Highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N8) viruses first emerged in China in 2010 and in 2014 spread throughout Asia and to Europe and the United States via migrating birds. Influenza A(H5N8) viruses were first detected in the Netherlands in 2014 and caused five outbreaks in poultry farms but were infrequently detected in wild birds. In 2016, influenza A(H5N8) viruses were reintroduced into the Netherlands, resulting in eight poultry farm outbreaks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe HIV latent reservoir forms the major hurdle to an HIV cure. The discovery of CD32 as marker of this reservoir has aroused much interest, but subsequent reports have challenged this finding. Here, we observe a positive correlation between the percentages of CD32 cells among CD4 T cells of aviremic cART-treated, HIV-infected individuals and their HIV DNA loads in peripheral blood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The latent HIV-1 reservoir in treated patients primarily consists of resting memory CD4 T cells. Stimulating the T-cell receptor (TCR), which facilitates transition of resting into effector T cells, is the most effective strategy to purge these latently infected cells. Here we supply evidence that TCR-stimulated effector T cells still frequently harbor latent HIV-1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProfits in the biopharmaceutical industry have been scrutinized in social debate. However, drawing conclusions based on industry profitability only is inappropriate as such an analysis does not account for risks faced by investors. This study aims to measure risks and returns in the biopharmaceutical industry and investigates whether risk-adjusted return on investment in the biopharmaceutical industry is higher than that in other industries.
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