Superbugs
News: A Protein Found in Ticks Can Help Kill MRSA Infections
As researchers from Yale searched our environment for compounds to aid in the battle against drug-resistant bacteria, they got an unlikely assist from ticks.
News: Unexpected Microbial Life in Glacial Clay Could Offer Antibiotic Solutions
For as long as 14,000 years, the First Nations people of the Heitsuk Nation have made their home along the Central Coast of the Canadian province of British Columbia. Among the territory's inlets, islands, rivers, and valleys lie a clay deposit on the north side of Kisameet Bay, near King Island. For as long as most can remember, the tribe has used the clay as medicine. Now science says microbes that live in that clay may have important antibacterial properties.
News: Terrifying Superbug CRE Is Spreading Out of Hospitals
A terrifying antibiotic-resistant superbug, one thought to only infect hospital patients, has made its debut in the real world. For the first time ever, the superbug carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infected six people who hadn't been in or around a hospital in at least a year, and researchers aren't sure how they got infected.
News: The Unusual Stomach-Survival Mechanisms of Ulcer-Causing Bacteria Could Be Its Achilles Heel
The story of Helicobacter pylori is a real testament to the tenacity of medical researchers to prove their hypothesis. It took decades before the scientific world would accept that the bacteria H. pylori caused ulcers.
News: New Research Makes Detecting Flu as Easy as a Pregnancy Test
Could your fever, body aches, cough, and sore throat be the flu? Soon, finding out may not involve a trip to the doctor.
Step Aside MRSA & C Diff: Researchers Just Found 3 New Healthcare Associated Infections
The growing list of dangerous antibiotic resistant organisms has just acquired three new members. Researchers have discovered three new species of Klebsiella bacteria, all of which can cause life-threatening infections and have genes that make them resistant to commonly used antibiotics.
News: 4 Billion Year Old 'Fossil' Genes May Be Our Secret Weapon Against Infection
The evolution of our infection-fighting systems may have something to teach modern scientists. That's what a group from the University of Granada in Spain found when they studied a protein that's been around for over four billion years. Their work, by senior author José Sánchez-Ruiz and colleagues in the Department of Physical Chemistry, was published in the journal Cell Reports.
Synthetic Biology: Student Team Gives Dangerous E. Coli a New Role as Bacteria Detective
A gold-medal winning entry into the iGEM synthetic biology competition could change the way we look at Esherichia coli, the bacteria better known as E. coli.
News: Researchers Have Just Discovered How a Hospital Fungus Forms Slime, Becomes Drug Resistant & Kills Patients
It hasn't even been eight years since Candida auris was discovered—cultured and identified from the ear canal of a patient in Japan—and now it's drug-resistant, setting up residence in hospitals, killing patients, and wreaking havoc across the globe.
Amazing Insects: Ants Create Chemical Cocktails to Brew Antibiotics
To keep fungal pathogens at bay in their crowded homes, wood ants mix potions to create powerful protection for their nest and their young.
News: 'Useless' Antibiotics Work When Matched Up in Threes
The search is on to find antibiotics that will work against superbugs — bacteria that are rapidly becoming resistant to many drugs in our antibiotic arsenal.
News: Livestock Antibiotic Use Increases Threat of Resistant Microbes to Humans
Antibiotics used to prevent diseases in livestock are creating a world of hurt for humans and the soil we depend on for food. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a global health issue. The overuse, underuse, and poor use of these life-saving drugs is rapidly removing them as a treatment option for serious infections in humans—plus bacteria are naturally adaptive.
News: How Horseshoe Crabs Are Saving Us from Healthcare-Associated Infections
During the millions of years they've been on earth horseshoe crabs have developed a trick that can save our lives even now — and may be especially useful in the fight against healthcare-associated infections.
News: The Next Magic Bullet Antibiotic May Come from Roadkill
Our quest to find new antibiotics has taken a turn — a turn down the road, that is. A team of scientists from the University of Oklahoma is scooping up roadkill and searching for bacteria on them that might yield the world's next antibiotic.
Natural Solution: Extract Synthesized from Maple Syrup Boosts Efficiency of Antibiotics
In the ongoing search to find better ways to use antibiotics, an extract made from maple syrup has some surprisingly important medical benefits.
Lucky Break: Pneumococcal Vaccine Fights Off Ear Infections, Too
More prescriptions for antibiotics are written for ear infections than any other type of infection. A new study comparing the incidence and causes of ear infections in children between the ages of six months and three years found that the incidence of ear infections over the last decade has dropped significantly since the 1980s.
Double Shot: New Class of Antibiotics Could Treat Plague & Multi-Drug Resistant Superinfections
Antibiotics are one of our main weapons against infections. The problem is that many bacteria are becoming resistant to most of the antibiotics we use to treat them, and those 'superbugs' have created an urgent threat to our global health. A research group found a new way to hit a well known bacterial target and have developed a drug to hit it.
News: New 'Trojan Horse' Salmonella Bacteria Kills Tumors Instead of Making You Sick
We usually associate Salmonella bacteria with a dangerous type of food poisoning, but they actually are pretty good at seeking out tumors. That trait made the bacteria a great candidate to deliver a protein that would help knock tumors out.
News: Bacteria-Killing Viruses Can Help Us Take Down Superbugs
Fighting fire with fire, scientists are harnessing the adaptability of helpful microbes to challenge the adaptability of deadly microbes. What are we talking about? Hunting with phages — viruses that attack and kill bacteria.
News: The Next Big Antibiotic Could Come from the Gut of an Insect
No one can dispute the evolutionary success of bugs. The oldest insect fossils were found encased in crystallized mineral silica in Scotland in 1926, and they're between 396 and 407 million years old.