Superbugs
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: 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.
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.
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: New Research Shows How Flesh-Eating Leishmania Parasites Hide in Our Bodies to Fight Future Infections
Transmitted by a sandfly one-third the size of a mosquito, parasitic Leishmania protozoa are responsible for a flesh-destroying disease that kills an estimated 20,000 people per year. Two new studies offer understanding of how the parasite provides immunity through persistence and why some people suffer more virulent forms of the disease.
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: 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: Untreatable 'Super Gonorrhea' Spreading Like Wildfire — Luckily, It May Have a New Opponent
In the race to outsmart "untreatable" antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, one of the three new treatments on the track is about to enter Phase 3 clinical trials. Hopefully, it'll be widely accessible sooner rather than later, for the 78 million people who are diagnosed with gonorrhea each year.
News: How Calcium Sets Off a C Diff Infection
Unfortunately, the very places we go to receive health care put us at risk for becoming infected with superbugs, bacteria exposed to so many antibiotics that they have become immune to their effects. Clostridium difficile (C. diff) is one such bacteria. It causes inflammation of the colon and rampant diarrhea that can have life-threatening consequences. Part of its virulence lies in the tough spores formed by the bacteria. They are responsible for starting infections in the colon and for spre...
News: A Compound from This Florida Weed Could Kill Deadly MRSA Staph Infections
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but one annoying invasive weed may hold the answer to treating the superbug MRSA. Researchers from Emory University have found that the red berries of the Brazilian peppertree contain a compound that turns off a gene vital to the drug-resistance process.
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.
News: Finally, a New Drug Against 'Untreatable' Gonorrhea
Gonorrhea infections reached a peak in 1975, then decreased until 2009, when infection rate started rising and has increased each year since. With the rise of antibiotic resistance, those numbers are only going to get worse — unless we find new treatments against the bacteria.
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.
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: Unique Way Gonorrhea Breaks Down the Female Body's Defenses
Usually, the mucus lining of the female genital tract presents a barrier that helps prevent infections. But, somehow, the bacteria that causes gonorrhea gets around and through that barrier to invade the female genital tract.
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.
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: Common Soil Microbe Produces New Antibiotic Effective Against Resistant Bacteria
Significant strides have been in the race to find antibiotics to treat superbug infections — those caused by bacteria resistant to the antibiotics used to treat them. Now, an international team of scientists has discovered a new antibiotic produced by a microbe found in Italian soil.
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.