MicrobeWorld

In order to be able to ward off disease pathogens, immune cells must be mobile and be able to establish contact with each other. The working group around Professor Dr. Oliver Fackler in the Virology Department of the Hygiene Institute of the Heidelberg University Hospital has discovered a mechan... Read More

Treating second-degree burns with a nanoemulsion lotion sharply curbs bacterial growth and reduces inflammation that otherwise can jeopardize recovery, University of Michigan scientists have shown in initial laboratory studies.

U-M burn surgeon Mark R. Hemmila, M.D., reports at the Interscien... Read More

A new airline air filtration system promises to eliminate 99.9% of airborne pathogens in the passenger cabin.

"The aerospace giant BAE Systems has joined forces with Quest International, a small company based in Cheadle, near Manchester, to develop a machine that destroys up to 99.9 per cent ... Read More

"Think you need antibiotics to fight that cough or cold? Numerous Web sites are willing to sell them to you without a doctor's prescription — a loophole, researchers say, that could undermine efforts to curb the problem of bacteria that shrug off powerful antibiotics.

In a simple Internet sea... Read More

UPI reports that researchers from the University of California-Davis and Georgetown University Medical Center studied bacterial DNA in patients with an ileostomy -- an opening into their small bowel -- and patients with closed ileostomies.

The research team found in ileostomy patients, the gu... Read More

The swell of enthusiasm for analyzing microbial genomes continues, with keen interest in doing more and more genomes in smaller analytic formats at lower costs. Even while greater numbers of microbiologists jump into this fray, some continue to fret over what to make of these expanding findings,... Read More

"Dallas-based Allard Research and Development LLC has unveiled mini ethanol refineries for small businesses and farms capable of producing 100, 200, 500 or 1,000 gallons of ethanol per day, depending on the model.

"The fully automated versions include 15in touch-screen LCD monitors and iPhon... Read More

New Zealand biofuel company LanzaTech says it has developed a microbe that can convert waste gases from steel mills into high-octane ethanol.

LanzaTech claims to be the first company to work with steel mills to develop a waste gas-to-ethanol process capable of capturing the carbon monoxide th... Read More

A new, large-scale clinical trial is examining whether antiretroviral medications normally used to treat HIV infection can also prevent HIV infection in women when applied as a vaginal gel or taken as oral tablets once daily.

The study, called Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epi... Read More

The novel antibiotic prulifloxacin effectively stopped traveler's diarrhea with once-daily dosing in the second phase III trial of the drug, researchers reported here.

A three-day course of the experimental fluoroquinolone reduced the duration of diarrhea compared with placebo (P Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the long-awaited vaccines for the H1N1 "swine" flu virus this afternoon. It is expected to be available in a month at about 90,000 locations nationwide, the Associated Press reported.

"We will have enough vaccine available for everyone," Kathle... Read More

A tiny bacterium has been coaxed back to life after spending 120,000 years buried three kilometres deep in the Greenland ice sheet.

Officially named Herminiimonas glaciei, the bug consists of rods just 0.9 micrometres long and 0.4 micrometres in diameter, about 10 to 50 times smaller than the... Read More

An increasing number of ethanol companies are using hops to fight off nasty bacteria that can harm ethanol plant operations, according to Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul, Minn. Though antibiotics work well they have become a public relations problem as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sa... Read More

A Spanish study of ICU patients with H1N1, the largest ever conducted in Europe on influenza cases requiring intensive care, presented on the website of the medical journal ‘Critical Care,’ contradicts one of the messages on influenza A released by Spain's Ministry of Health and Department of He... Read More

There is mounting concern about whether humans have caught a strain of salmonella discovered in Tasmania's sparrow population which is experiencing a notable decline.

"Four cases of the salmonella in humans this year has Australian investigators wondering if there may be a link between a wide... Read More

The New Scientist reports that a "gold rush" to extract valuable methane from the depths of lake Kivu in Rwanda may trigger an outburst of gas that could wash a deadly, suffocating blanket over the 2 million people who live around the lake's shores.

"The lake, which is almost half a kilometre... Read More

In a study presented at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in San Francisco, University of Minnesota researchers found that students who receive an antiviral medication early in the course of the illness become less sick than those offered the standard a... Read More

USA Today reports two studies presented at ICAAC "by researchers in Canada and Singapore found that roughly one in five patients continue shedding the new H1N1 virus, or swine flu, with one study suggesting that patients may still shed virus despite treatment with Tamiflu.

The research sugges... Read More

A database designed to help researchers worldwide develop vaccines for avian and seasonal influenza viruses, not to mention the prolific H1N1 "swine flu," is now at the center of an ugly rift between its co-creators. Both the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) Foundation ... Read More

The New York Times reports that "a new study, published last week in the British journal Lancet, showed that invasive bacteria were an important cause of those children’s deaths and that many of the bacteria were the same kinds that affect children in wealthy countries, which have vaccines again... Read More