MicrobeWorld

A small cluster of unusual illnesses at a Colorado children’s hospital prompted an investigation that swiftly identified alcohol prep pads contaminated with Bacillus cereus bacteria, according to a report in the July issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Socie... Read More

A team of scientists from A*STAR's Institute of Medical Biology (IMB) and Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) together with clinicians from Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have identified a unique set of cells in the cervix that are the cause of human papillomaviruses (HPV) related c... Read More

The billions of bugs in our guts have a newfound role: regulating the immune system and related autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, according to researchers at Mayo Clinic and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Larger-than-normal populations of specific gut bacteria... Read More

Scientists have found new genetic information that shows how harmful bacteria cause the acute diarrheal disease shigellosis, which kills more than a million people worldwide each year.

The research, which could lead to the development of future treatments, was published today in the journal P... Read More

Aaron J. Shatkin was well known for his work on reoviruses beginning in the 1960s in his laboratory at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, NJ and then at Rutgers University. He was among the first to appreciate that virus particles contained many different enzymes, such as RNA po... Read More

An international team of scientists, funded in the UK by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), has uncovered the structure of the protective protein coat which surrounds many bacteria like a miniature suit of armour. Their research, which is published June 10 in Nat... Read More

For the first time, health officials in West Africa have begun a vaccination campaign to try to control cholera during an active epidemic.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Guinea, the charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; also known as Doctors Without Borders) has been adminis... Read More

This topic was interesting because the MRSA bug is invading our home not just the hospital. It used to be a nosocomial microbe but as you see from this article it invades the home as well and it involves our children. Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Rich Condit

Vincent and Rich discuss recovery ... Read More

Don writes:

thank you all for sharing your knowledge in such a comprehensible manner. Thank you also for your stand against bureaucratic censorship in the H5N1 research, and your win. I have two questions. Is H5N1 a highly specific test for a human ge... Read More

Doctors spurned colistin for decades because it damages kidneys. Now the drug is deemed “critically important” and in demand worldwide to thwart the most obstinate infections.

The 53-year-old medicine, also used as an additive in chicken feed, is back in favor as resistance to antibiotics esc... Read More

Imagine a Wyoming where the growing season could start weeks earlier, and where a late frost that so often bites crops couldn’t creep into plant’s veins.
It may be possible, and University of Wyoming professor Gary Franc is trying to figure out how.

It starts deep in plants, in a byproduct o... Read More

A mysterious and scattered outbreak of the E. coli bacteria is linked to 14 illnesses, including a child's death, health officials say.

No form of contaminated food or other cause has been identified in the illnesses, which occurred in April and May, according to the Centers for Disease Cont... Read More

Here’s my weekly column, which will also run in Monday’s Health and Science section of the Philadelphia Inquirer

Image is from Penn and reportedly shows a color enhanced tissue section from a healthy mouse. The mouse cells are green and bacterial cells are purple.

Next time your digestiv... Read More

Soil samples obtained from South American volcanoes have revealed a smattering of different microbe types that have somehow managed to survive in extreme conditions, the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU-Boulder) announced in a June 8 press release.

According to the university, the scientist... Read More

New research published June 8 in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Genomics reveals that the Malaysian parasitic plant Rafflesia cantleyi, with its 50cm diameter flowers, has 'stolen' genes from its host Tetrastigma rafflesiae. Analysis of these genes shows that their functions range from... Read More

Bacteria can use minerals in soil as electrical grids, which helps the microbes generate chemicals they need to survive, a new study says.

The process involves different bacterial species trading electrons—negatively charged subatomic particles.

Electrons are key to all life-forms, from mi... Read More

Bacteria in the gut play a crucial role in human health, and imbalances in bacterial populations can contribute to many disorders. New research suggests that fungi, though not as common in the intestines as bacteria, may also play a role in causing and modulating disease.

The results could le... Read More

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have discovered a parasitic mite has caused the deformed wing virus to proliferate in honey bee colonies.

This association is now thought to contribute to the world-wide spread and probable death of millions of honey bee colonies. The current monetar... Read More

Biorecognition at the molecular level is a rapidly advancing technology that has enlisted the help of synthetic polypeptides to come up with the ultimate antibody.

The EU 'Synthetic superantibodies - Bioinspired engineering of artificial receptor structures' (Superantibodies) project merged t... Read More