Cell Wall News and Research

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Findings provide new strategy for developing safe, effective vaccine against strep throat

An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have identified the genes encoding a molecule that famously defines Group A Streptococcus (strep), a pathogenic bacterial species responsible for more than 700 million infections worldwide each year.

12 Jun 2014

Researchers identify small molecule that prevents bacteria from forming into infectious biofilms

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have identified a small molecule that prevents bacteria from forming into biofilms, a frequent cause of infections.

23 May 2014

Research: Single episode of binge drinking can have negative health effects

It only takes one time. That's the message of a new study by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School on binge drinking. Their research found that a single episode of binge drinking can have significant negative health effects resulting in bacteria leaking from the gut, leading to increased levels of toxins in the blood.

16 May 2014

Drug used to treat TB may also act against various infections, says study

A drug under clinical trials to treat tuberculosis could be the basis for a class of broad-spectrum drugs that act against various bacteria, fungal infections and parasites, yet evade resistance, according to a study by University of Illinois chemists and collaborators.

18 Apr 2014

Scientists discover protein structure that helps common fungal pathogen to infect humans

A team that includes scientists from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Johns Hopkins University and St. Mary's University reported the structure of a protein that helps a common fungus to infect the body.

17 Apr 2014

Neurovive presents new breakthrough on energy regulation at cellular level

NeuroVive, a leading mitochondrial medicine company, is presenting a breakthrough in the company's work on energy regulation at the cellular level.

17 Apr 2014

Researchers decode effects of antimicrobial peptide on bacterial cells

The team of Julia Bandow, who heads the RUB's Junior Research Group Microbial Antibiotic Research, has been studying the MP196 peptide as a representative of a group of very small positively charged peptides that consist of some four to ten amino acids.

27 Mar 2014

EPFL sets up foundation to release antibiotic for tuberculosis

Even though tuberculosis kills more than 1.5 million people every year, the market is not cost-effective for pharmaceutical companies. So EPFL is setting up a foundation to release an antibiotic developed in its own laboratories under EU funding.

12 Mar 2014

Scientists uncover bacterial secretion system that allows sharing of genetic material between bacteria

The system that allows the sharing of genetic material between bacteria - and therefore the spread of antibiotic resistance - has been uncovered by a team of scientists at Birkbeck, University of London and UCL.

10 Mar 2014

New drug is effective against superbug MRSA

"I routinely call hospitals and request their yearly antibiotic susceptibility testing data," said Washington University in St. Louis' Timothy Wencewicz. "The log might say, for example, that they've treated hundreds of patients for Acinetobacter baumanni, a bacterium brought into U.S. hospitals by soldiers wounded in the Iraq war, with 30 different antibiotics.

6 Mar 2014

New methodology for rapid detection of antibiotics in blood paves way to drug development, personalized treatment

A new methodology for rapidly measuring the level of antibiotic drug molecules in human blood serum has been developed, paving the way to applications within drug development and personalised medicine.

3 Mar 2014

Silver nanoparticles in dietary supplements, cosmetics and food packaging can cause damage to cells

Endocrine disrupters are not the only worrying chemicals that ordinary consumers are exposed to in everyday life. Also nanoparticles of silver, found in e.g. dietary supplements, cosmetics and food packaging, now worry scientists.

28 Feb 2014

Researchers produce novel microparticles

A team of researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the University of Michigan/USA has produced novel microparticles, whose surface consists of three chemically different segments.

24 Feb 2014

Probe mimics pathogen's amino acids, solving mystery behind Chlamydiae cell wall

Biochemical sleuthing by an Indiana University graduate student has ended a nearly 50-year-old search to find a megamolecule in bacterial cell walls commonly used as a target for antibiotics, but whose presence had never been identified in the bacterium responsible for the most commonly reported sexually transmitted disease in the United States.

12 Dec 2013

Study resolves 50-year 'chlamydial anomaly' using novel method

Researchers studying Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria, which cause the sexually transmitted infection chlamydia as well as infectious blindness, have confirmed that the bacteria contain-and, in fact, cannot function without-the common molecule peptidoglycan, a structural component found in the cell wall of many bacteria. This finding puts an end to years of uncertainty about whether Chlamydia bacteria, like almost all bacterial species, rely on peptidoglycan to reproduce and to maintain their shape and structure. In addition, the novel method the investigators used may be adapted to further examine the molecule's role in the structure and function of other bacteria.

12 Dec 2013

Concussive brain injuries can lead to depressive behaviors later in life

A head injury can lead immune-system brain cells to go on "high alert" and overreact to later immune challenges by becoming excessively inflammatory - a condition linked with depressive complications, a new animal study suggests.

10 Dec 2013

Researchers identify resistance protein that allows bacteria to survive chlorhexidine

Researchers have identified a resistance protein that allows bacteria to survive chlorhexidine, a disinfectant commonly used in wipes, cleansers and mouthwashes in hospitals.

4 Dec 2013

Modern strains of MRSA have become broadly resistant to antibiotics: Study

University of Notre Dame researchers Shahriar Mobashery and Mayland Chang and their collaborators in Spain have published research results this week that show how methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) regulates the critical crosslinking of its cell wall in the face of beta-lactam antibiotics.

5 Oct 2013

Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Evotec Team Up To Take On ALS

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12 Sep 2013

Holistic approach to understand and treat TB

For years, physicians around the world have watched as strain after strain of the deadly bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis evolves resistance to drugs.

2 Sep 2013