Bacteria News and Research

RSS

FDA approves Soliris (eculizumab), first treatment for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Soliris (eculizumab), the first product for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), a rare type of blood disorder that can lead to disability and premature death.

19 Mar 2007

15,595 meningitis cases this season in Africa

Two months into the dry season in the African "Meningitis Belt", 15,595 cases including 1,670 deaths have been reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) from four countries: Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Uganda.

19 Mar 2007

Scientists decipher a signaling pathway crucially involved in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis

Inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn's disease and Ulcerative Colitis, severely impair the lives of more than four million people worldwide. The development of effective therapies against these diseases requires an understanding of their underlying molecular mechanisms.

15 Mar 2007

Aging boosts chances that a family line will be long-lived

Scientists have puzzled over just why organisms evolved aging as a strategy, and now there appears to be an answer. Allowing one individual to carry all the cellular damage inflicted over time, rather than dividing it between two organisms during reproduction, increases the chances that the individual's line will continue to reproduce for many generations to come, a new study indicates.

13 Mar 2007

New method for identifying viruses and bacteria that cause common infections in children

Infectious disease specialists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found a new method for identifying suspect viruses and bacteria that cause some of the most common acute infections in children.

13 Mar 2007

Antifungal drug kills tuberculosis bug

Scientists hoping to find new treatments for one of the world's most deadly infectious diseases say drugs used to treat common fungal infections may provide the answer.

From The University of Manchester 12 Mar 2007

Quick diagnosis test for streptococcal strains

A streptococcal infection may initially cause nothing more than a relatively harmless sore throat. It can, however, also lead to potentially fatal disease or lifelong disability.

8 Mar 2007

Bold proposal to restructure drug development patents

Weill Cornell Medical College scientist Dr. Carl Nathan has issued a bold call for reforming the pharmaceutical development and patent systems in order to increase the number of vaccines and drugs available to combat neglected diseases that are ravaging the world's poor.

8 Mar 2007

Children under stress develop more fevers

Children whose parents and families are under ongoing stress have more fevers with illness than other children. Published this month in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, the study also shows the unanticipated conclusion that children's natural killer cell function, part of the body's innate immune system, increases under chronic stress, unlike adults, whose function is decreased.

6 Mar 2007

Clean hands save patient lives

Experts on patient safety are urging countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to join a global effort to improve hand hygiene and related practices in hospitals and health care facilities to help reduce the growing number of deaths and illnesses due to health care-associated infections.

5 Mar 2007

Stress increases acne in teens

The largest study ever conducted on acne and stress reveals that teenagers who were under high levels of stress were 23 percent more likely to have increased acne severity, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues.

5 Mar 2007

Treatment for gum disease could also help the heart

Scientists at University College London (UCL) have conducted the first clinical trial to demonstrate that an intensive treatment for periodontitis (gum disease) directly improves the health of blood vessels.

4 Mar 2007

Further study of past flu pandemics key to future preparedness

Scientists and public health officials, wary that the H5N1 avian influenza virus could trigger an influenza pandemic, have looked to past pandemics, including the 1918 "Spanish Flu," for insight into pandemic planning.

28 Feb 2007

New terms for describing gene products involved in microbial-host interactions

An international group of scientists has announced a major expansion of a lingua franca used to describe the activities of genes in living organisms.

28 Feb 2007

Smoking increases risk of tuberculosis infection

People who smoke have a greater risk of becoming infected with tuberculosis (TB) and of having that infection turn into active TB disease, according to an analysis by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

27 Feb 2007

Exchange of E. coli between humans and chimps in Uganda

Scientists from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana have found that people employed in chimpanzee-focused research and tourism in a park in western Uganda are exchanging gastrointestinal bacteria - specifically Escherichia coli - with local chimpanzee populations. And some of the E. coli strains migrating to chimps are resistant to antibiotics used by humans in Uganda.

22 Feb 2007

Scientists identify specific enzymes that make meningitis hard to fight

Two enzymes in meningitis bacteria which prevent the body from successfully fighting off the disease, and make the infection extremely virulent, have been identified in new research published today.

22 Feb 2007

Organic baby food in latest food scare

Authorities in Singapore have ordered the recall of a baby food product by Earth's Best on the grounds that it may be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum, which can cause botulism.

21 Feb 2007

Imaging of disease dynamics during meningococcal sepsis

Each year 170,000 people around the world die of this type of meningitis, according to the World Health Organization, (WHO).

21 Feb 2007

Provectus receives notice of allowance for acne product

Provectus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today it has received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its patent application covering novel acne medications, including the Company's invisible, solid acne treatment, Pure-Stick, which is an over- the-counter (OTC) product.

21 Feb 2007