Stephen Lindstrom

TL;DR: The clinical presentation of varicella in unvaccinated persons, with skin vesicles and scabs, has facilitated the use of rapid diagnostic methods for confirming disease, and PCR is highly sensitive and specific in confirming modified disease if adequate samples are provided.

TL;DR: A real-time RT-PCR assay for detection and discrimination of influenza B/VIC lineage variant viruses with two or three amino acid deletions in the haemagglutinin protein that detects and distinguishes these influenza B variant viruses during surveillance.

TL;DR: In this paper, compositions and methods for detecting presence of an influenza virus in a sample, such as a biological sample obtained from a subject or an environmental sample, are presented. But none of the methods can be used to identify particular subtypes of influenza virus (such as seasonal or variant influenza subtype H3, influenza sub type H5, Eurasian influenza sub-type H7, North American influenza subtypes H7 and/or influenza sub types H9) present in the sample.

TL;DR: A series of experimental infections revealed that the marked differences in neurovirulence among viruses could be attributed to whether or not viruses were transmitted from the lung to the brain.

TL;DR: In-depth review by an expert panel, proof-of-concept study, and an international workshop concluded that human challenge-transmission studies in well-controlled environments would be the most promising approach to fill this critical knowledge gap.