Antibiotic News and Research

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Antibiotics are drugs used to treat infections caused by bacteria and other microorganisms.

Supermarkets should offer free flu shots rather than free antibiotics

As influenza season shifts into high gear, with 24 states now reporting widespread activity, the nation's infectious diseases experts are urging supermarket pharmacies with free-antibiotics promotions to educate their customers on when antibiotics are the right prescription-and when they can do more harm than good.

25 Feb 2009

Updated formula measures kidney function more accurately

Measuring kidney function in children can be expensive, time-consuming for clinicians, and tedious for children, who may be exposed to radioactivity and subjected to a large number of blood draws.

24 Feb 2009

Researchers block immune cell rush behind deadly sepsis

Researchers have found a way to block the ability of white blood cells to sprint toward the sites of infection when such speed worsens the damage done by sepsis, the often fatal, whole-body bacterial infection, according to a study published today in the journal Blood.

24 Feb 2009

Updated formula measures kidney function more accurately

Measuring kidney function in children can be expensive, time-consuming for clinicians, and tedious for children, who may be exposed to radioactivity and subjected to a large number of blood draws.

24 Feb 2009

Life-giving technology: Camera pills and ultrasound creating maps of the body

For more than ten years, senior medical officer Ronald Marvik at St. Olav's Hospital in Trondheim has been collaborating with SINTEF scientist Thomas Lango. Together, they have created a new IT-base window on the inside of the body, a window that makes a patient transparent on a screen when a surgeon inserts operating instruments through small openings in the abdominal wall.

23 Feb 2009

New software speeds enzyme design

A Duke University-led team has brought powerful software to the never-ending arms race between antibiotics and germs.

16 Feb 2009

Antimicrobial resistance in clinics, hospitals and at home

Antibiotic resistance and the rise of illnesses that cannot be treated easily because of drug resistance is a health concern around the world.

16 Feb 2009

Personal digital assistants used to track tuberculosis data

For patients who have drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis, it's critical to monitor the disease as closely as possible.

11 Feb 2009

Medicines sold in Sweden cause serious environmental harm in India

Many of the substances in our most common medicines are manufactured in India and China.

8 Feb 2009

Emergency physicians question antibiotic guidelines for pneumonia

A new study from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center that assessed emergency physicians understanding of time-based, antibiotic treatment guidelines for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) found that more than half believed they prescribed antibiotics needlessly in order to comply with guidelines.

8 Feb 2009

Super-fine oil-and-water emulsion protects against superbugs that kill cystic fibrosis patients

University of Michigan scientists report highly encouraging evidence that a super-fine oil-and-water emulsion, already shown to kill many other microbes, may be able to quell the ravaging, often drug-resistant infections that cause nearly all cystic fibrosis deaths.

5 Feb 2009

New findings raise questions about process used to identify experimental drug

A study by National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers has revealed surprising new insights into the process used to initially identify an experimental drug now being tested in people with cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy.

3 Feb 2009

Quinolone-resistant gonorrhea increases in Ontario

The prevalence of quinolone-resistant gonorrhea has increased rapidly in Ontario - Canada's most populous province - from a rate of 2% in 2001 to 28% in 2006, found a study published in CMAJ.

2 Feb 2009

New way to fight off bacteria

Whenever humans create a new antibiotic, deadly bacteria can counter it by turning into new, indestructible super-bugs.

2 Feb 2009

Century old drug clofazimine shows potential for multiple sclerosis

A century-old drug that failed in its original intent to treat tuberculosis but has worked well as an antileprosy medicine now holds new promise as a potential therapy for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases.

2 Feb 2009

New insights into a avian pathogenic E. coli and its risks to human health

Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University associate research scientist Melha Mellata, a member of professor Roy Curtiss' team, is leading a USDA funded project to develop a vaccine against a leading poultry disease called avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC).

29 Jan 2009