all microbes and microbiology stories

Intestinal Bacteria Promote and Prevent Inflammatory Bowel Disease

yvette — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:53:08 -0400

Scientists search for drug candidates in some very unlikely places. Not only do they churn out synthetic compounds in industrial-scale laboratories, but they also scour coral reefs and scrape tree bark in the hope of stumbling upon an unsuspecting molecule that just might turn into next year’s big block buster. But one region that scientists have not been searching is their guts. Literally.

At Radcliffe, microbiologist explains 'biocomplexity'

50443248 — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 09:24:01 -0400

The scientist who revolutionized the study of cholera paid a visit to Harvard this week.

On March 6, microbiologist and oceanographer Rita R. Colwell, a Johns Hopkins University public health researcher, delivered the last in a series of science talks in the 2006-2007 Dean’s Lecture series at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

In three decades of research, Colwell has made major contributions to the understanding of cholera, an intestinal disease so ancient that its symptoms were first described in Sanskrit.

Food pathogen vector shows promise against cancer

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:25:49 -0400

For the past four decades, researchers have poked and prodded Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes - the basic science trade names of sometimes deadly bugs - to discover how they interact with the immune system, invade cells, rob them of nutrients, and blossom within other cells to eventually shut down necessary bodily functions. From his work with these pathogens, Darren Higgins, Harvard Medical School assistant professor of microbiology, has discovered how to create a vector to promote health. A vector is a kind of delivery vehicle that can transport vaccines. In a study, researchers infected mice with an especially virulent line of melanoma. Six of the eight mice whose immune system was primed with the E. coli/Listeria vector remained tumor-free for more than 90 days post-infection, and the remaining two mice showed significant delay in tumor growth compared with mice that did not receive the cancer vaccination. The mice in the study's control group did not live past 16 days. "The results of this study are very positive," says Higgins. "It suggests that we could utilize this killed bacterial formulation to prime the immune system against diseases such as cancer, or other viral and bacterial pathogens."

Discovering what lives in your mouth

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:23:35 -0400

Your mouth is a great place for micropests to dwell. Glistening white plateaus, dark crevices, and slimy surfaces boast steamy temperatures of 95 degrees Fahrenheit. The microbes bathe in a saliva-induced humidity of 100 percent, and eat a lavish diet of sugar and other carbohydrates. It's so lush and varied, researcher Donna Mager refers to it as a mini-jungle. Mager is a fellow in oral medicine at the Forsyth Institute, an independent research institution in Boston. Forsyth scientists, most of whom are on the faculty of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, have found 615 different species of bacteria - and they're still counting.

Genetic computation tells man from microbe

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:16:39 -0400

By one estimate (based on bacteria counts in the colon or stool samples), microbes that call our bodies home outnumber human cells 10 to 1. Most of the bacteria, viruses, and other microbes are harmless or even beneficial. But others are suspected of being at the root of mysterious chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, atherosclerosis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and several types of cancer. Matthew Meyerson, a Harvard Medical School assistant professor who conducts his research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, thought that using a process of elimination would allow him to detect and identify new infectious causes of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and inflammatory diseases. Meyerson and colleagues developed a new mathematical tool that uses the process of elimination to unmask microbes lurking in human tissue. While a study, published in the February 2002 Nature Genetics, did not identify new pathogens, it successfully detected a specific type of human papillomavirus in cervical cells, where it is known to cause cancer. The researchers call their new diagnostic tool "computational subtraction method" and have applied for a patent.

Human genome sequence yields new tool for microbe-hunting

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:18:21 -0400

Microbiologists have traditionally identified pathogens (disease-causing organisms) by growing them in a laboratory dish from a sample of infected tissue. But not all pathogens can be cultured this way. Molecular tools do exist and have been used to identify some new disease organisms, but they have major limitations. But a new microbe-hunting method holds promise for identifying previously undetected disease-causing organisms. The technological tool relies on DNA sequence data compiled in the nearly completed Human Genome Project over the past 10 years.

Anthrax toxin receptor discovered

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:16:14 -0400

The first point of contact between anthrax toxin that invades the body and the cells that the toxin will eventually destroy is a protein, known as a "docking" protein or receptor. This docking protein was recently discovered by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Wisconsin Medical School. Their discovery will, they hope, lead to a strategy for fighting anthax infection, even after symptoms have developed and treatment with antibiotics is no longer effective. The discovery was reported in Nature online on Oct. 23, 2001, and in the Nov. 8, 2001, print edition.