#tuberculosis bacteria

[mindblowingscience]

The rod-shaped tuberculosis (TB) bacterium, which the World Health Organization has once again ranked as the top infectious disease killer globally, is the first single-celled organism ever observed to maintain a consistent growth rate throughout its life cycle. These findings, reported by Tufts University School of Medicine researchers on November 15 in the journal Nature Microbiology, overturn core beliefs of bacterial cell biology and hint at why the deadly pathogen so readily outmaneuvers our immune system and antibiotics.

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[hiddenbeks]

in the hopital again

[dilfsisko]

Tuberculosis mention!

[selfshipdorito]

"Rito just rambled to me about bacteria... I'm glad they're enjoying themselves, and listening to them sounding so happy makes me happy. I-I'm not sure I understand much of it though..."

[unofficial-sean]

A woman in Tacoma, WA was diagnosed with an active infection of tuberculosis. She has already infected several medical staff and refuses to quarantine and receive treatment for her infection. Courts are presently working on litigation to either force her into receiving treatment or jail time.

While the legal process is at work, it is really important for everyone to take preventative measures to stop the spread of tuberculosis. It can lay dormant for a long time. This has the potential to spread worldwide to nations that have otherwise kept a lid on TB infections.

Please be safe. Please do the right thing.

[bpod-bpod]

Frozen Out

Developed just over a hundred years ago, the BCG vaccine is the only vaccine widely-used against tuberculosis, or TB, a disease caused by infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb, pictured). While highly effective in protecting infants from the most serious forms of disease, BCG is less successful in preventing transmission and lung disease in adults. TB remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide, with most cases in South-East Asia and Africa. New vaccines are being tested, including promising solutions combining antigens, molecules provoking an immune response specifically against Mtb, with adjuvants, that further stimulate the immune system. In recent phase I clinical trials, a freeze-dried vaccine, that would not need to be kept refrigerated, was found to be safe, causing no serious side-effects, and to trigger antibody production. While still in early stages of testing, a more robust vaccine would be hugely beneficial to vaccination campaigns in remote areas.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Image from the NIH, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Bethesda MD, USA

Research from Zachary K. Sagawa et al, Access to Advanced Health Institute (formerly Infectious Disease Research Institute), Seattle, WA, USA

Image in the Public Domain

Research published in Nature Communications, March 2023

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[genderjester]

I love to listen and relisten to this podcast will kill u so much fr. Comfort podcast even tho the diseases they talk abt are obv often rly gnarly but i love. Microbiology and medical history<3

Also specifically relistening to the leishmaniasis episode made me once again go Ah! We should kill the profit driven pharma industry with hammers!

[stonesfromglasshouses]

Imbibe thine antiscrofulatic concoction and maybe you'll calm down

[sunmoonandspoon]

i actually saw a play about doctor semmelweis having a total breakdown because no matter what he did, no one took him seriously. ironically i was the only person in the audience wearing a mask.

[beezinfo]

Study reveals how tuberculosis bacteria form cords to resist antibiotics

The capacity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), a serious respiratory contamination, to frame snake-like ropes was first noted almost a long time back. In a review distributed October 20 in the diary Cell, examiners report the biophysical components by which these lines structure and show how a few ages of partitioning microbes hang together to make these designs that empower protection from anti-toxins. Read more

[thelivinghealthypodcast]

Check out a clip from the latest podcast episode. Infectious Disease: How to Stay Safe In Day to Day Life

[nuadox]

A practical and effective novel community-based TB diagnostic technology

- By Nuadox Crew -

According to a new trial published in Nature Medicine, Xpert, a portable, battery-powered molecular diagnostic instrument, was able to detect almost all potentially infectious cases of tuberculosis (TB) in a community trial of over 600 people in South Africa.

The device is a low-cost solution that includes a vehicle driven by two healthcare staff, modern portable battery-powered DNA-based diagnostics, and technology to gather sputum samples even when patients are unable to generate one. 

The authors believe that these findings highlight the importance of shifting to an active case finding approach for tuberculosis diagnosis, emphasizing that portable, DNA-based diagnostic techniques linked directly to care will be critical for interrupting disease transmission in community settings.

--

Source: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Full study: Esmail, A., Randall, P., Oelofse, S. et al. Comparison of two diagnostic intervention packages for community-based active case finding for tuberculosis: an open-label randomized controlled trial. Nat Med (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02247-1

Read Also

Administering TB vaccine intravenously could improve efficacy

[himmurf]

Internet Explorer, with their skeletal hand raised: Back in my day, you might think the guy who sang numa numa was the first thing to go go viral. He had a section on Oprah, he did. Or that man with the skateboarding pug!

Ok, back to bed, grandma.

*pushes Internet Explorer back into it's grave.

watching a tiktok and someone just described the black/blue gold/yellow dress meme as “one of the first things to ever go viral”

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

Hi. I've started writing a semi-weekly TB Newsletter, if you're interested in that kind of thing. Here's the second letter--about public-private partnerships, leprosy, and my forthcoming big announcement about expanding access to tuberculosis care. You'll hear more about that on Thursday. Anyway, here's the newsletter. You can sign up here.

---

In advance of the Big Announcement this Thursday, I made a vlogbrothers video today on how we end TB–with the comprehensive care plan often known as S-T-P, which is short for “Search, Treat, and Prevent.” But one thing I didn’t discuss in that video is the downstream benefits of comprehensive TB care.

Once you’ve hired community health workers to screen for TB, it becomes much easier to screen for other illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure, and non-TB lung issues (especially lung cancer). TB is notoriously a disease of vicious cycles–a disease of malnutrition that makes malnutrition worse, a disease of poverty that makes poverty worse, and so on–but addressing TB can be a story of virtuous cycles: TB survivors become TB advocates, as I’ve seen with my friend Henry in Sierra Leone. More effective TB treatment leads to less stigmatization of the disease, as communities come to see the disease as curable and survivable rather than terrifying and deadly. And better access to TB care leads to a stronger overall healthcare system, because more community health workers are better connected to more primary healthcare clinics, which allows communities to better address all kinds of health problems.

—

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is not the only bacteria of its family that causes a lot of human suffering; there is a closely related species called mycobacterium leprae that causes the disease known as Hansen's Disease, or more commonly leprosy. There are still around 200,000 cases of leprosy diagnosed each year around the world, and while the disease is curable, it also remains–especially if not caught and treated early–a significant driver of suffering and disability in our world. 

There are many connections between TB and leprosy: Not only are the bacteria that cause these illnesses very similar, but patients have often expressed similarities in experience. TB patients who were encouraged or forced to live in sanitariums often compared themselves to lepers. One disheartening parallel between the diseases is that in both cases, those living with these illnesses are often abandoned by their families and must make new social connections within the new community of “leper” or “consumptive.” Also, both Hansen’s Disease and TB continue to exist largely because of systemic failures rather than due to a lack of knowledge or technology.

—

I really recommend Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee’s TED talk about how we ended TB in the U.S., and how we can end it using the same strategy around the world.

—

Last link from me today: I’ve been thinking a lot about the complex intersection between public and private investment (for reasons that will be clear on Thursday!) and I keep coming back to one infographic in an excellent paper (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0256883) about the public money that was poured into the creation of the GeneXpert Machine, which can quickly and accurately test for TB. The GeneXpert machine has created a lot of profit for Danaher’s shareholders, and it has also created some societal benefit, but it could create a lot more societal benefit if it created less profit for Danaher’s shareholders. This tension seems to me one of the defining features of 21st century life. Anyway, here is the infographic:

That’s the money–over $250,000,000 of it–that came from taxpayers (mostly in the U.S. and Europe) to fund the creation of the GeneXpert Machine. And yet, this tech largely funded by the public is controlled entirely by private enterprise. I’m troubled by that model of value allocation, even if I still believe that private money and private enterprise have important roles to play in fueling innovation. But taking a quarter billion dollars of public money and then claiming total ownership over a technology, and using that ownership to deny the technology to the world’s poorest people, seems like a deeply flawed system of resource distribution to me.

I’ll see you on Thursday. I’m nervous and excited.

DFTBA,

John

[whencyclopedia]

Discovery of Penicillin

The age of antibiotics began in September 1928, with the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), then a professor of bacteriology at St. Mary's Hospital in London. Previously there were no effective treatments against a range of bacterial infections from pneumonia to sepsis.

Penicillin became the basis for curing bacterial infections including smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, pneumonia, gonorrhea, meningitis, and diphtheria. Later antibiotics would form a class of medicines designed to combat, and cure, bacterial infections but also prevent the further growth of such infections.

Background

The use of fungi and molds, which contain antibacterial substances, to treat bacterial infections can be traced back to ancient cultures around the world, but these early attempts were unable to identify the component that provided the medicinal effect. Joseph Lister (1827-1912), an English surgeon and the "Father of antisepsis," recognized the antibacterial component of mold, but did not publish his findings. In the 1870s, Robert Koch (1843-1910), a German biologist, and Louis Pasteur (1825-1895) and Jules Francois Joubert (1834-1910), two French biologists, discovered the germ theory, which established that particular bacteria cause specific diseases. Additionally, they proved that the effects of introducing certain bacteria to various cultures inhibited the growth of more deadly bacteria.

The discovery of penicillin represented a turning point in medical history while Fleming would later be recognized by Time magazine as one of the most influential people of the 20th century:

When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928 I certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I suppose that is exactly what I did.

Continue reading...

[rottenpumpkin13]

Ok I now need a whole thing of Sephiroth randomly info dumping

*Zack is happily eating a banana*

Sephiroth: Due to the presence of the isotope potassium-40, bananas are radioactive.

*Zack stops chewing*

Sephiroth: Be not afraid. Radiation is everywhere. Terrestrial radiation, cosmic radiation, electromagnetic radiation, and even in our electronic devices.

*Zack panics and starts crying*

-

*During a meeting*

Lazard: I trust that no one had problems accessing their paychecks last week?

Sephiroth: Women earn approximately 23% less for every gil earned by a man for the same work, a consequence of gross systemic inequities in our society.

Lazard:

Sephiroth: You should be ashamed of yourself.

-

*Genesis coughs*

Sephiroth: Despite the advancement of modern medicine, millions of people still lack access to essential healthcare services, which leads to death and disease.

Genesis: Oh, I'm not sick.

Sephiroth: Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by bacteria, known as mycobacterium tuberculosis, and often goes unnoticed during its latent stages, leading the individual to believe they are well.

Genesis: What the fuck do I do with this information now?

Sephiroth: Tuberculosis is one of the top 10 causes of global death, with an average of over 3000 deaths—

Genesis, panicked: STOP IT.

-

*Sephiroth walks up to Angeal*

Sephiroth: Foot odor is caused by the high concentration of sweat glands in the feet, which produce sweat not easily evaporated when confined in shoes, creating a moist environment ideal for bacterial growth.

Angeal: ......

*Sephiroth walks away*

Angeal: ......

*Angeal self consciously removes his boot and brings it up to his nose*

Angeal: MY FEET DON'T SMELL, YOU IDIOT!

-

*Cloud is standing around on patrol when Sephiroth walks up to him*

Sephiroth: Though the weight of a cloud can vary depending on its size, altitude and water content, the average cloud weighs around 500,000 kilograms.

Cloud: .......

*Sephiroth briefly picks Cloud up and places him back down*

Sephiroth: I was wrong.