Quorum Sensing News and Research

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Sorrento receives NIAID Phase I STTR grant to develop vaccines against C. difficile infection

Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. announced today that it has received a Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer Research grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health.

29 Jul 2011

Scientists use full genome sequencing to identify precise steps in molecular evolution of S. pneumoniae

Despite penicillin and the dozens of antibiotics that followed it, streptococcus bacteria have remained a major threat to health throughout the world. The reason: the superb evolutionary skills of this pathogen to rapidly alter its genetic makeup.

29 Jan 2011

Blocking quorum sensing would prevent bacteria from turning pathogenic

Bacteria are among the simplest organisms in nature, but many of them can still talk to each other, using a chemical "language" that is critical to the process of infection. Sending and receiving chemical signals allows bacteria to mind their own business when they are scarce and vulnerable, and then mount an attack after they become numerous enough to overwhelm the host's immune system.

7 Dec 2010

Scientists suggest enzyme that modifies 4-quinolones can reduce microbial infection

So disease-causing bacteria in the body finally have multiplied to the point where their numbers are large enough to cause illness. What's next? They get out their "smart phones" and whisper "Let's roll!" That's how an article in ACS' monthly Chemical Reviews describes the substances "smart phones of the microbial world" that bacteria use to transmit chemical signals that launch infections and monitor their environment.

21 Oct 2010

Research on bacterial cells may offer new hope for MRSA infection treatment

Selfish bacterial cells that act in their own interests and do not cooperate with their infection-causing colleagues can actually reduce the severity of infection.

7 Sep 2010

Communication between bacterial species promotes resistance to antibiotics: Study

Ear infections caused by more than one species of bacteria could be more persistent and antibiotic-resistant because one pathogen may be communicating with the other, encouraging it to bolster its defenses. Interrupting or removing that communication could be key to curing these infections. Researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center publish their findings today in mBio-, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

7 Jul 2010

Sorrento Therapeutics receives STTR grant to develop antibody therapeutics to combat MRSA

Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. today announced that it has received an Advanced Technology Small Business Technology Transfer Research grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The peer-reviewed grant was awarded to support the Company's program to generate and develop novel antibody therapeutics and vaccines to combat Staphylococcus aureus infections, including methicillin-resistant S. aureus, by disrupting quorum sensing, a bacterial communication process essential to virulence.

21 May 2010

Study could provide new strategies to prevent hospital-acquired infections

A bacterial pathogen can communicate with yeast to block the development of drug-resistant yeast infections, say Irish scientists writing in the May issue of Microbiology. The research could be a step towards new strategies to prevent hospital-acquired infections associated with medical implants.

3 May 2010

Research could help in developing more effective treatments for wound infections

Bacteria that infect chronic wounds can be deadly to maggot 'biosurgeons' used to treat the lesions, show researchers writing in the journal Microbiology. The findings could lead to more effective treatment of wounds and the development of novel antibiotics.

5 Feb 2010

Researchers use nanofactories to prevent bacteria without using antibiotics

New research at the A. James Clark School of Engineering could prevent bacterial infections using tiny biochemical machines—nanofactories—that can confuse bacteria and stop them from spreading, without the use of antibiotics.

28 Jan 2010

Quorum sensing offers a dynamic approach to increase sensitivity to external signals

Researchers at UC San Diego who last year genetically engineered bacteria to keep track of time by turning on and off fluorescent proteins within their cells have taken another step toward the construction of a programmable genetic sensor. The scientists recently synchronized these bacterial "genetic clocks" to blink in unison and engineered the bacterial genes to alter their blinking rates when environmental conditions change.

21 Jan 2010

Sorrento Therapeutics, Scripps Research Institute announce antibody development collaboration

Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. today announced an antibody discovery and development collaboration with The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA. Under the terms of the agreement, Sorrento Therapeutics obtains an exclusive, worldwide license to the Institute's novel technology, based on quorum sensing, for the prevention and treatment of Staphylococcus aureus ('Staph') infections, including Methicillin-resistant Staph. aureus (MRSA).

12 Jan 2010

Interesting aspects of bacterial sensing and signaling

Over the last fifteen years it has become increasingly obvious that bacteria are not as simple and solitary as once believed. Rather, an accumulating body of work shows that bacteria are highly complicated and social organisms, constantly sensing their surroundings and altering both their environments and behaviors to ensure survival. Direct communication between bacteria turns out to be quite common, as are coordinated intra- and interspecies responses that include the formation of highly sophisticated microbial communities.

28 Dec 2009

Researchers identify new method to tackle bacterial infections

Researchers from the University of Groningen have clarified the structure of an enzyme that disturbs the communication processes between bacteria. By doing so they have laid the foundations for a new method of tackling bacterial infections such as cystic fibrosis.

22 Dec 2009

Researcers identify a new array of genes in GAS

Group A streptococcus (GAS) is a human pathogenic bacteria. Many people carry GAS asymptomatically in their upper respiratory tract and other anatomic sites. However, these bacteria can cause a variety of human diseases ranging from superficial skin and throat infections to highly invasive life-threatening diseases such as toxic shock and necrotizing fasciitis, commonly known as the flesh-eating bacteria.

10 Nov 2009

Bacteria use a well-studied communication system to resist antibiotics

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark along with other collaborators in Denmark and the US found that the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa can 'switch on' production of molecules that kill white blood cells - preventing the bacteria being eliminated by the body's immune system.

1 Nov 2009

Next generation antibiotic compounds that do not provoke bacterial resistance

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is one of medicine's most vexing challenges.

15 Mar 2009

Interfering with quorum sensing in bacteria may prevent foodborne illness

The rise in the number of foodborne illnesses from Salmonella, Listeria, and E. coli, coupled with the lack of an effective intervention method, has led to intense scientific research into prevention efforts.

16 Feb 2009

Bacteria can directly cause human blood and plasma to clot

Bacteria can directly cause human blood and plasma to clot - a process that was previously thought to have been lost during the course of vertebrate evolution, according to new research at the University of Chicago, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Institut Pasteur in Paris. Their findings will be published online Nov. 2 in Nature Chemical Biology.

2 Nov 2008

Scientist deciphers language bacterial cells use to 'talk' to each other - also discovers how to quell their conversation

Understanding the way bacterial cells "talk" to each other could lead to more effective methods for fighting the often persistent and serious infections caused by the biofilms they form, says a Texas A&M University professor of chemical engineering who not only has deciphered their language but also discovered how to quell their conversation.

11 Jun 2008