MicrobeWorld

On episode #66 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent and Dickson continue virology 101 with a discussion of information flow from RNA to DNA, a process known as reverse transcription, ... Read More

La transferencia horizontal de genes

Las bacterias pueden adquirir nuevos genes a través de un proceso conocido como “transferencia horizontal de genes”. Las células pueden c... Read More

Entrada: el virus y los murciélagos, identificando a la neumonía, terapia  contra la influenza, y la teoría de germen de la enfermedad.                                                                ... Read More

For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible.

The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HI... Read More

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) continues to be a major cause of hospital-acquired infections, and these infections can often be difficult and expensive to treat.  One strategy to reduce MRSA infection rates in the healthcare setting is the screening of patients for nasal or t... Read More

On episode #63 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, and Rich talk about US government contract for freeze-dried smallpox vaccine, red squirrels in the UK threatened by poxvirus... Read More

Animals are now picking up human diseases, possibly as a result of globalisation, a study suggests.

Researchers from the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh said a strain of bacteria had jumped from humans to chickens.

The team believes the Staphylococcus Aureus bacteria crossed between species ... Read More

A team led by Yale University scientists has developed a new approach to studying how immune cells chase down bacteria in our bodies. Their findings are described in the November 15 issue of Nature Methods Advanced Online Publication.

When bacteria enter our bodies they secrete molecules, lea... Read More

The 1918 flu epidemic was probably the deadliest plague in human history, killing more than 50 million people worldwide. Now it appears that a small number of the deaths may have been caused not by the virus, but by a drug used to treat it: aspirin.

Dr. Karen M. Starko, author of one of the e... Read More

Amy Wallace, freelance writer and editor-at-large at Los Angeles Magazine, has published a in-depth feature in Wired exploring why many Americans shun vaccinations and place trust in the pseudoscience around topics such as autism, H1N1 and many other illnesses. While a good chunk of this article... Read More

Franklin M. Harold, Department of Microbiology, University of Washington has authored an interesting guest post on www.SmallThingsConsidered.us that examines the process of cell structural organization and assembly:

"Structural organization is one of the most conspicuous features of cells, a... Read More

A strain of MRSA that causes bloodstream infections is five times more lethal than other strains and has shown to have some resistance to the potent antibiotic drug vancomycin used to treat MRSA, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study.

The study found that 50 percent of the patients infecte... Read More

Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes.

Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless tha... Read More

Luciano Marabese, an Italian inventor has combined his Catholic faith and ingenuity to create the electronic terracotta holy water dispenser. It functions like an automatic soap dispenser in public lavatories - a churchgoer waves his or her hand under a sensor and the machine spurts out holy wat... Read More

New videos have caught bacteria in the act of a completely new behavior. A study appearing online December 7 in PNAS finds that Shewanella cells briefly touch an electron-accepting surface, lift off and swim furiously, and then return to the metal surface.

The researchers call this flighty ne... Read More

Kellogg, the nation's largest cereal maker, is being called to task by critics who object to the swine flu-conscious claim now bannered in bold lettering on the front of Cocoa Krispies cereal boxes: "Now helps support your child's IMMUNITY."

Of all claims on cereal boxes, "this one belongs in... Read More

While most attempts to engineer biofuel-producing microbes have focused on well-known organisms such as yeasts and E. coli, scientists also hope to co-opt the unique metabolic functions of some of the microbial world's less-studied creatures. Anthony Sinskey and his team at MIT have been catalog... Read More

A leading association of clinicians on Monday accused an "anti-vaccination movement" of breeding suspicion about the (A)H1N1 swine flu vaccine in Europe and declared public health and lives were at risk.

The European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) said it wa... Read More

The new strain, ST131, was a major cause of serious antimicrobial-resistant E. coli infections in the United States in 2007, researchers found. This strain has been reported in multiple countries and encountered all over the United States. In the study, researchers analyzed resistant E. coli i... Read More

In an article appearing in the November 2009 print issue of the FASEB Journal, they show that antioxidants -- the same substances found in plant-based foods -- might hold the key in preventing the flu virus from wreaking havoc on our lungs.

"The recent outbreak of H1N1 influenza and the rapid... Read More