A study carried out in collaboration with the University of Birmingham has used an innovative approach to identify thousands of antibiotic resistance genes found in bacteria that inhabit the human gut. The human gut is home to trillions of microorganisms, mainly bacteria. Most of these are sensitive to antibiotics, but a significant number of bacteria in the human gut have ...

Rigorous cleaning practices don’t ensure that medical scopes are free of contamination, and many of these reusable devices have scratches and dents that could harbor blood, tissue and bacteria, a new study found. The seven-month study, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, found that 12 of 20 gastroscopes and colonoscopes examined tested positive for bacterial growth, even after ...

While beneficial microbes are becoming a more common tool in agriculture, their effectiveness in the field is severely blunted thanks to real-world environmental stressors like heat and drought, competition with other microbes, and interactions with the host plant. Such factors can reduce the treatment’s effectiveness or even drive the microbe to extinction. Adding to these challenges: the development of new ...

Immunologists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered that a protein called NLRC3 plays a central role in inhibiting colon cells from becoming cancerous. The study, led by Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti, Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Department of Immunology, appears online today in the journal Nature. Researchers found that deleting the protective NLRC3 protein exacerbates colon cancer development. They ...