Supercharged vancomycin to the rescue
Mark Blaskovich gives us his thoughts on a recent study he led, published in Nature Communications, where the team re-engineered existing antibiotics to make them more powerful.
Browsing: Resistance Mechanisms
About AMR: Limiting antibiotic use not enough to curb resistance reservoirs
Researchers have demonstrated that antibiotic-resistance plasmids persist in the absence of antibiotics, provided that the efficiency of plasmid transfer exceeds a critical threshold, highlighting the limitations of ‘resistance-reversal’ strategies.
An ancient alternative to antibiotics: Clays
Certain clays are proven alternatives to antibiotics and their general antibacterial mechanism has been documented, but will it pay to implement this inexpensive treatment?
About AMR: Self-destruction in response to nutrient starvation is key to antibiotic activity
A recently published study has uncovered how an antibiotic that targets a metabolic pathway to starve bacteria of a nutrient can lead to cell death, shedding light on the downstream effects that can account for toxicity.
Novel antibiotic resistance genes discovered
Researchers have uncovered novel bacterial genes conferring B1 metallo-β-lactamases, and therefore resistance to last-resort antibiotics the carbapenems.
About AMR: Antimicrobial drug selection has a ripple effect on multidrug-resistant infections
Julie Kaiser discusses the findings and implications of a recent study published in PNAS modeling the sequence of events that increases the risk of colonization and infection with multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria.
Phage therapy shows promise against multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogens
Researchers have successfully treated a 68-year old diabetic patient with a personalized bacteriophage-based treatment. The patient suffered from necrotizing pancreatitis that had previously been unresponsive to routine antibiotic treatment.
Understanding molecular causes of antifungal resistance in A. fumigatus
In this piece, Fabio Gsaller discusses the mechanisms underpinning antifungal resistance in A. fumigatus and his work on the use of 5-flucytosine as a therapeutic agent in managing aspergillosis.
