Featured series 
Tag: bacteriology
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Science & Tech
Scientists discover how ocean bacterium turns carbon into fuel
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We hear this mantra time and again. When it comes to carbon—the “Most Wanted” element in terms of climate change—nature has got reuse and recycle covered. However, it’s up to us to reduce.
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Health
Discovery could aid fight against cystic fibrosis infection
Harvard Medical School researchers have discovered one way that a hardy disease-causing bacteria could be surviving in the lungs of chronically infected cystic fibrosis patients. “This work is important because pathogenic bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa use protein secretion systems to cause disease in their hosts,” said Joseph Mougous, lead author of the study published…
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Health
Bacterium present in eyes with ‘wet’ age-related macular degeneration
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in Americans over the age of 55. The majority of vision loss is due to neovascular AMD, the advanced form of the disease characterized by the formation of blood vessels in the macula, the center part of the eye’s retina. These blood vessels often leak,…
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Health
Sublethal force: New antibiotic aims to tame bacterial toxins
Using an innovative screening approach, researchers in the lab of John Mekalanos have identified an entirely new class of antibiotics active against the cholera bacterium. While traditional antibiotics kill bacteria outright by interfering with processes essential for their survival, the new agents block production of bacterial proteins that promote infection and cause cholera symptoms. Tests…
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Health
Bacterium proves essential to immune system development
In the July 15, 2005 Cell, a team led by Dennis Kasper, the William Ellery Channing Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and Sarkis Mazmanian, HMS instructor in microbiology and molecular genetics, both at the Channing laboratory, reports that Bacteriodes fragilis…
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Health
Risk of becoming resistant to antibiotics may be lower than expected for chronic sinus infection sufferers
“This study was designed to help determine how great a risk antibiotic resistance was among chronic sinus patients to determine if there is a need to re-evaluate how we diagnose and treat the condition. Interestingly, our research shows that patients suffering from chronic sinus infections may be able to lower their rate and likelihood of…
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Health
Hold that penicillin
“The threat of resistance to antibiotics by bacteria increased so dramatically from the 1970s to the mid-1990s that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) labeled it a national public health crisis,” said Jonathan Finkelstein of the Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in Boston. The CDC has called on doctors to…
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Health
Enzyme pair joins fight against drug-resistant bacteria
Scientists have been striving to develop antibiotics against drug-resistant bacterial strains. Most attempts have been plagued by a lack of molecular tools for manipulating — and ultimately improving — the structure of naturally occurring antibiotics. Harvard Medical School researchers Heather Losey, Christopher T. Walsh, and their colleagues reported in the Dec. 16, 2002 issue of…
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Health
Bacterial construct makes for elegant vaccine
Investigators from Harvard Medical School and London’s Hammersmith Hospital have found a way to use the bacterium Listeria along with Escherichia coli to fight disease instead of causing it. In the November 2001 issue of Gene Therapy, Darren Higgins, Harvard Medical School assistant professor of microbiology, and Hammersmith co-authors report that by modifying E. coli…
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Science & Tech
Putting bacteria to work
A nautical group of bacteria known as Prochlorococcus removes carbon dioxide from air and fixes it into the carbon content of their own tiny bodies. The more carbon dioxide they take from the air, the less is available to capture the heat that is causing the warm-up of our planet. That adds up to a…
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Health
Discovering what lives in your mouth
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…
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Health
Staying healthy amidst bacterial “Overkill”
A new book by Harvard School of Public Health Assistant Professor of Risk Analysis and Decision Science Kimberly Thompson takes a look at how the way we live is causing the rise of drug-resistant germs that are threatening an abrupt end to “The Age of Miracles” and bringing us all into “The Age of Risk…
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Health
A strategy to neutralize anthrax toxin in the body
A Harvard Medical School research team has developed a strategy to neutralize anthrax toxin in the body. So far they have tried the treatment in rats. Normally, rats die within hours after being injected with anthrax toxin. But when the toxin was followed minutes later with an injection of an inhibiting agent known as a…
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Health
Resistance to antibodies is reversed
It’s a frightening — and increasingly common — problem. A patient seeks treatment for a particular ailment in a hospital and develops an entirely different disease: a bacterial infection that is resistant to antibiotics. Researchers have worked to come up with better and more powerful antibiotics, but even an antibiotic such as vancomycin, which used…
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Health
Introducing baby to the right bacteria
Developing a symbiotic relationship with the right bacteria is essential for a baby’s health and development. W. Allan Walker, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, has been leading research into the complex relationship among the newborn gastrointestinal system, its bacterial immigrants, and the way breast milk helps regulate the process. Walker…
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Health
A potential new anthrax therapy
A vaccine to protect humans against anthrax already exists, but since infection is rare, a widespread vaccination program is not practical. To be effective against anthrax, antibiotics must be given before symptoms actually develop, which is little use to those who are infected. An unvaccinated victim of anthrax usually dies within a few days. That…
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Health
Accomplice fingered in cholera toxicity
A study published in March 2001 revealed one of the ways that cholera toxin hijacks some of the cell’s own machinery. In uncovering part of the toxin’s trail, a team led by Tom Rapoport, Howard Hughes investigator and Harvard Medical School professor of cell biology, has also identified a novel mechanism for chaperoning the unfolding…