New Vaccine Offers Hope In Africa's Malaria Battle

HIV Vaccine Study First to Show Some Effectiveness in Preventing HIV

Army Medical Researchers Share Ideas with U.S. Army Africa

COL Nelson Michael Visits Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete

Ambassador and Mrs. John Accompany Chiang Mai Consul General on a Visit to Northern Thailand

The Ambassador Eric G. John, U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand, and Mrs. Sophia John travelled to Mae Hong Son, Sukhothai and Kamphaengphet in northern Thailand for a multi-day visit from February 18-20, 2009, during which they were joined by Consulate Chiang Mai's Consul General Michael Morrow. The group held meetings with provincial governors and visited various community and refugee groups in the area. In Mae Hong Son, they met with camp residents at the Baan Mai Nai Soi refugee camp and spoke with the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR and other officials from United States government-funded programs in the camp. They also visited Mae Hong Son Community College's Information Technology Training Center, which is equipped with computers donated by Microsoft. In Sukhothai and Kamphaengphet, they toured the area's three UNESCO World Heritage Sites that are home to 700-year-old temple ruins dating back to ancient Siam. Wrapping up their visit to the region, Ambassador and Mrs. John met with staff at the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences' (AFRIMS) Virology Research Unit. For over 40 years, AFRIMS -- a joint scientific collaboration between the United States (Walter Reed Army Institute of Research) and Royal Thai Armies -- has been a benchmark of success in tropical infectious disease research and development. Learn more about AFRIMS.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Blast Neurotrauma Research Program Transitions from Phase I to Phase II

During Phase I of the DARPA-funded PREVENT (Preventing Violent Explosive Neurotrauma) research program, a team of Army, university, and private sector engineers, medical researchers, and clinicians was formed from staff at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), Yale University, Harvard University, the Safar Center within the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the Departments of Neurological Surgery at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Navy Medical Center, and a private research lab (ORA). Through the pooled knowledge and skills of physicists, engineers, biologists, biochemists, and neurological surgeons, explosive blast injury to the human brain has been and will continue to be studied in order to characterize potential biomechanical and biological mechanisms of injury, and the pathophysiological, neuropathological and neurologic impairments that resulted from exposure to explosive blast.

Phase II has been approved for the program and involves (1) comprehensive study of the biomechanical and biological injury mechanisms that were identified in Phase I, (2) high resolution imaging to characterize the nature of the brain injury to mild and moderate explosive blasts, and (3) modeling to guide development of improved body armor and helmet protection and evaluate FDA approved drugs that may be effective treatment of brain injury from explosive blast.

Artemisinin-Resistant Malaria in Cambodia

Source: PLoS Biology

On January 27, 2009, both the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune published an article describing growing resistance to an anti-malarial drug called artemisinin. This clinical resistance has been demonstrated in artemisinin-based combination therapy in patients suffering from falciparum malaria, the deadliest form, along the Thai-Cambodian border. Dr. Mark Fukuda, a U.S. Army doctor from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and part of the Armed Forces Institute of the Medical Sciences in Bangkok, Thailand, describes the study demonstrating that some patients, sickened with malaria and treated with these drugs, redevelop the disease.

See the full article in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune:
Spread of Malaria Feared as Drug Loses Potency (27-Jan-2009 - NY Times)
Drug-resistant malaria appearing in Cambodia (27-Jan-2009 - International Herald Tribune)
The New England Journal of Medicine Correspondence:
Evidence of Artemisinin-Resistant Malaria in Western Cambodia

WRAIR Researchers Shine in Orlando

Paul A. Siple
Silver Medallion for
Achievement

During the 26th Army Science Conference (ASC) held in Orlando, Florida, December 1-4, a team of researchers, including five WRAIR scientists, earned the 2008 Paul A. Siple Memorial Award. The WRAIR staff included Richard K. Gordon, Amy J. Campbell, Madhusoodana P. Nambiar, Roberta R. Owens and Ruthie H. Ratcliffe. The WRAIR team along with others from The Geneva Foundation (current staff at WRAIR includes James C. DeMar, Farhat A. Khan, and Elizabeth Marek) and The Weizmann Institute coauthored a break-through paper titled Pro-2-PAM: The First Therapeutic Drug for Reactivation of Organophosphate-inhibited Central (Brain) and Peripheral Cholinesterases. Their research resulted in the successful development of a therapeutic drug capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier to combat the deleterious CNS effects of organophosphorous nerve agents in an animal model.

Paul A. Siple had a multifaceted career ranging from "The Eagle Scout who went with Byrd to the Antarctic" to serving in the Army during World War II until his honorable discharge as a Lieutenant Colonel at the end of the war. He spent much of his career exploring the Antarctic region. During the post-war years he served as a Special Scientific Advisor with the Army Research Office and became the first United States Scientific Attaché to Australia and New Zealand.

The War on Dengue Fever

November 3, 2008: Dengue vaccine research at the U.S. Army Medical Component of the Armed Forces Research Institute of the Medical Sciences (USAMC-AFRIMS), part of the WRAIR, was highlighted in the New York Times. Read the full article on dengue fever, on how and where it is transmitted and on efforts to develop a vaccine:

The War on Dengue Fever (3-Nov-2008 - NY Times)

The Making of a Book

Dr. Booss examining
documents near a
portrait of Dr. Smadel

The confluence of two distinguished men, each with a common pursuit, meeting for the first time can make a lasting impression on those amongst them. Such was the case one day in September 2008 when Dr. John Booss, Professor Emeritus, Departments of Neurology & Laboratory Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine and Dr. Leonard Binn, Department of Virus Diseases, Division of Communicable Disease and Immunology, met at the Gorgas Memorial Library to discuss the life and career of eminent virologist Dr. Joseph E. Smadel (1907 - 1963) ( 20 KB) (Photo 88 KB).

Dr. Smadel was a former Chief of Viral and Rickettsial Research at the WRAIR in the 1950's and later the associate director of the US Public Health Service. Dr. Smadel received the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1962 for his research on rickettsial diseases, typhoid fever and epidemic and scrub typhus.

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