Bacterial Research:Basic computing elements created in bacteria ♦ C. difficile needs iron, but not too much: Insights into maintaining it 'just right' ♦ Using bacterial 'fight clubs' to find new drugs

Using bacterial 'fight clubs' to find new drugs Chemists have demonstrated that creating bacterial 'fight clubs' is an effective way to discover natural molecules with the potential to become new drugs. The "fight club" approach applies analytical tools to analyze what happens when microbes compete.

C. difficile needs iron, but not too much: Insights into maintaining it 'just right' Those bacteria that require iron walk a tightrope. Iron is essential for their growth, but too much iron can damage DNA and enzymes through oxidation. Therefore, bacteria have machinery to maintain their intracellular iron within a range that is healthy for them.

Basic computing elements created in bacteria Researchers unveil a series of sensors, memory switches, and circuits that can be encoded in the common human gut bacterium. These basic computing elements will allow the bacteria to sense, memorize, and respond to signals in the gut, with future applications that might include the early detection and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease or colon cancer,

Drug-resistant bacteria possess natural ability to become vulnerable to antibiotics Infections with one of the most troublesome and least understood antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” are increasing. But now scientists have shown the bacteria, A. baumannii, can naturally relinquish its defenses against antibiotics.

Multiple, co-existing groups of gut bacteria keep Clostridium difficile infections at bay Multiple species of bacteria working together in healthy guts are responsible for keeping out nasty bacterial invader, Clostridium difficile, a hospital-acquired culprit responsible for 15,000 deaths each year. The study could lead to tests to predict which hospital patients are at highest risk of infection and better management of infections.

Health News: New Ebola treatment effective three days ♦ Overcoming drug-resistant malaria ♦ Impact study of chronic pain conditions

Stressed-out parasites: Overcoming drug-resistant malaria Drug resistance to the critical antimalarial therapeutics of the artemisinin family has emerged in Southeast Asia, highlighting the need to understand how these drugs work and how they can be used more effectively. Artemisinins may function by chemically damaging the malaria parasite's proteins, causing them to activate a cellular stress response

Discovery could impact study of chronic pain conditions Researchers have uncovered the critical role in pain processing of a gene associated with a rare disease. Their breakthrough paves the way for a better understanding of chronic pain

Missing genetic link found in a challenging immune disease In the largest genome-wide analysis to date of common variable immunodeficiency disorder, scientists have identified a gene that may be a 'missing link' between overactive and underactive immune activity.

Finding effective, cost-effective treatments for complex wounds Two new papers identify which of the hundreds of available treatments for complex wounds are most likely to be effective and which are most likely to be cost-effective. Complex wounds are a significant burden on patients and on the economy, costing the North American health-care system $10 billion a year.

New Ebola treatment effective three days after infection  A post-exposure treatment that is effective against a specific strain of the Ebola virus that killed thousands of people in West Africa has been developed. The treatment uses a sequence specific short strand of RNA, known as siRNA, designed to target and interfere with the Ebola virus, rendering it harmless.

Cancer Research: Small RNA plays big role suppressing cancer ♦ Personalized melanoma vaccines ♦ New treatment options for colon cancer

Small RNA plays big role suppressing cancer The microRNA miR-22 has long been known for its ability to suppress cancer. However, questions remain about how it achieves this feat. For example, which molecules are regulating miR-22, and which are miR-22 targets? Researchers have unraveled some of these relationships, identifying several interactions that directly impact liver and colon cancer

Personalized melanoma vaccines marshal powerful immune response Personalized melanoma vaccines can be used to marshal a powerful immune response against unique mutations in patients' tumors, according to early data in a first-in-people clinical trial.

Body's cancer defenses hijacked to make pancreatic, lung cancers more aggressive A vital self-destruct switch in cells can be hijacked, making some pancreatic and non small cell lung cancers more aggressive, according to research. Researchers found that mutations in the KRAS gene interferes with protective self-destruct switches, known as TRAIL receptors, which usually help to kill potentially cancerous cells.

Dual therapy's 1-2 punch knocks out drug-resistant lung cancer Capitalizing on a rare opportunity to thoroughly analyze a tumor from a lung cancer patient who had developed resistance to targeted drug treatment, scientists identified a biological escape hatch that explains the resistance, and developed a strategy in mice for shutting it down

New treatment options for colon cancer An existing chemotherapy drug used to treat leukemia could prevent and control the growth of colorectal tumors, scientists have discovered

Health News: Preservation of Antibiotic Legislation ♦ Dissemination of staph infections in hospitals ♦ Prescribe exercise for people with HIV + more

Rep. Slaughter Reintroduces Preservation of Antibiotic Legislation  Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) reintroduced the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act , which would ban non-therapeutic uses of medically important antibiotics in food animal production. “My legislation would save eight critical classes of antibiotics from being routinely fed to healthy animals” Continue Reading

The dissemination of staph infections in hospitals  Wireless sensors recording human interactions explain the transmission of germs, such as MRSA, in hospitals, according to new research.Continue Reading

Experiments reveal key components of the body's machinery for battling deadly tularemia  Key molecules that trigger the immune system to launch an attack on the bacterium that causes tularemia have been discovered by researchers. Tularemia is a highly infectious disease that kills more than 30 percent of those infected, if left untreated. It can be readily transmitted by air, insect bites or through contaminated food or water Continue Reading

Along with antiretroviral medications, doctors may prescribe exercise for people with HIV  In addition to antiretroviral medications, people with HIV may soon begin receiving a home exercise plan from their doctors. Continue Reading

Scientists use DNA sequencing to trace the spread of drug-resistant TB Scientists have used DNA sequencing to trace the fatal spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis between patients in the UK. TB is spread by inhaling tiny airborne droplets from an infected person. Continue Reading

2/27/15 Health News: Water fluoridation linked to underactive thyroid ♦ GM food rules to take effect early ♦ Treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis ♦ HIV drug beat strep throat

GM food rules to take effect 6 months early Originally slated to be implemented on Jan. 1, 2016, the law states that manufacturers should clearly label all food products, additives and loosely packaged products containing genetically modified ingredients. The print on the labels must be over 5 millimeters, and processed foods including soy oil must list any genetically modified ingredients Continue Reading

Potential treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis discovered  A new small molecule drug has been discovered that may serve as a treatment against multidrug resistant tuberculosis, a form of the disease that cannot be cured with conventional therapies. While standard anti-tuberculosis drugs can cure most people of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection, improper use of antibiotics has led to new strains of the bacterium resistant to the two most powerful medications, isoniazid and rifampicin. Continue Reading

New research provides first glimpse of weight gain guidance for pregnant women with obesity  New research provides the first glimpse of weight-gain guidance for pregnant women with various classes of obesity based on body mass index and suggests that they not gain any weight until mid-pregnancy or later Continue Reading

Water fluoridation in England linked to higher rates of underactive thyroid Water fluoridation above a certain level is linked to 30 percent higher than expected rates of underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) in England. Researchers point out that their findings echo those of previous research,. Continue Reading

Could an HIV drug beat strep throat, flesh-eating bacteria? With antibiotic resistance on the rise, scientists are looking for innovative ways to combat bacterial infections. The pathogen that causes conditions from strep throat to flesh-eating disease is among them, but scientists have now found a tool that could help them fight it: a drug approved to treat HIV. Their work could someday lead to new treatments Continue Reading

12/18/14 Health News: E. COLI VICTIM SUE WHOLE FOODS ♦ Trichinellosis outbreak in Belgium ♦ New treatment for drug-resistant skin cancer

PARENTS OF E. COLI VICTIM SUE WHOLE FOODS

The parents of Joshua Kaye are suing Whole Foods Market over their son’s death. Eight-year-old Joshua from Braintree, MA, died last summer from an E. coli 0157:H7 infection that turned into hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). Multiple people were sickened and epidemiological evidence traced the source to grass-fed ground beef back to Whole Foods. “Federal agents were... Continue Reading

Trichinellosis outbreak reported in Belgium

Health officials in Belgium have reported that at least 14 people have been infected with the parasitic nematode worm Trichinella After eating wild boar meat at three different restaurants in early November  Continue Reading

SPENDING BILL BANS ‘CHINESE CHICKEN’ FROM FEDERAL MEAL PROGRAMS

A provision included in the $1.1-trillion spending bill Congress passed last week and which is now headed to the president’s desk prevents poultry processed in China from being used in the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program and Summer Food Service Program (Section 736 of Division A). Four Chinese poultry-processing plants have... Continue Reading

New targeted drugs could treat drug-resistant skin cancer

A brand new family of cancer drugs designed to block several key cancer-causing proteins at once could potentially treat incurable skin cancers, a major new study reports. Clinical trials to test the new drugs in patients should begin as early as 2015 Continue Reading

2/18/14 Health News Mom Pleads~ DON’T FEED CHILDREN RAW MILK - Stem Cell Lines Not Fit for Clinic- New Antibiotic for TB - Testing Your Breath To Diagnose Disease

A MOM AND A DAIRYMAN PLEAD: DON’T FEED

Two years ago, when Oregon parents Jill Brown and Jason Young met Brad and Tricia Salyers, the families had no idea that they would eventually be sharing in a tragedy that sickened four of the Salyers’ children and left Brown and Young’s youngest child, Kylee – 23 months old at the time – with such... Continue Reading

Diagnosis Just a Breath Away With New Laser

University of Adelaide physics researchers have developed a new type of laser that will enable exciting new advances in areas as diverse as breath analysis for disease diagnosis and remote sensing of critical greenhouse gases. They have been able to produce 25 times more light emission than other lasers operating at a similar wavelength - opening the way for detection of very low concentrations of gases. Research has shown that with various diseases, minute amounts of gases not normally exhaled can be detected in the breath; for example, acetone can be detected in the breath when someone has diabetes..Continue Reading

A Faster Way to Flag Bacteria-Tainted Food — and Prevent Illness

On the horizon is a new approach for pathogen screening that is far faster than current commercial methods. Scientists are reporting the technique in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry. Sibani Lisa Biswal and colleagues note that Salmonella is one of the pathogens most commonly associated with foodborne illness, which can cause fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps. They used an array of tiny “nanomechanical cantilevers,” anchored at one end, kind of like little diving boards. The cantilevers have peptides attached to them that bind to Salmonella. When the bacteria bind to the peptides, the cantilever arm bends, creating a signal. The screening system rapidly distinguished Salmonella from other types of bacteria in a sample. One of the peptides was even more specific than an antibody, Continue Reading

Stem Cell Lines Not Fit for Clinic

Most stem cell lines registered with the NIH don’t comply with the FDA’s guidelines for human use, according to a new report. Many of the stem cell lines used by academics and registered with the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) would not be eligible for commercialization because they don’t pass muster with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agencies’ standards throws up a potential roadblock on the path from the laboratory to the clinic. “The main concern . How do we move this technology [to the clinic]? How do we translate it?”.Continue Reading

Promising Class of Antibiotics Discovered for Treatment of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have discovered a promising new class of antibiotics that could aid efforts to overcome drug-resistance in tuberculosis (TB), a global killer. The drugs increased survival of mice infected with TB and were effective against drug-resistant strains of TB. St. Jude led the international research effort, The antibiotics, called spectinamides, were created by changing the chemical structure of an existing antibiotic, spectinomycin, which does not work against TB. In multiple trials of mice with both active and chronic TB infections, researchers report that one version of the new drug—an analog known as 1599—was as good as or better than current TB drugs at reducing levels of the bacteria in the lungs of mice. In addition, 1599 caused no serious side effects.Continue Reading

Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Attacks South Africans

Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) appears to be spreading in South Africa, fueled by patients who are discharged despite failing therapy, researchers reported.

In a prospective cohort of patients with XDR-TB [1], most patients died and only a handful were cured, according to Keertan Dheda, PhD, of University of Cape Town in South Africa, and colleagues.

About 40 percent were eventually discharged into the community and of those, almost half had failed treatment and remained alive and contagious for a median of 19.8 months, Dheda and colleagues reported online in The Lancet

Analysis showed clusters of new cases and transmission within families containing a patient who had failed therapy. Dheda said in a statement, the study shows that "treatment failure and discharge of such patients into the wider community, is occurring systematically on a countrywide level in South Africa."

The problem, he said, is that "little bed space is available in designated tuberculosis hospitals, and alternative long-term residential and palliative care facilities are scarce." The study is a "stark reminder" of the threat of drug-resistant TB, argued Max O'Donnell, MD, of Albert Einstein College of Medicine.and Neil Schluger, MD, of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, both in New York City

In an accompanying Comment article, O'Donnell and Schluger noted that global TB control efforts have resulted in modest gains in the past decade, but drug resistance threatens to reverse those improvements . Drug-resistant TB "is an out-of-control problem with potentially vast and devastating repercussions for global public health," they argued.

Most cases of TB succumb to a regimen consisting of isoniazid (Nydrazid), rifampin (Rifadin), ethambutol (Myambutol), and pyrazinamide for 8 weeks, followed by isoniazid and rifampin for another 18 weeks. But multidrug resistant-TB (MDR-TB) -- defined by resistance to [at least] isoniazid and rifampin -- is more difficult to treat. Still more difficult is XDR-TB, defined by resistance to isoniazid and rifampin, as well as any fluoroquinolone and at least one of 3 injectable 2nd-line drugs, such as amikacin (Amikin), kanamycin (Kantrex), or capreomycin (Capastat).

Between March 2008 and August 2012, Dheda and colleagues followed 107 patients from 3 provinces in South Africa who had been diagnosed with XDR-TB between August 2002 and February 2008. The study is a follow-up to a retrospective analysis, including many of the same patients, that was reported in 2010.

All were treated empirically as inpatients with a median of 8 drugs; genotypic testing of a subset of patients showed resistance to at least 8 drugs and in one case resistance to all 10 drugs that were tried.

After 60 months, the researchers reported, just 12 patients had a favorable outcome. Another 78 had died, 4 had interrupted treatment, and 11 remained alive but were considered to have failed treatment -- they remained TB culture-positive despite at least 12 months of therapy.

Patients who ran out of therapeutic options were discharged, Dheda and colleagues reported, after a median treatment duration of 22 months. All told, 56 patients died in the hospital, 6 transferred out of the region, and 45 patients were discharged.

Of those discharged, 19 had failed treatment and a third of those were smear-microscopy-positive at discharge. Their median survival was 19.84 months. "These patients can survive for months or even years, and are contributing to the community-based spread of XDR-TB," Dheda said.

Indeed, he and colleagues reported, DNA fingerprinting showed that in one instance an XDR-TB patient, who had failed treatment and been discharged, infected his brother who later died.

What's needed, O'Donnell and Schluger argued, are "major new investments in drug development, diagnostics, and operational research." But, they noted, global TB research budgets are shrinking, so that "the situation regarding MDR and XDR-TB is bleak."

Source ProMED-mail