At least 50 per cent of antibiotic use in hospitals is inappropriate, according to a new report from the national Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) which yesterday published guidelines on proper antimicrobial stewardship in hospitals in Ireland.
The report warns that in addition to... Read More
Medical researchers use laboratory-grown human cells to learn the intricacies of how cells work and test theories about the causes and treatment of diseases. The cell lines they need are “immortal”—they can grow indefinitely, be frozen for decades, divided into different batches and shared among... Read More
According the the UK's Daily Telegraph -
"The versatile spray, which forms an easy-clean coating one millionth of a millimetre thick – 500 times thinner than a human hair – can be applied to virtually any surface to protect it against water, dirt, bacteria, heat and UV radiation.
The spra... Read More
A bacteria-killing protein that would be applied to raw meat during processing to “significantly reduce” the presence of E.coli is under development for the meat industry.
US-based Ecolab Inc announced it has joined forces with AvidBiotics Corps to commericalize its proprietary protein-based ... Read More
In the Feb. 15 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Laurel Lenz, PhD, and his colleagues report that macrophages infected by the bacteria Listeria release interferon-αβ (IFN- αβ), which makes them and nearby immune cells unresponsive to activation signals. This reduces immune resistanc... Read More
The development of antibiotics gave physicians seemingly miraculous weapons against infectious disease. Effective cures for terrible afflictions like pneumonia, syphilis and tuberculosis were suddenly at hand. Moreover, many of the drugs that made them possible were versatile enough to knock out... Read More
ABC World News has published a brief article on the history of HeLa cells and the controversy over how they were acquired and then used to generate windfall profits for many medical-related companies. Often described as one of the greatest medical discoveries of our time, HeLa cells originally c... Read More
An international group of researchers has published the first genome-wide association study on the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, looking for genes associated with antimalarial drug resistance and more.
The team used a custom microarray to assess nearly 200 culture adapted P. falcipa... Read More
Scientists have determined how a normal protein can be converted into a prion, an infectious agent that causes fatal brain diseases in humans and mammals.
The finding, in mice, is expected to advance the understanding of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, or TSEs, a family of neurodeg... Read More
A woman featured in an IMAX film and National Geographic Explorer magazine will talk about what she finds in caves on Tuesday, Feb. 2 as a part of Indiana State University's Biology Speaker Series.
Hazel Barton, a biology professor at Northern Kentucky University, will talk about cave microbe... Read More
Scientists say they have solved a crucial puzzle about the AIDS virus after 20 years of research and that their findings could lead to better treatments for HIV.
British and U.S. researchers said they had grown a crystal that enabled them to see the structure of an enzyme called integrase, wh... Read More
A revolutionary substance known as 'liquid glass' that protects against bacteria and UV radiation is set to take the medical industry by storm.
The invisible non-toxic spray, which forms an easy-clean coating one millionth of a millimetre thick, can be applied to any surface to protect it aga... Read More
On episode #68 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, and Rich are enthralled by movies of vaccinia virus plaque formation, then consider how repulsion of superinfection virions leads ... Read More
One commercially available Echinacea purpurea extract preparation may be effective in preventing swine flu, a laboratory study published in the Nov 2009 issue of Virology suggests.
Vaccine is believed at least by the government and many medical organizations to be the best measure against swi... Read More
Just about every parent has seen how easily a baby can get dehydrated because of simple diarrhea. It's one of the main reasons babies end up in the emergency room. Those visits are starting to decline because of a new vaccine against the pathogen, rotavirus. And, now, the Bill & Melinda Gates Fo... Read More
U.S. researchers have developed a prototype vaccine that protects monkeys and mice against the emerging chikungunya virus, a major step toward the production of a vaccine for humans. Human trials could begin later this year.
Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne virus whose newest strain first appe... Read More
Microscopic nematode worms can be a potent organic insecticide, killing crop-raiding bugs without harming plants or beneficial insects and without the environmental side effects of chemicals. But when the worms are mass-bred for agricultural purposes, they tend to, as Byron Adams says, "wimp out... Read More
Paul Fisher has spent more than 30 years studying slime moulds — amoeba-like single-celled creatures found in soil. The La Trobe University professor of microbiology believes that even another three decades would be insufficient time for him, and the 100 other research groups around the world t... Read More
This article is for everyone celebrating Gasparilla today. Enjoy but watch those beads!
Beads that are thrown at parades have been a popular for years. Whether they are thrown during small community parades, holiday events or major celebrations like Madi Gras or Gasparilla, they are the stuff... Read More