Feature Channels: Drug Resistance

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An antibacterial peptide looks to be a highly-effective therapy against infections in burn or blast wounds suffered by soldiers.

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Dr. William A. Petri Jr. of the University of Virginia is an authority on Clostridium difficile, a tenacious bacterium that causes half a million infections a year.

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Kissing a frog won’t turn it into a prince — except in fairy-tales ― but frogs may be hopping toward a real-world transformation into princely allies in humanity’s battle with antibiotic-resistant infections that threaten millions of people. Scientists reported that frog skin contains substances that could be the basis for a new genre of antibiotics. Their study is scheduled for presentation in August at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Boston.

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Building on an enzyme found in nature, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have created a nanoscale coating for surgical equipment, hospital walls, and other surfaces which safely eradicates methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the bacteria responsible for antibiotic resistant infections.

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Two studies point to a new way to a vaccinate against drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- also known as MRSA. One counteracts the bacteria's tools for evading the immune system; the other disrupts the germ's tissue-damaging mechanism. The combination may protect people from MRSA and provide lasting immunity.

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An analysis of data from 2005 through 2008 of nine metropolitan areas in the U.S. indicates that health care-associated invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections decreased among patients with infections that began in the community or in the hospital, according to a study in the August 11 issue of JAMA.

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When used in conjunction with these antibiotics, the chemical additives overcome enzymes produced by resistant bacteria that allow them to survive exposure to antibiotics.

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Northeastern biology professor Kim Lewis has received a three-year $1.16 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to lead the development of new treatments against tuberculosis, a disease that is increasingly resistant to antibiotics, killing nearly two million people worldwide each year.

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Microbiologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center, working with the Department of Agriculture, have identified a potential target in cattle that could be exploited to help prevent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses caused by a nasty strain of Escherichia coli.

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A renowned researcher calls for a global commitment to develop 10 new antibiotics by 2020 in a new government health-care blog. Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) President Richard Whitley, M.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, blogs on the dangers of antibiotic resistance and what has become one of the greatest threats to human health.

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An intensive program of surveillance, precautions, training and feedback in a large multihospital institution appears to be associated with reductions in rates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) over a 15-year period, according to a report in the March 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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A new paper in the February 17th edition of the journal Molecular Cell describes how exposure to low levels of antibiotics increases mutations in E. coli and Staphylococcus bacteria hundreds of times more than normal, making the creation of drug-resistant strains more likely.

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Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Israel's Weizman Institute of Science have found that two antibiotics working together might be more effective in fighting pathogenic bacteria than either drug on its own.

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Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed a new approach for treating and healing skin abscesses caused by bacteria resistant to most antibiotics. The study appears in the journal PLoS One.

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A study suggests that a new compound, one on the threshold of final testing in humans, may be more potent and safer for treating “bird flu” than the antiviral drug best known by the trade name Tamiflu.

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Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered a possible strategy against an invasive parasite that infects more than a quarter of the world’s population, including 50 million Americans.

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Drug-resistant hospital bacteria could be inactivated at their outset.

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Research into Alzheimer's disease seems an unlikely approach to yield a better way to fight urinary tract infections (UTIs), but that's what scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and elsewhere recently reported.

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Results of a new study reveal that a seven-day course of LOAD therapy is superior to LAC at eliminating the H. pylori bacterium in patients with gastritis and peptic ulcers.

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Food and water around the world could soon become safer for human consumption thanks to a new cattle vaccine created by University of Saskatchewan graduate student David Asper.