Bacterial News and Research

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Using microorganisms to remove trichloroethene from water

In 2002, Bruce Rittmann, PhD, director of the Biodesign Institute's Center for Environmental Biotechnology, received a patent for an innovative way to use nature to lend society a hand.

28 Feb 2008

Rain-making bacteria

Brent Christner, LSU professor of biological sciences, in partnership with colleagues in Montana and France, recently found evidence that rain-making bacteria are widely distributed in the atmosphere.

28 Feb 2008

Discovery of potential drug targets for sepsis

"We have identified a key connection of signaling pathways in the cascade of events leading to sepsis. This defines a crucial point where the immune system spirals out of control to cause severe sepsis and where there is an opportunity for therapeutic intervention," says Scripps Research Professor Wolfram Ruf, who led the research with his postdoctoral fellow Frank Niessen.

28 Feb 2008

Scientists look at 'syringe' assembly in plague bacteria

Bacteria that cause the bubonic plague avoid death in our bodies by injecting our cells with immune evasion proteins.

28 Feb 2008

Soil-dwelling bacteria provide potential new antibiotics

MIT biologists have provoked soil-dwelling bacteria into producing a new type of antibiotic by pitting them against another strain of bacteria in a battle for survival.

27 Feb 2008

Scientists identify proteins that help bacteria put up a fight

Scientists have identified the role of two proteins that contribute to disease-causing bacteria cells' versatility in resisting certain classes of antibiotics.

27 Feb 2008

Plane diverted for woman with meningococcal disease

According to Australian Health authorities a woman who became ill on a flight from Auckland to Perth last night is suspected to have had meningococcal disease.

26 Feb 2008

New clues to bacterial antibiotic resistance

A team of scientists from the University Paris Descartes has solved the structure of two proteins that allow bacteria to gain resistance to multiple types of antibiotics, according to a report in EMBO reports this month.

26 Feb 2008

Technology to defeat bacterial infections shows positive results

The use of natural controls against serious bacterial infection and superbugs is being led by a UK company. Scientists at Biocontrol Ltd have presented at the Bacteriophage 2008 meeting in Hertfordshire a first look at the results of their initial Phase II clinical trial.

25 Feb 2008

Genetic defect causes immune deficiency and balance disorder

A genetic defect that causes a severe immune deficiency in humans may also produce balance disorders, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Iowa, The Jackson Laboratory and East Carolina University.

21 Feb 2008

Biochemists reveal details of mysterious bacterial microcompartments

UCLA biochemists and colleagues have answered an important question about the structure of microcompartments - the mysterious molecular machines that seem to be present in a wide variety of pathogens and other bacteria.

21 Feb 2008

New technique to identify, treat bacterial infections

A new technique developed by a University of Central Florida chemist will help physicians more quickly identify the bacterial infections patients have so they can be treated in hours instead of days.

20 Feb 2008

Most maternal deaths worldwide are preventable

A study published in PLoS Medicine this week suggests that of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth in sub-Saharan Africa, more may die from treatable infectious diseases than from conditions directly linked to pregnancy.

20 Feb 2008

Cholesterol-lowering drug used to block staph infections in mince

An international team of researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has blocked staph infections in mice using a drug previously tested in clinical trials as a cholesterol-lowering agent.

17 Feb 2008

Mathematical approach to tackle dual-resistant hospital infections

A mathematical model that looks at different strategies for curbing hospital-acquired infections suggests that antimicrobial cycling and patient isolation may be effective approaches when patients are harboring dual-resistant bacteria.

17 Feb 2008

Gene chip technology used to distinguish ventilator-associated pneumonia from underlying critical illness

Critically ill patients who need a ventilator to breathe face a high risk of pneumonia.

14 Feb 2008

Bacterial toxin closes gate on immune response

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have demonstrated that a bacterial toxin from the common bacterium Staphylococcus aureus shuts down the control mechanism of the tunnel, called an ion channel, in immune cell membranes.

14 Feb 2008

Discovery of possible target for prevention and treatment of pneumonia

Researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC have identified a key protein target that may be a crucial factor in the development of a vaccine to prevent and new therapies to treat pneumonia, the leading killer of children worldwide.

12 Feb 2008

Researchers find new U.S. trend in antibiotic resistance

A research team from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, examining bacterial isolates obtained in hospital and non-hospital clinical settings between 2000 and 2006, has identified drug-resistant strains of E. coli and Klebsiella bacteria in more than 50 blood, urine and respiratory samples.

11 Feb 2008

New cause identified for necrotic enteritis in chicken

Researchers from Monash University and CSIRO Livestock Industries have demonstrated for the first time that alpha-toxin protein, long thought to be required for necrotic enteritis to develop, is not the main cause of the chicken disease.

8 Feb 2008