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By Category: Biotechnology

Tests being developed to aid ricin, toxin investigations

(SpokesmanReview) As federal prosecutors build a case against a Spokane man charged with sending ricin-laced letters to the president, the CIA, a federal judge and Fairchild Air Force Base, one of the legal challenges they’ll face is proving that the substance is indeed ricin, a lethal poison derived from ground seeds of the castor plant.  Read More »

Flu Virus Attacks Like a Pirate With a Grappling Hook

(GlobalBiodefense) Viruses are biological pirates, invading cells and hijacking their machinery to reproduce and infect again. Research at Harvard Medical School is shedding new light on the battle line where viral and cell membranes meet, and the key role of a protein grappling hook with which the influenza virus commandeers its prize—your cells. An influenza  Read More »

The Elusive H7N9 Virus: Chinese Researchers Predict Future Pandemic

(Science2.0) Since February 2013, China experienced an outbreak of the novel H7N9 avian flu, causing 131 cases of infection, and a death toll of 39. This particular H7N9 strain is considered to be one of the most worrisome pathogens since the H5N1 pandemic in 1997; a reputation based on the virus’ ability to spread easily  Read More »

A shot in the arm for old antibiotics

(EurekAlert) Slipping bacteria some silver could give old antibiotics new life, scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University reported June 19 in Science Translational Medicine. Treating bacteria with a silver-containing compound boosted the efficacy of a broad range of widely used antibiotics and helped them stop otherwise lethal infections in  Read More »

Making Bacteria Make More Antibiotics More Quickly

(MedicalNewsToday) An antibiotic has been found to stimulate its own production. The findings, to be published in PNAS, could make it easier to scale up antibiotic production for commercialisation. Scientists Dr Emma Sherwood and Professor Mervyn Bibb from the John Innes Centre were able to use their discovery of how the antibiotic is naturally produced  Read More »

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