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This week: shingles, meningitis, eye research

People who had chicken pox or the chicken pox vaccine as children can undergo a reactivation of that disease’s virus in adulthood and wind up with shingles.

Researching ways to prevent and treat shingles, which brings a rash and possibly debilitating nerve pain, is the work of Jennifer Moffat, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Upstate University Hosptial. She describes how shingles, most common in adults over 50, can affect people with weakened immune systems.

Moffat’s laboratory is working on developing a drug to treat shingles that uses nanoparticles, tiny molecules designed to stick to the viruses and deliver the drug effectively. She also gives an overview of drugs used to treat and prevent shingles and tells what’s on the horizon.

Also on this week’s show: meningitis and retinal cell research.