#antibiotic

[cookiewishesyou]

On this September 28, 2024, Cookie wishes you a clinical 95th anniversary to the bacteria-killing mold being noticed by Alexander Fleming while growing in his laboratory - later known to be penicillin (1928)!

[eretzyisrael]

Good News From Israel

Israel's Good News Newsletter to 9th Jun 24

In the 9th Jun 24 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

Two more Israeli breakthroughs in the fight against cancer.

An Israeli exercise system can improve poor eyesight by 25%.

Thousands of Israel’s supporters took to the streets in London and Manhattan.

Intel unveiled its new Israeli-developed microprocessor for powering AI systems.

An Israeli innovation is poised to transform the electric battery industry.

See latest examples of Israeli technology in France and South Africa.

On Jerusalem Day 2024 the population of Jerusalem exceeds one million.

Read More: Good News from Israel

This newsletter was compiled before the latest rescue of four hostages from Gaza.  However, all of Israel is celebrating the good news, despite the loss of another Israeli hero. The photo is from one of the many celebrations that have been taking place in Israel as we depart the traditional period of mourning after Passover and look forward to the Jewish festival of Shavuot (Pentacost) which commemorates the Revelation on Mount Sinai.  We pray that we will have many more opportunities to celebrate in the coming weeks and months.  Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy these latest news items of positive Israeli activities and achievements.

[miss-biophys]

My paper featured in the 50 best microbiology papers!

Our discovery of a new antibiotic target in bacteria was selected by a Nature Communications editor as one of the 50 best recently published papers in Microbiology and infectious diseases.

Search for "Lateral membrane organization" among the featured articles to find the research that I coordinated:

This surely gives me a boost for my next scientific work! Although it took ages to publish it (4 years this one) and A LOT of frustration, it was worth it!

[spooniestrong]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Happy Broadcast (@the_happy_broadcast)

[thuocdantoc-vn]

Dị ứng thuốc nếu không được chữa trị sớm và đúng cách có thể khiến bệnh nhân gặp phải nguy hiểm, đe dọa đến cả tình mạng. Vậy dị ứng thuốc là gì? Cách xử lý khi bị dị ứng thuốc ra sao?

[jcmarchi]

A protein found in human sweat may protect against Lyme disease

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/a-protein-found-in-human-sweat-may-protect-against-lyme-disease/

A protein found in human sweat may protect against Lyme disease

Lyme disease, a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks, affects nearly half a million people in the United States every year. In most cases, antibiotics effectively clear the infection, but for some patients, symptoms linger for months or years.

Researchers at MIT and the University of Helsinki have now discovered that human sweat contains a protein that can protect against Lyme disease. They also found that about one-third of the population carries a genetic variant of this protein that is associated with Lyme disease in genome-wide association studies.

It’s unknown exactly how the protein inhibits the growth of the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, but the researchers hope to harness the protein’s protective abilities to create skin creams that could help prevent the disease, or to treat infections that don’t respond to antibiotics.

“This protein may provide some protection from Lyme disease, and we think there are real implications here for a preventative and possibly a therapeutic based on this protein,” says Michal Caspi Tal, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering and one of the senior authors of the new study.

Hanna Ollila, a senior researcher at the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki and a researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, is also a senior author of the paper, which appears today in Nature Communications. The paper’s lead author is Satu Strausz, a postdoc at the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki.

A surprising link

Lyme disease is most often caused by a bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi. In the United States, this bacterium is spread by ticks that are carried by mice, deer, and other animals. Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a distinctive bulls-eye rash.

Most patients receive doxycycline, an antibiotic that usually clears up the infection. In some patients, however, symptoms such as fatigue, memory problems, sleep disruption, and body aches can persist for months or years.

Tal and Ollila, who were postdocs together at Stanford University, began this study a few years ago in hopes of finding genetic markers of susceptibility to Lyme disease. To that end, they decided to run a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on a Finnish dataset that contains genome sequences for 410,000 people, along with detailed information on their medical histories.

This dataset includes about 7,000 people who had been diagnosed with Lyme disease, allowing the researchers to look for genetic variants that were more frequently found in people who had had Lyme disease, compared with those who hadn’t.

This analysis revealed three hits, including two found in immune molecules that had been previously linked with Lyme disease. However, their third hit was a complete surprise — a secretoglobin called SCGB1D2.

Secretoglobins are a family of proteins found in tissues that line the lungs and other organs, where they play a role in immune responses to infection. The researchers discovered that this particular secretoglobin is produced primarily by cells in the sweat glands.

To find out how this protein might influence Lyme disease, the researchers created normal and mutated versions of SCGB1D2 and exposed them to Borrelia burgdorferi grown in the lab. They found that the normal version of the protein significantly inhibited the growth of Borrelia burgdorferi. However, when they exposed bacteria to the mutated version, twice as much protein was required to suppress bacterial growth.

The researchers then exposed bacteria to either the normal or mutated variant of SCGB1D2 and injected them into mice. Mice injected with the bacteria exposed to the mutant protein became infected with Lyme disease, but mice injected with bacteria exposed to the normal version of SCGB1D2 did not.

“In the paper we show they stayed healthy until day 10, but we followed the mice for over a month, and they never got infected. This wasn’t a delay, this was a full stop. That was really exciting,” Tal says.

Preventing infection

After the MIT and University of Helsinki researchers posted their initial findings on a preprint server, researchers in Estonia replicated the results of the genome-wide association study, using data from the Estonian Biobank. These data, from about 210,000 people, including 18,000 with Lyme disease, were later added to the final Nature Communications study.

The researchers aren’t sure yet how SCGB1D2 inhibits bacterial growth, or why the variant is less effective. However, they did find that the variant causes a shift from the amino acid proline to leucine, which may interfere with the formation of a helix found in the normal version.

They now plan to investigate whether applying the protein to the skin of mice, which do not naturally produce SCGB1D2, could prevent them from being infected by Borrelia burgdorferi. They also plan to explore the protein’s potential as a treatment for infections that don’t respond to antibiotics.

“We have fantastic antibiotics that work for 90 percent of people, but in the 40 years we’ve known about Lyme disease, we have not budged that,” Tal says. “Ten percent of people don’t recover after having antibiotics, and there’s no treatment for them.”

“This finding opens the door to a completely new approach to preventing Lyme disease in the first place, and it will be interesting to see if it could be useful for preventing other types of skin infections too,” says Kara Spiller, a professor of biomedical innovation in the School of Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University, who was not involved in the study.

The researchers note that people who have the protective version of SCGB1D2 can still develop Lyme disease, and they should not assume that they won’t. One factor that may play a role is whether the person happens to be sweating when they’re bitten by a tick carrying Borrelia burgdorferi.

SCGB1D2 is just one of 11 secretoglobin proteins produced by the human body, and Tal also plans to study what some of those other secretoglobins may be doing in the body, especially in the lungs, where many of them are found.

“The thing I’m most excited about is this idea that secretoglobins might be a class of antimicrobial proteins that we haven’t thought about. As immunologists, we talk nonstop about immunoglobulins, but I had never heard of a secretoglobin before this popped up in our GWAS study. This is why it’s so fun for me now. I want to know what they all do,” she says.

The research was funded, in part, by Emily and Malcolm Fairbairn, the Instrumentarium Science Foundation, the Academy of Finland, the Finnish Medical Foundation, the Younger Family, and the Bay Area Lyme Foundation.

[healthinnovations]

New nanonets target, trap, and kill specific bacteria

New nanonets target, trap, and kill specific bacteria The nanonets could be used instead of antibiotics once fully developed. Thoughts health innovators?

The nanonets could be used instead of antibiotics once fully developed. The microscopic nets consist of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), proteins that form a mesh when they detect certain chemicals in the bacterial cell membrane. Once the AMPs have attached themselves to the bacteria via these chemical sites, they attract other peptides, self-organizing to project long, interwoven tendrils to…

[mediblogs-blog]

Moxifloxacin & Dexamethasone Sodium Phosphate ophthalmic solution is a powerful combination medication designed to treat bacterial eye infections and inflammation. By blending an antibiotic and a corticosteroid, this solution provides relief from discomfort while eliminating harmful bacteria. This article delves into its uses, benefits, dosage, potential side effects, and answers to frequently asked questions.

[eretzyisrael]

Good News From Israel

Israel's Good News Newsletter to 29/1/23

In the 29th Jan 23 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

Israeli women are the 9th healthiest of 122 countries surveyed.

Israel has good news for IBD sufferers.

Israel added a record value of new medical benefits into its 2023 health basket.

For 60 years a Jerusalem charity has quietly supported the elderly in need.

A new Israeli natural sweetener has 70% less sugar for the same taste.

Israelis enjoy the world's best value Internet service.

A new Israeli factory is to mass-produce flexible solar panels.

An ancient site being excavated in Judea has three Biblical sources.

Read More: Good News From Israel

This week's positive Israel newsletter is full of healthy facts and innovations. Israel's subsidized medical treatments have just received a record annual increase of funds. There is news of current and potential treatments for Inflammatory bowel disease, bacterial infections, Parkinson's disease, personalized medicine, and the aging process. No wonder that Israeli women are among the world's healthiest. An Israeli charity looks after the health of the elderly; Sderot's trauma center is a global model of resilience; and the hearing-impaired have a new Israeli app. Meanwhile, Israelis are helping to sustain farmers in India and relieve war-weary civilians in Ukraine.

Israeli startups recently won awards for life-changing inventions. Israeli innovations protect wildlife from oil spills; save the world's coral reefs; convert polluting waste into food and fuel; make packaging that reduces CO2 emissions; create healthier sugar; develop and promote non-animal food alternatives; grow better yielding, sustainable crops and mass-produce flexible solar energy panels.

So come and enjoy our warm winter streets, mind-expanding museums and exhilarating musical events. Or pass on this newsletter to those who are only getting unhealthy messages about the Jewish State.

[miss-biophys]

We found a new antibiotic target in bacteria!!

It took almost 4 years, but the fruits of my postdoc research are finally here! In our paper (with me as the first author), just published in Nature Communications, we decipher a working mechanism of an antibiotic that targets the membrane of bacteria in an unprecedented way!

enhanced PDF: https://rdcu.be/dgj2d web version: https://lnkd.in/eRpxr4jg

And how does it work?

The antibiotic AMC-109 first self-assembles into stable aggregates with a cationic surface. These aggregates then specifically target bacteria cells and insert into their membrane.

You can see the process how we simulated it in a computer on the figure below. Grey-Blue is the antibiotic, Red-Yellow are lipids that together form a membrane.

@jmelcr did this awesome simulation work! You are an amazing scientist, jmelcr! I love you and it seems our collaboration did not ruin our marriage. Not yet, anyway 😄.

After insertion into the bacterial membrane, the antibiotic dissolves membrane nanodomains affecting membrane function without formation of any pores or holes in the membrane.

Below is the series of high-speed atomic force microscopy images that shows the process of dissolution of membrane nanodomains. Yellow are the membranes extracted from bacteria laying flat on a hard surface (black). The membranes contain nanodomains (bright yellow) that are important in living bacteria for its survival. Addition of antibiotic dissolves them.

More studies will follow that use this new target in bacteria giving us an advantage over untreatable superbugs. I will keep you posted. And... keep your fingers crossed. It's research after all, so we never know if and how well it's going to work.

[ipconsultinggroup-1]

1956 - A patent for an oral form of the antibiotic Penicillin was granted to Ernst Brandl and Hans Margreiter.

[thuocdantoc-vn]

Dị ứng thuốc kháng sinh xảy ra khi hệ miễn dịch phản ứng quá mức, gây hại cho cơ thể khi sử dụng hoặc tiếp xúc với các loại thuốc này. Vậy triệu chứng dị ứng thuốc kháng sinh là gì? Cách điều trị như thế nào?

[jcmarchi]

3 questions: Leveraging insights to enable clinical outcomes

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/3-questions-leveraging-insights-to-enable-clinical-outcomes/

3 questions: Leveraging insights to enable clinical outcomes

Associate Professor Thomas Heldt joined the MIT faculty in 2013 as a core member of the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Additionally, Heldt is a principal investigator with MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), and he directs the Integrative Neuromonitoring and Critical Care Informatics Group in IMES and RLE. He was recently named an associate director of IMES, where he will focus on internal affairs, among other duties. 

Heldt received his Medical Engineering and Medical Physics (MEMP) PhD from the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST) in 2004. Heldt’s research interests include signal processing, estimation and identification of physiological systems, mathematical modeling, model identification to support real-time clinical decision making, monitoring of disease progression, and titration of therapy, primarily in neurocritical and neonatal critical care. Here, Heldt describes how he collaborates closely with MIT colleagues and others at Boston-area hospitals, and how his research uses and analyzes physiologic data to aid clinical action.

Q: How does your research apply to solving clinical needs?

A: We look at current clinical environments and observe the volumes of multimodal physiologic waveform data that are collected on patients in critical care, peri-operative care, or even emergency care. Much of this data is typically visually reviewed by the clinicians and subsequently discarded after a holding period of just a few days. We thus lose the opportunity for more systematic analyses and for deriving patient-specific insights. Critical to such analyses of these data streams is a deep understanding of the relevant physiology at the time scales of interest. We leverage insights from physiology, formulated as reduced order mathematical models capturing the essential mechanisms that enable clinical action. We have applied this approach successfully to estimate intracranial pressure noninvasively, to make diagnostic decisions based on the analysis of the shape of the capnogram, and, are currently using ultrasound-based approaches to detect embolic events in patients on life support, such as ventricular assist devices or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. 

Q: You work closely with colleagues across MIT, and with clinicians at Boston-area hospitals, including Boston Children’s Hospital (where you hold a courtesy research appointment in neurology), Boston Medical Center (neurosurgery), and Massachusetts General Hospital (emergency medicine). What has been the fruit of some of these collaborations — what is the impact on your research?

A: Boston is a fantastic place to conduct translational research that crosses from our laboratories at MIT into the clinical environments for validation in the actual target patient population! The collaborative disposition and forward-thinking mindset of our clinician colleagues have really been fundamentally enabling for our research and have provided amazing mentoring to our students, postdocs, and me. We have collected validation data in brain-injured patients in the ICUs [intensive care units] at Boston Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH), and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC); we have collected pilot and validation data for our capnography work in the emergency departments at BCH and BIDMC; we have collected data for our emboli work in the operating rooms and ICUs at BCH, and have analyzed the medical records of the neonatal ICU at BIDMC and the emergency department at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Our work with the neonatologist at BIDMC was focused on analyzing the monitoring alarm patterns in the neonatal ICU. We counted a staggering 177 alarms/baby/day, or one alarm every eight minutes on average, per baby. And this is a 54-bed neonatal ICU operating close to capacity every day! Such volumes of alarms contribute to noise pollution in an environment that should ideally be very calm. Additionally, since most of the alarms are nuisance alarms or do not require any clinical intervention, the clinical staff becomes desensitized to the alarm load and might end up ignoring truly important events. We analyzed the alarm patterns and alarm thresholds for a particular type of heart rate alarms and recommended a change in thresholds. This resulted in a 50 percent reduction in heart rate alarms per patient per day. Initially, the clinical staff had to file weekly reports to make sure the reduction in the alarm rate did not result in missed or adverse events. After about three months without a single reportable event, the hospital safety committee approved the change.

With colleagues from the MGH Department of Emergency Medicine, we developed and tested a triage rule to identify patients at risk of septic shock. At the time, the MGH ED [emergency department] saw more than 120,000 patients/year, and around 75 percent of patients ending up in the ICU with severe sepsis and septic shock came through the emergency department. Hence, ED triage was the first point of patient contact and the first opportunity to flag patients for possible sepsis and septic shock and initiation of early goal-directed therapy. One result of our work was a significant reduction in the time to appropriate antibiotic administration in the emergency department. The work was subsequently validated in other Partners hospitals and implemented in the electronic medical record system of Partners-affiliated hospitals. 

Q: Can you talk a bit about your background, and about how you became interested in systems-physiology and biomedicine? What are your goals for your research, and for your career?

A: That is a longer story! In short, I started out studying physics back in Germany. After a while, I got interested in applying concepts I learned in physics to physiology and medicine, so I designed my own MD/PhD program by picking up medicine as a second major. Through some fortuitous events, I ended up attending surgeries for congenital heart defects for about a term. This was a very formative experience, and almost pushed me toward dropping physics and going all-out on becoming a surgeon. However, I had also always wanted to spend part of my education abroad and had applied to various universities in the U.S. I ended up getting admitted to the graduate physics program at Yale and spent a couple of years doing nonlinear optics. While I loved the work at Yale and had a fantastic mentor, I missed the clinical exposure and application of my work to medicine. I had heard about the HST program and decided to send in an application. I joined the MEMP program in 1997 and have been at MIT ever since.

In our current research, we are very interested in providing better monitoring modalities for patients with brain injuries. We are developing novel algorithmic and device approaches so we can replace the current invasive monitoring modalities with entirely noninvasive ones and provide additional clinically actionable information that gives insights on the physiology of the injured brain and can help guide treatment decision. I want to see some of these technologies through to routine deployment at the bedside.

The great thing about being in IMES and MIT is that we everybody is very collaborative. What I am looking forward to is much of the same, working with colleagues in IMES on important problems that none of us is be able to tackle alone, but that together we have a real chance of tackling — and having fun along the way! 

[agreenroad]

Antibiotics: When it’s best to avoid them and 10 natural alternatives

Antibiotics: When it’s best to avoid them and 10 natural alternatives

[alexanderrogge]

Carmen Leitch - A Tropical Fruit With a Antimicrobial Effects:

BlighiaSapida #Okpu #TropicalFruit #Antimicrobial #AntibioticResistance #Antibiotic #Disease #Pathogenicity #Medicine #PlantBiology #Microbiology #Biology