microbiology
mikethemadbiologist | February 14, 2007Having been trained as an evolutionary biologist, I've always thought that the medical literature avoids using the word evolution: instead, words like emergence, development, spread, and acquisition are used. In PLos Biology, there's an article that quantifies what I've always suspected:
The increase in resistance of human pathogens to antimicrobial agents is one of the best-documented examples of evolution in action at the present time, and because it has direct life-and-death consequences, it provides the strongest rationale for teaching evolutionary biology as a rigorous science in high…
mikethemadbiologist | February 12, 2007Here's some very good news about MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus): U.S. hospitals are beginning to implement their own versions of 'search and destroy' (italics mine):
Hospitals can stem the alarming spread of a dangerous and drug-resistant staph infection by screening new patients and keeping them quarantined, say doctors who tried this novel approach.
One model is a pilot program started in 2001 at the Pittsburgh Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, which has dramatically cut the rate of the potentially deadly germ, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or…
grrlscientist | February 10, 2007Researchers revealed that grocery store shopping cart handles are one of the worst public places for germs. How germy can shopping carts really be? Very, according to researchers at the University of Arizona who tested all kinds of public surfaces. They found that shopping carts were loaded with more saliva, bacteria and even fecal matter than escalators, public telephones, and even public bathrooms.
"Every kid in America teethes on shopping cart handles," said Dr. Chuck Gerba at the University of Arizona. "They don't have the best sanitary habits. ... I mean, you're putting your broccoli…
mikethemadbiologist | February 8, 2007By way of Effect Measure, I came across this Consumer Reports article about bacterial contamination of chicken. The short version: I'm not convinced that the bacterial contamination problem has become worse--keep in mind, I'm not saying that bacterial contamination is not a problem, only that the problem has remained constant in scope.
A good comparison to the Consumer Reports ('CR') study is the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System ('NARMS') report. For almost ten years, NARMS has been collecting bacterial isolates nationwide from store-bought meat products, including…
sporte | February 6, 2007Are viral and fungal infections always a bad thing?
Maybe not if you're a plant.
In fact, if you're a plant trying to grow in the hot (65°; C) soils of Yellowstone National Park, you're going to need all the help you can get.
A new study by Márquez, et.al. (1) found that a type of grass (Dichanthelium lanuginosum) is able to grow in the hot soils of Yellowstone National Park because it gets help from some friends. A fungal friend. And that fungal friend is infected with a virus.
If you're not used to thinking in degrees centigrade, it's hard to grasp immediately, just how hot 65°; C is…
mikethemadbiologist | February 5, 2007I want to follow up on a point Amanda made in response to my post about the Texas plan to immune all girls against HPV. (Maybe between the two of us, we'll rub some good points together and come up with an idea...) Amanda writes (italics mine):
...it's true that the opt-out policy does mean that it's going to be a lot harder for vindictive, misogynist parents to refuse to protect their daughters from cervical cancer. It's the difference between neglect and active abuse, really. Without mandatory vaccinations, denying your daughter preventative treatment was easy, since you simply had to…
mikethemadbiologist | February 3, 2007It should tell you just how loony the Christopath right is when a conservative Texas governor gains admission to the Coalition of the Sane (for the time being, anyway). How did Texas governor Rick Perry do it? By mandating that schoolgirls receive the HPV vaccine, and that the state subsidize the vaccinations. From the AP:
Some conservatives and parents' rights groups worry that requiring girls to get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way they raise their children.
By using an executive order…
mikethemadbiologist | January 31, 2007Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a major public health threat. Currently, there are only a few antibiotics that are effective against it, and resistance is even a problem with these antibiotics. There is a potential treatment that might be effective against MRSA: heteropolymer (HP) antibody therapy.
To explain what HP antibody therapy is, I first want to give a vastly oversimplified explanation of what your immune system does when your bloodstream is infected with MRSA. The immune system, produces two molecules that attach to each other, one of which is an antibody.…
mikethemadbiologist | January 29, 2007I write often about irresponsible antibiotic use. But I want to make one thing clear: antibiotics are critical, life-saving and health-improving drugs. In the U.S., every year roughly two million people contract hospital-acquired infections (this ignores infections contracted outside the hospital). Roughly 96% don't die. Antibiotics are a major reason, if not the major reason, for why the mortality rate is so low. I'm pointing out the obvious because of an email I received (I've 'de-identified' all of the personal information):
hi, mike. i've been reading your blog on triclosan and…
sporte | January 29, 2007The University of Nevada in Las Vegas is looking for a few good undergraduates to come do research this summer in environmental microbiology. Environmental microbiology goes way beyond hot springs bacteria and Yellowstone Park. At UNLV, you can do science in the desert.
It almost makes me wish I was an undergraduate again.
The Microbiology faculty at the UNLV and the Desert Research Institute are looking for inquisitive and eager undergraduates to participate in a 10 week summer research experience in the REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) program.
Projects involve studying…
mikethemadbiologist | January 24, 2007Well, kinda sorta. I'm mentioned in a UPI article about rapid diagnosis of influenza and antibiotic use. Rather than repeat the UPI story, here's the abstract (don't worry, I'll translate):
Background: Rapid influenza testing decreases antibiotic and ancillary test use in febrile children, yet its effect on the care of hospitalized adults is unexplored.We compared the clinical management of patients with influenza whose rapid antigen test result was positive (Ag+) with the management of those whose rapid antigen test result was negative or the test was not performed (Ag0).
Methods: Medical…
mikethemadbiologist | January 23, 2007Update: I was in error (long day at work). The article was published in Wired magazine
Seed Magazine, the meatworld Overlords of ScienceBlogs, has an article about Acinetobacter baumannii, a bacterium which can be resistant to virtually every antibiotic used to treat it--and in some cases, all antibiotics.
It's pretty good, although I think A. baumanii is less of a problem than MRSA, for example. It's also never been clear to me why the strains that circulate in hospitals are resistant to fewer drugs than those recovered from environmental trauma wounds (e.g., wounded soldiers). Anyway, I…
mikethemadbiologist | January 18, 2007In the developed world, shigellosis, a diahrreal disease caused by the bacterial species Shigella, typically isn't considered dangerous, even though it makes about 450,000 ill in the U.S. To shorten the length of illness and to reduce potential infection of other people, antibiotics are typically prescribed, usually cotrmoxazole or ampicillin. However, recent shigellosis outbreaks are cause for concern (italics mine):
Surveillance data for antimicrobial resistance among all S. sonnei isolates received by NARMS during 1999--2003 indicated that 80% of the isolates were resistant to ampicillin…
mikethemadbiologist | January 17, 2007There's an interesting article about the norovirus outbreak in Boston (it also seems to be nationwide). At this point, over half a percent of all the residents of Boston have gone to the emergency room due to this virus--which means even more have been sick.
First, as always, wash your damn hands! Now, onto the public health. What's interesting is that Massachusetts has installed a real-time surveillance system to deal with bioterrorism and biopreparedness (i.e., avian flu--got that, Fumento?). But as the biosecurity 'community'* is beginning to learn, you can't separate biosecurity from…
mikethemadbiologist | January 13, 2007The most common hospital-acquired infections in intensive care units are ventilator-associated pneumonias ('VAP'), which have mortality rates between 20-50 percent. The more quickly the appropriate antibiotic can be given to the patient, the more likely the patient is to survive. Researchers in Spain have developed a rapid technique for determining which antibiotic (or antibiotics) to use.
First, a very brief bit about VAP. These infections usually result from intubation--a tube is inserted into the the mouth, through the larynx, and into the trachea, and is hooked up to a ventilator (…
mikethemadbiologist | January 11, 2007Massachusetts is trying to tackle the problem of hospital-acquired ('nosocomial') infections by adding $1 million dollars in funding to track and monitor hospital compliance with infection control measures. As I've discussed before, nosocomial infections are a huge problem, and may account for roughly a quarter of all hospital costs. From the Boston Globe:
State officials plan to increase scrutiny of hospital-acquired infections in Massachusetts as a way to significantly lower their frequency, and they hope to require all hospitals to report their infection rates to the state by next year.…
sporte | January 6, 2007
Decan Butler, the Reveres, and Nature have written that verdict is in. The scientific evidence has been shunted aside. The nurses and doctor who traveled to Tripoli on a humanitarian mission have been sentenced to death. There is still a chance, but it seems to be slim.
Two articles in Nature, with free access (I think) discuss the case and present some additional shocking news.
To quote the main article (Europe condemns Libyan trial verdict):
The six medical workers were sentenced to death on 19 December by the Benghazi Criminal Court for deliberately infecting more than 400 children…
mikethemadbiologist | January 4, 2007A while back I posted about how awful it would be for the FDA to approve the use of cefquinome, an antibiotic similar to the medically important drug cefepime. I even coauthored a letter about it. Well, it turns out the IDSA wrote a letter about cefquinome too (the whole letter, in pdf). There's good and bad things about the letter. First, the bad--the IDSA proposals about what to do if cefquinome is approved:
1. Limit the marketing status to prescription only.
2. Prohibit extra-label use of the product.
3. Limit the extent of use to "low," meaning that the drug will be administered…
sporte | January 4, 2007The wind storms and heavy rains that hit Seattle recently, demonstrated why a bypass mechanism can be a helpful thing - for both bacteria and motorists.
Under the bridge on Mercer, from the Seattle Times
When the weather is nice, I bike to work. But when the weather gets bad, (I consider rain and 69 mph winds to be BAD), I take the easy way out. On the day of the big windstorm though, driving home was not so easy. A mudslide covered one of my usual paths, blocked two lanes on a very busy street, and stopped traffic well into the depths of the city.
Since we had to get to a soccer…
sporte | January 3, 2007This is the fifth part of a multipart series on antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
The previous installments:
1. A primer on antibiotic resistance: an introduction to the question of antibiotic resistance.
2. Natural vs. synthetic drugs: what is the difference between an antibiotics and synthetic drugs.
3. How do antibiotics kill bacteria? a general discussion of the pathways where antibiotics can act and one characteristic that helps some bacteria survive.
4. Are antibiotics really only made by bacteria and fungi? It depends on what you'd like to call them.
Before we go on, I think it's time…