How electricity-eating microbes use electrons to fix carbon dioxide
Led by Arpita Bose, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, a Washington University team showed how an electricity-eating microbe takes up electrons from conductive substances like metal oxides or rust to reduce carbon dioxide. The work is described in the journal Nature Communications.
Blodgett awarded CAREER grant to study biosynthetic silence
Joshua Blodgett, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, received a five-year $900,500 grant to support his research related to actinomycete bacteria. This type of bacteria produces a majority of current antibiotics and may harbor other useful small molecules that could be revealed by activating silent genes.
Farming amoebae carry around detoxifying food
The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum can farm symbiotic bacteria for food by carrying them from generation to generation. New research shows that these bacteria can also protect the amoeba from environmental toxins.
Viruses flourish in guts of healthy babies
Bacteria aren’t the only non-human invaders to colonize the gut shortly after a baby’s birth. Viruses also set up house there, according to new research led by Lori Holtz, MD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Drug-resistant bacteria possess natural ability to become vulnerable to antibiotics
Infections with one of the most troublesome and least
understood antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” are increasing at alarming
rates, particularly in health-care settings. But by studying A. baumannii, a frequent cause of difficult-to-treat infections in hospitals, researchers have identified a naturally occurring process that restores its vulnerability to antibiotics.
A person’s diet, acidity of urine may affect susceptibility to UTIs
The acidity of urine — as well as the presence of small molecules related to diet — may influence how well bacteria can grow in the urinary tract, a new study shows. The research, led by Jeffrey Henderson, MD, PhD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, may have implications for treating urinary tract infections, which are among the most common bacterial infections worldwide.
New insight into inflammatory bowel disease may lead to better treatments
A newly discovered link between bacteria and immune cells sheds light on inflammatory bowel disease, an autoimmune condition that affects 1.6 million people in the United States, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Common bacteria on verge of becoming antibiotic-resistant superbugs
Antibiotic resistance is poised to spread rapidly around the globe among bacteria frequently implicated in respiratory and urinary infections in hospital settings, according to new research at the School of Medicine.
Possible treatments identified for highly contagious stomach virus
Antibiotics aren’t supposed to be effective against viruses, but new evidence in mice suggests they may help fight norovirus, a highly contagious virus that causes severe gastrointestinal illness, scientists at the School of Medicine report.
In mice, vaccine stops urinary tract infections linked to catheters
The most common type of hospital-associated infection may be preventable with a vaccine, new research in mice suggests. The experimental vaccine, created by School of Medicine researchers, prevented urinary tract infections associated with catheters, the tubes that hospitals and other care facilities insert to drain urine from the bladder.
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