MicrobeWorld

Clostridium difficile is a common disease in hospitals and nursing homes and causes some 14,000 deaths each year in the United States. The disease can be treated with antibiotics, but the bacteria produce spores that resist common disinfection techniques, resulting in a high rate of re-infection. (See “Wrestling with Recurrent Infections,” The Scientist, May 2011, for an overview of C. difficile infections and treatment options.) Now, researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have isolated a combination of six other bacteria species that successfully fight C. difficile infections in mice, potentially paving the way toward standardized therapy, according to a report in PLOS Pathology last week (October 25).