zika is occurring is the same place dengue is occurring,” said Mike Diamond of Washington University in St. Louis.
HEATHER DE RIVERAOverpruning of synapses may contribute to the development of schizophrenia, scientists at Harvard University and their colleagues showed in Nature this week (January 27). The team homed in on an immune protein called complement 4 (C4). The gene encoding this protein can exist in four structural alleles, which may be of functional significance, the researchers reported.
“[C4] has not been on anybody’s radar for having anything to do with schizophrenia, and now it is and there’s a whole bunch of really neat stuff that could happen,” said Patrick Sullivan of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine who was not involved in the study.
AMANDA SHELLBy increasing the expression of two non-Y chromosome genes, a team led by investigators at the University of Hawaii has generated male mice lacking Y chromosomes that can produce spermatids made viable with assisted reproduction techniques. The group’s results appeared in Science this week (January 28).
