Metagenomics News and Research

RSS

Wastewater releases from oil and gas operations at West Virginia alter microbes, study finds

Wastewater from oil and gas operations -- including fracking for shale gas -- at a West Virginia site altered microbes downstream, according to a Rutgers-led study.

23 Feb 2017

Scientists develop new bioinformatics tool to make biological experiments more transparent

Biological experiments are generating increasingly large and complex sets of data. This has made it difficult to reproduce experiments at other research laboratories in order to confirm - or refute - the results.

15 Feb 2017

Researchers generate structural models for protein families with metagenomic sequences

For proteins, appearance matters. These important molecules largely form a cell's structures and carry out its functions: proteins control growth and influence mobility, serve as catalysts, and transport or store other molecules.

20 Jan 2017

New database of PCR primers enables effective detection and identification of RNA viruses

Scientists at Korea's Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology scientists have compiled a comprehensive new public database of genetic information to enable the detection and identification of RNA viruses using the polymerase chain reaction assay.

28 Dec 2016

New Baylor study aims to investigate antibiotic effect in children with ASD

Over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2012, John Rodakis, a father of a child with autism, observed his son's condition dramatically improve while taking a common antibiotic.

1 Dec 2016

Scientists create comprehensive computational metabolic models for different gut microbes

Hundreds of different bacterial species live in the human gut, helping us to digest our food. The metabolic processes of these bacteria are not only tremendously important to our health -- they are also tremendously complex.

29 Nov 2016

Simple probiotics can decrease stress-related behavior and anxiety

Probiotics, or beneficial live bacteria that are introduced into the body, have become increasingly popular as a way to improve health and well-being.

21 Nov 2016

Enterome, Bristol-Myers Squibb enter into Immuno-Oncology collaboration to identify new microbiome-derived biomarkers for cancer

Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) and Enterome SA (Enterome), a pioneer in the development of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics based on the gut microbiome, announced that they have entered into an Immuno-Oncology focused collaboration agreement for the discovery and development of microbiome-derived biomarkers, drug targets and bioactive molecules to be developed as potential companion diagnostics and therapeutics for cancer.

16 Nov 2016

Microbes detected in Boston subway system have low pathogenic potential, study shows

Boston's subway system, known as the T, might be just as bacteria-laden as you'd expect but organisms found there are largely from normal human skin and incapable of causing disease, according to a study published June 28 in mSystems, an open access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

8 Jul 2016

Microbial community less stable and less diverse in antibiotic-treated children

The DIABIMMUNE project followed the development of 39 Finnish infants from birth to the age of three. Half of the children received 9-15 antibiotic treatments during the research period, and the other half did not receive any such treatments.

22 Jun 2016

Scientists join together to map urban subway microbiome

Scientists at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain, have joined today the Global City Sampling Day for the MetaSub research project. Started in 2013 in New York and led by Dr. Christopher E Mason at Weill Cornell Medicine, MetaSub is an international consortium of laboratories to establish a world-wide "DNA map" of microbiomes in mass transit systems.

22 Jun 2016

Scientists develop new software program that can help compare large amounts of metagenomes

Scientists from ITMO University, the Federal Research and Clinical Centre of Physical-Chemical Medicine and MIPT have developed a software program enabling them to quickly compare sets of DNA of microorganisms living in different environments. The researchers have already suggested exactly how the new program could be applied in practice.

16 Jun 2016

Changes in intestinal microbiota linked to primary sclerosing cholangitis

Primary sclerosing cholangitis, also known as PSC, is a liver disease with no effective medical treatment. Liver transplantation is the only proven long-term treatment of PSC, although only a fraction of individuals with PSC will ultimately require it.

23 May 2016

Immune-boosting formulation in Chinese herbal remedies comes from bacteria growing on Angelica roots

Juzen-taiho-to, also known as shi quan da bu tang, is one of the most popular herbal formulas in China and Japan and is used in the West by practitioners of traditional Asian medicine. New research suggests the remedy's immune-boosting effects are due, at least in part, to bacteria that grow on the roots of one of the formula's component herbs.

6 Apr 2016

Researchers reveal link between necrotizing enterocolitis and uropathogenic E. coli

Necrotizing enterocolitis is an intestinal disease that afflicts about one in 10 extremely premature infants and is fatal in nearly one-third of cases. The premature infant gut is believed to react to colonizing bacteria, causing damage to the intestinal walls and severe infection.

21 Mar 2016

Researchers discover potentially-pathogenic bacteria in water supply pipes

The human microbiome, a diverse collection of microorganisms living inside us and on our skin, has attracted considerable attention for its role in a broad range of human health issues. Now, researchers are discovering that the built environment also has a microbiome, which includes a community of potentially-pathogenic bacteria living inside water supply pipes.

15 Mar 2016

Russian scientists propose new technique to analyze intestinal metagenomes

A group of Russian scientists, among them staff at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, have proposed a new method for the comparison of metagenome-coupled DNA sequences from all of the organisms in a sample of biological material being investigated.

11 Mar 2016

Zika virus can cross the placental barrier, according to new study

A study of pregnant women in Brazil has confirmed the presence of Zika virus in the amniotic fluid of two women who had displayed Zika-like symptoms during their pregnancies.

18 Feb 2016

TCS, VUMC partner to drive innovation in healthcare and life sciences fields

Tata Consultancy Services, a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, today announced a new partnership with Vanderbilt University Medical Center to drive innovation in the healthcare and life sciences fields.

10 Dec 2015

UCSD researchers develop new microbiome analysis platform

The human microbiome -- the total collection of bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms living in and on your body -- has been linked to a variety of health and disease states, including obesity, allergies, asthma, and a rapidly growing list of other conditions. But as researchers try to sort out the complex relationship between microbial populations and human health and use that information to diagnose or treat disease, they are generating a deluge of microbial sequence data that first needs to be organized and analyzed.

8 Oct 2015