Recent News

By Category: Agents & Toxins

Bacteria-Filled Liquid Crystals Could Improve Biosensing

(Global Biodefense) Plop living, swimming bacteria into a novel water-based, nontoxic liquid crystal and a new physics takes over. The dynamic interaction of the bacteria with the liquid crystal creates a novel form of soft matter: living liquid crystal. The new type of active material, which holds promise for improving the early detection of diseases,  Read More »

European Gram-Negative Antibacterial Engine

(Global Biodefense) Over 30 European universities, research institutes, and companies, led by GlaxoSmithKline and Uppsala University, are joining forces in a 6-year programme supported by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) to develop novel antibiotics against Gram-negative pathogens in a project called ENABLE. Despite the growing epidemic of antibiotic resistance, only two new classes of antibiotics  Read More »

UNC Researchers Team Up to Find New Target for Dengue Virus Vaccine

(Newswise) Creating a vaccine that protects people from all four types of dengue virus has frustrated scientists for decades. But researchers at the University of North Carolina have discovered a new target for human antibodies that could hold the key to a vaccine for the world’s most widespread mosquito-borne disease. Using an experimental technique new  Read More »

Taming microbes to combat antibiotic resistance

(EurekAlert) With antibiotic resistant infections on the rise and a scarce pipeline of novel drugs to combat them, researchers at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) are pursuing entirely new approaches to meet the challenge of drug-resistant infections by taming microbes rather than killing them. Michael Yeaman, PhD, an  Read More »

Saudi Arabian Camels Carry MERS Coronavirus

(Global Biodefense) An estimated three-quarters of camels recently surveyed in Saudi Arabia have evidence of infection with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), the virus responsible for human cases of MERS. Results of the new study establish for the first time that direct camel-to-human transmission is possible and provide a pathway to control the  Read More »