New invention could revolutionize how diseases are diagnosed

(PhysOrg.com) -- An award-winning invention by Stanford doctoral students Richard Gaster and Drew Hall may change who diagnoses diseases ranging from flu to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The invention, called the NanoLab, ...

A common honey bee disease is spread through flowers

James Cook University scientists have discovered a common honey bee disease can be deadly to native Australian wild bees and can be transmitted by flowers—the first time this link has been made.

New evidence: AIDS-like disease in wild chimpanzees

An international consortium has found that wild chimpanzees naturally infected with Simian Immunodeficiency Viruses (SIV) - long thought to be harmless to the apes - can contract an AIDS-like syndrome and die as a result. ...

New drug-screening method yields long-sought anti-HIV compounds

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have used a powerful new chemical-screening method to find compounds that inhibit the activity of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS. Unlike existing ...

Nature still sets standard for nanoscience revolution

(PhysOrg.com) -- By striving for control and perfection in everything from computer chips to commercial jets, scientists and engineers actually exclude a fundamental force that allows nature to outperform even their best ...

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Feline immunodeficiency virus

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is a lentivirus that affects domesticated housecats worldwide and is the causative agent of feline AIDS. Approximately 11% of cats worldwide, and about 2.5% of cats in the USA, are infected with FIV. FIV differs taxonomically from two other feline retroviruses, feline leukemia virus (FeLV) and feline foamy virus (FFV) and is more closely related to human immunodeficiency virus HIV. Within FIV, five subtypes have been identified based on amino acid sequence differences coding for the viral envelope. FIV is the only non-primate lentivirus to cause an AIDS-like syndrome, but FIV is not always a death sentence for cats, as they can live relatively healthily as carriers and transmitters of the disease for many years. A vaccine is available although its efficacy remains uncertain, and cats will test positive for FIV antibodies after vaccination.

FIV was first discovered in 1986 in a colony of cats that had a high prevalence of opportunistic infections and degenerative conditions, and has since been identified as an endemic disease in domestic cat populations worldwide .

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