WHO: These 12 bacteria pose greatest risk to human health
(CNN) Twelve types of bacteria were deemed “priorities” in urgent need of new antibiotics, according to a list released by the World Health Organization on Monday.
Viruses cure cholera
Phage therapy may finally be gaining ground in the United States. Researchers from Tufts University just reported that a virus cocktail effectively prevents cholera in an animal model.
According to study author Andrew Camilli, “while phage therapy has existed for decades, our study is proof-of-principle that it can be used to protect against infection and intervene in the transmission of disease. We are hopeful that phages can someday be a tool in the public health arsenal that helps decrease the global burden of cholera, which affects up to four million people around the world each year.”
Phage find clever ways to infiltrate resistant bacteria and shuttle DNA between strains
In the gut, in the soil, and myriad other spots, bacteria reign, forming complex communities—but not in isolation. They’re often influenced by bacteria-killing viruses known as bacteriophages. A recent study in Cell now shows how such viruses can infect bystander, virus-resistant bacteria and transfer bits of DNA to them.
ADVANCING PHAGE THERAPY
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the planet’s most numerous microorganisms. They kill vast numbers of bacteria in natural environments. They can also be used to treat bacterial infections.
Do you speak virus? Phages caught sending chemical messages
Viruses called phages hijack bacteria and use them to produce more copies of themselves. Now researchers have found they can also communicate.
Viruses sense chemical signals left behind by their forebears so they can decide whether to kill or just to infect their hosts.
A Woman Was Killed by a Superbug Resistant to All 26 American Antibiotics
A virus, fished out of a lake, may have saved a man’s life — and advanced science
Dodge Pond, which sits on the outskirts of East Lyme, Conn., is an ordinary New England lake. It’s home to fish like bluegill and alewife, along with smaller organisms like water fleas, algae, and bacteria. There are viruses in Dodge Pond, too, most of which infect its bacteria. And one of Dodge Pond’s viruses, known as OMKO1, has now earned it a place in medical history.
Antibiotics crisis: is phage therapy the answer?
It’s been used in the former USSR for a century. Now the West is taking notice
Bacteriophage – or ‘phage’ for short – is a virus that infects bacteria. These naturally occurring infective agents contaminate bacterium and replicate once within. They are everywhere – including all over our bodies where they outnumber bacteria 10 to one – and are one of the most common entities in the biosphere.