MicrobeWorld

Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a computational model of 1,366 genes in E. coli that includes 3D protein structures and has enabled them to compute the temperature sensitivity of the bacterium's proteins. The study, published June 7 in the journal Science, ... Read More

Miravirsen is a drug that binds to and blocks the function of a cellular microRNA called miR-122 that is required for the replication of hepatitis C virus (HCV). Treatment of chimpanzees chronically infected with HCV with this drug leads to suppression of viral replication. The results of a phas... Read More

Transmission electron micrograph of novel coronavirus particles, colorized in yellow.

Credit: NIAID

http://www.flickr.com/photos/niaid/8618697423/in/photostream/
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Jonathan Eisen is an evolutionary biologist, currently working at University of California, Davis and is the academic editor-in-chief of the open-access journal PLoS Biology.

On this episode, J... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, and  Read More

Wink writes:

Great HAI work! I'm not through it yet. I want to question, though, whether fomites are really important in influenza transmission. I don't think so.
Wink Weinberg (ID)

[flu can transmit by fomites in guinea pigs: Read More

Protocols and free how to advice from Lumiprobe on how to use Fluorescent dyes, Click Chemistry reagents, Life Science
-Click-chemistry labeling of oligonucleotides and DNA.
-NHS ester labeling of amino biomolecules.
-SYBR Green I staining of DNA in gels.
-qPCR with SYBR Gree... Read More

French scientist Francoise Barre-Sinoussi almost didn't get the chance to make one of the greatest medical discoveries of the 20th century.

She shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with her colleague Luc Montagnier for identifying HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, a plague tha... Read More

The Polio virus has been found in a sewage sample from Israel for the first time since 2002, the World Health Organization announced on Monday. But no children or adults newly paralyzed by polio have been identified in Israel or in Gaza or the West Bank.

The sample was from Rahat, a city in t... Read More

For decades, health officials have battled malaria with insecticides, bed nets and drugs. Now, scientists say there might be a potent new tool to fight the deadly mosquito-borne disease: the stench of human feet.

In a laboratory study, researchers found that mosquitoes infected with the tropi... Read More

The sometimes deadly MERS-CoV virus has spread to Italy, the World Health Organization said in statements this weekend.

Sunday's announcement that two female patients had contracted the virus follows one Saturday that said a 45-year-old man, who had recently traveled to Jordan, had become inf... Read More

There has been a lot of news lately about the bacteria living in our gut—the human gut microbiome. Researchers are learning which bacteria live there, who is naughty and who is nice and even a somewhat distasteful way to replace naughty with nice (a fecal transplant).

What gets lost in all of... Read More

Using new advances in synthetic biology and our updated understanding of Martian geochemical conditions, we should be able to inoculate the planet Mars with specially designed extremophilic microbes in an attempt to start (or re-start) life on its surface. This could be the largest and most auda... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Rich Condit Read More

Hep C may be thwarted by muting its ability to replicate. Also this week: a promising approach to preserve muscle in ALS, and the body's microbiota fight a sexually-transmitted disease.

Stopping HCV in Its Tracks

Researchers have identified a possible new approach to stopping hepatitis C v... Read More

More than 30 years after the discovery of the AIDS virus, experts are optimistic that a cure for the disease will be found, and that an end to the AIDS epidemic is possible.

But they caution there is still a lot of work to be done.

Since the first cases of AIDS were reported in 1981, more ... Read More

In the latest of a slew of studies examining the role of the so-called microbiome -- the mix of microscopic critters that colonize our bodies and our environment -- in human health, Harvard researchers said Wednesday that part of the reason that Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery works so well in ... Read More

Particular combinations of bacteria in the human digestive system can identify patients who have or are likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, scientists reported Wednesday in the online edition of the journal Nature.

But the precise combinations of microbes that influence development of the dise... Read More

The field of synthetic biology is still in its infancy, with many of the most promising companies residing outside of public markets, but make no mistake: The bioeconomy is on its way. Just about everything and anything -- fuels, chemicals, oils, foods, pharmaceuticals, metals, and materials -- ... Read More

Norman R. Pace, a microbiologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, pioneered the use of DNA to study microbes. He has searched for extremophiles (organisms that can exist in extreme environments) in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park and once descended in the submersible Alvin to ... Read More