Microbiology

17 Oct, 2013 | by

There has been a growing concern about the lack of regulation and the practice of giving antibiotics to livestock to minimize illness and enhance the animals’ growth. Just as people become resistant to antibiotics, when they are over-exposed to them, animals also build an antibiotic-resistance that makes mutated bacteria harder to eliminate. Due to the...

04 Sep, 2013 | by

The common consensus on bacterial infections and pain has traditionally been that it is the body’s immune reaction that triggers a pain response, and not the bacteria themselves. But a new research study seems to be turning that idea on its head – stating that bacteria can trigger the body’s pain-sensing nerves. The news is causing...

29 Aug, 2013 | by

Everyone has a diverse population of microbes living on their skin, known as the skin microbiome. Prior research done by University of Pennsylvania researchers highlighted the diversity of bacteria living on the skin with DNA-based sequence analysis of the bacterial genomes. Now, the group has been able to include the immune system and how it influences...

22 Aug, 2013 | by

While antibiotics have dramatically reduced the incidence of illness and death from infectious diseases, overuse of the drugs has been a growing problem for decades, resulting in antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.”  Prolonged and even short-term use of antibiotics can often be likened to dropping Napalm on healthy gut flora, killing not only harmful bacteria but healthy organisms...

16 Aug, 2013 | by

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered a protein in two different strains of bacteria that can control cell division. Once these proteins are isolated and studied more closely, they could be the basis for new antibiotics that could stop bacterial cell division, killing the cells. The bacteria, Bacillis subtilis and Escherichia coli, have...

07 Aug, 2013 | by

Are you sure your medication is working when you take it? For certain people, a strain of bacteria in their gut is getting to their cardiac drugs and inactivating them before they’ve had a chance to work. It’s a discovery that could give new insight to human cell biology and why different people experience different...

29 Jul, 2013 | by

A new animal model, developed by Canada’s McMaster University, is giving scientists a different way to study Crohn’s disease. The clinical applications for the new model are varied, and all will hopefully guide researchers towards a better understanding and more effective treatments for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Adherent-invasive E. coli has been associated with human Crohn’s disease....