Drug-resistant bacteria have dominated news headlines and the attention of public health experts, but a study by experts at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and the Duke Clinical Research Institute shows that nonresistant bacterial infections occur far more often and can take just as great a toll on newborns as their drug-resistant cousins.
Studying mice with a variety of viral infections, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have demonstrated a way to dial up the body’s innate immune defenses while simultaneously attacking a protein that many viruses rely on to replicate.
To help stop the spread of antibiotic resistance, UC San Francisco scientists are urging hospitals around the country to stop buying meat from animals that were given antibiotics for growth promotion.
Drug-resistant E. coli infections are on the rise in community hospitals, where more than half of U.S. patients receive their health care, according to a new study from Duke Medicine.
Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have found that the breast cancer drug tamoxifen gives white blood cells a boost, better enabling them to respond to, ensnare and kill bacteria in laboratory experiments. Tamoxifen treatment in mice also enhances clearance of the antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogen MRSA and reduces mortality.
Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have developed a novel mathematical method inspired by Darwinian evolution to use current antibiotics to eliminate or reduce the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Three antibiotics that, individually, are not effective against a drug-resistant staph infection can kill the deadly pathogen when combined as a trio, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They have killed the bug — methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) — in test tubes and laboratory mice, and believe the same strategy may work in people.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have discovered that the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus develops resistance to the antibiotic arylomycin by “switching on” a previously uncharacterized set of genes, explaining higher antibiotic resistance rates in some bacteria.
A scientific peek into bacteria boudoirs is revealing how “sex” among disease-causing microbes can lead different species or strains to become resistant to antibiotic medications.
The start of the school year means new classes, new friends, homework and sports. It also brings the threat of head lice. Scientists report today that lice populations in at least 25 states have developed resistance to over-the-counter treatments still widely recommended by doctors and schools. The researchers are presenting their work today at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
Health experts have warned for years that the overuse of antibiotics is creating “superbugs” able to resist drugs treating infection. Now scientists at Indiana University and elsewhere are finding evidence that an invisible war between microorganisms may also be catching humans in the crossfire.
Differences in the routines of individual providers drives variation in antibiotic prescribing, more than differences in patient characteristics, standards of practice at different hospitals, or clinical settings (emergency department, primary care, urgent care). The report, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, is an important step toward understanding the problem of antibiotic overuse, a major public health concern given the rise in antibiotic-resistant “superbugs”.
Infections with one of the most troublesome and least understood antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” are increasing. But now scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown the bacteria, A. baumannii, can naturally relinquish its defenses against antibiotics.
A new animal study by NYU Langone Medical Center researchers adds to growing evidence that multiple courses of commonly used antibiotics may have a significant impact on children’s development.
The acidity of urine — as well as the presence of small molecules related to diet — may influence how well bacteria can grow in the urinary tract, a new study shows. The research, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, may have implications for treating urinary tract infections, which are among the most common bacterial infections worldwide.
Among patients with uncomplicated appendicitis, antibiotic treatment did not meet a prespecified level of effectiveness compared with appendectomy, although most patients who received antibiotic therapy did not require an appendectomy, and for those who did, they did not experience significant complications, according to a study in the June 16 issue of JAMA.
Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed a new technique to more precisely analyze bacterial populations, to reveal epigenetic mechanisms that can drive virulence.
Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have developed a cutting-edge new medical therapy that could protect UK hospital patients against a lethal superbug.
Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences report that the common antibiotic azithromycin kills many multidrug-resistant bacteria very effectively — when tested under conditions that closely resemble the human body and its natural antimicrobial factors. The researchers believe the finding, published June 10 by EBioMedicine, could prompt an immediate review of the current standard of care for patients with certain so-called “superbug” infections.
In Science Advances, University at Buffalo researchers will report that they have managed to turn E. coli into tiny factories for producing new forms of the popular antibiotic erythromycin — including three that were shown in the lab to kill drug-resistant bacteria.
For years scientists have been aware of the potential problems of antibiotics being present in wastewater, and the research of engineering professor Olya Keen is showing that treatments to clean wastewater may actually be creating new antibiotics and further contributing to the development of antibiotic resistance in the environment.
Researchers led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have developed a second-generation antibiotic that shows early effectiveness against common bacterial infections that pose a serious health threat to children and adults. The findings appear today in the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine.
University of Adelaide researchers have discovered a target for the development of completely new antibiotics against disease-causing bacteria.
A new study led by the University of Iowa shows swine farmers are six times more likely to be carriers of staph bacteria, including the MRSA strain, than others. Results appear online in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Nearly half of American hospitals aren’t taking key steps to prevent C. difficile, a kind of gut infection that kills nearly 30,000 people annually and sickens hundreds of thousands more – despite strong evidence that such steps work, according to a new study.
A Johns Hopkins engineer, supported by a major NIH grant, is leading a multi-institution team that wants to keep bacterial infections from dodging the dwindling arsenal of drugs that destroy the deadly microbes.
Research teams led by Edward Yu of Iowa State University and the Ames Laboratory have described the structure of two closely related protein pumps that allow bacteria to resist certain medications.
A multicenter team of U.S. and Venezuelan scientists, led by researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center, have discovered the most diverse collection of bodily bacteria yet in humans among an isolated tribe of Yanomami Indians in the remote Amazonian jungles of southern Venezuela.
An international team of scientists, including researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, have found antibiotic resistance genes in the bacterial flora of a South American tribe that never before had been exposed to antibiotic drugs. The findings suggest that bacteria in the human body have had the ability to resist antibiotics since long before such drugs were ever used to treat disease.
Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine, collaborating with a multicenter team of U.S. and Venezuelan researchers, have discovered the most diverse collection of bacteria yet in humans among an isolated tribe of Yanomami Amerindians in the remote Amazonian jungles of Venezuela.
A concentrated extract of maple syrup makes disease-causing bacteria more susceptible to antibiotics, according to laboratory experiments by researchers at McGill University. The findings suggest that combining maple syrup extract with common antibiotics could increase the microbes’ susceptibility, leading to lower antibiotic usage
A new five-year plan to fight the critical problem of antibiotic resistance brings welcome momentum and attention to a fight that demands a global effort, say leading Canadian researchers in the field, who are available to comment this afternoon.
Antibiotic resistance is poised to spread globally among bacteria frequently implicated in respiratory and urinary infections in hospital settings, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Chlorine, a disinfectant used in most wastewater treatment plants, may be failing to eliminate pharmaceuticals from wastes. As a result, trace levels get discharged from the treatment plants into waterways. Now, scientists are reporting that chlorine treatment may encourage the formation of new, unknown antibiotics that could enter the environment, potentially contributing to the problem of antibiotic resistance. They will present the research at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have published a pair of studies showing how the primary protein responsible for multidrug chemotherapy resistance changes shape and reacts to therapeutic drugs.
An aggressive campaign to reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics has helped cut the rate of infection with a dangerous drug-resistant bacteria at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ, by nearly 40 percent.
Margaret Riley, an evolutionary biologist and pioneer research in antibiotic-resistant bacteria, announced a partnership with a Chinese scientist to develop a new drug platform, pheromonicins, with $400 million per year from Beijing. Riley plans to open a sister institute in Amherst, Mass.
New research from UAB suggests that Fusobacterium necrophorum more often causes severe sore throats in young adults than streptococcus — the cause of the much better known strep throat. The findings, suggest physicians should consider F. necrophorum when treating severe sore throat in young adults and adolescents that worsens.
Using theoretical and experimental approaches, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have developed a two-pronged strategy that uses an evolving cell population’s adaptive nature against it.
Ada Yonath, a pioneer in using crystallographic techniques to visualize ribosome structure, was the most recent Eugene P. Wigner Distinguished Lecturer at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Her work continues to contribute to ribosomal research, prompting researchers to look more closely at antibiotics that target bacterial ribosomes, including those of pathogenic bacteria species, an avenue that could help reverse current levels of antibiotic resistance. At the talk, she steered conversation to species-specific antibiotic resistance.
Scientists at the University of Utah and the University of Georgia have uncovered a pharmacological target that could enable development of novel drugs against antibiotic-resistant pathogens, including Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) and other infectious Gram-positive organisms such as Listeria and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The target was revealed upon discovery of a Gram-positive bacteria-specific pathway for making heme, an essential iron-carrying molecule. The findings were reported in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
People’s perceptions of the cost of a drug may affect how much they benefit from the drug, even when they are receiving only a placebo, according to a new study of people with Parkinson’s disease published in the January 28, 2015 online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Saint Louis University's Mee-Ngan F. Yap, Ph.D., discovered new information about how antibiotics like azithromycin stop staph infections, and why staph sometimes becomes resistant to drugs.
By tricking the immune system into generating antibodies specific for only one bacterial protein, Staphylococcus aureus dodges the production of antibodies that might otherwise protect against infection. Vaccine approaches must be designed to side-step this bacterial subterfuge.
Combining a PET scanner with a new chemical tracer that selectively tags specific types of bacteria, Johns Hopkins researchers working with mice report they have devised a way to detect and monitor in real time infections with a class of dangerous Gram-negative bacteria. These increasingly drug-resistant bacteria are responsible for a range of diseases, including fatal pneumonias and various bloodstream or solid-organ infections acquired in and outside the hospital.
A University of Nebraska Medical Center research team has determined that a longtime antibiotic, vancomycin, is still effective in treating Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections and that physicians should continue to use the drug even though several newer antibiotics are now available in the marketplace.
Scientists from Thomas Jefferson University and the National Institutes of Health come one step closer to understanding the difficulty of treating joint infection. Biofilm formation plays a role.
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