Breast cancer scare forces ABC to relocate

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12:23 PM December 21

Staff at the ABC TV studios in Brisbane will be moved off site within days after a report found serious concerns about the incidence of breast cancer.

An independent panel of experts has found 10 women have developed the disease while working on the site since 1995.

The panel says that rate is six times greater than what would normally be statistically expected.

The panel was unable to find a cause, despite extensive testing.

But the panel says it cannot be attributed to chance.

ABC managing director Mark Scott is briefing staff on what action management will take and says moving will begin with days, with the site expected to be completely cleared by January.

Source: ABC

Vaccine may block transmission of malaria: research

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10:00 AM December 19

Researchers in the United States say they have developed an experimental vaccine to neutralise the parasite that carries malaria inside mosquitoes.

The vaccine targets the microscopic parasite Plasmodium falciparum inside the gut of the mosquito, blocking the organism's development and thereby preventing further transmission of the disease.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health took a protein that is only present in the parasite during its time in the mosquito gut and strengthened it by combining it with other proteins.

When it was administered to mice, the strengthened protein created long lived antibodies.

The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

Previous studies have shown that antibodies against the protein Pfs25 in the blood meal of mosquitoes can hinder parasite development.

Malaria affects up to 500 million people and kills more than 1 million children each year, mostly in Africa, but a vaccine against the disease still eludes scientists despite decades of research.

The most severe form of the disease is caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, which, once in a human's bloodstream, travels to the liver where it multiplies.

New forms of the parasite are then released into the blood, where they invade red blood cells, ultimately destroying them.

- AFP

Source: ABC