Antibiotics

Scientists at Brown University have developed a new material that can release drugs only when pathogenic bacteria are around. When used as a bandage, the hydrogel could deliver medication on-demand when infection begins to take hold.Overuse of antibiotics is one of the key drivers of drug resistance in bacteria. Delivering the right amount at the right time can help slow that process down, but it can be tricky to judge. So for the new study, the Brown researchers developed a smart material that only releases its drug…

The WHO estimates that one-fourth of the world’s population has latent TB. The HIV epidemic was a rude awakening. Suddenly there was a realization that TB was a grave crisis. HIV, because it compromised immunity, liberated the latent TB. The logic was inescapable: any widespread epidemic that adversely affected immunity had the capacity to make latent TB into an active and deadly killer. In Mumbai, TB is everywhere and nowhere. Spotting the bacteria is not unlike spotting a tiger in a jungle— while glimpses are…

For many years now, health authorities around the world have been trying to reduce the overuse of antibiotics in cases where they're not strictly needed, but a new study shows the message still isn't getting through – even within the medical community.  The problem is a serious one. In addition to the risk of side effects when antibiotics are prescribed unnecessarily, the specter of antibiotic resistance is a growing concern in global health, already constituting the third leading cause of death worldwide by some…

Next, they proved that the bots could swim. In test tubes containing urea, the microbots reached speeds of up to 4 micrometers per second—“one or two body lengths per second,” says Sánchez. (Humans also swim around one body-length per second.)Then it was time to show that the bots could also kill. But the team agonized over how to prove that they could actually treat an animal’s infection better than by just using passive drops of antibiotics. "That took some time," de la Fuente says.In the end, they devised a setup to…

Hospital patients that are prescribed antibiotics are more likely to get fungal infections because of disruption to the immune system in the gut. Immune-boosting drugs could reduce the health risks from complex infections.Patients prescribed antibiotics in the hospital are more likely to get fungal infections because of disruption to the immune system in the gut.Using immune-boosting drugs alongside the antibiotics could reduce the health risks from these complex infections, according to a new study from the <span…