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The researchers have solved the three-dimensional structure of a key region of the DNA-protein complex. Knowledge about the structures that control the activity of genes associated with virulence and resistance to antibiotics is crucial to understand the molecular mechanisms that regulate bacterial pathogenicity and to pave the way for alternative treatments to conventional antibiotics.

A Queen's University infectious disease expert has collaborated in the development of a disinfection system that may change the way hospital rooms all over the world are cleaned as well as stop bed bug outbreaks in hotels and apartments.

BOSTON – Cancer of the liver – rare in the United States but the third-leading cause of cancer death worldwide – can result from environmental exposures or infections like chronic hepatitis, but the link is poorly understood.

SAN ANTONIO, TX -- The presence of circulating tumor cells in the blood appears to have no relationship to survival in women who have just been diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, according to new research from Fox Chase Cancer Center. However, the research shows that these stray tumor cells may signal that the disease has spread to other parts of the body, even before imaging reveals any metastases. The results will be presented on Friday, December 9 at the 2011 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

In populations with a low prevalence of tuberculosis (TB), the majority of positives with the three tests commercially available in the U.S for the diagnosis of TB are false positives, according to a new study.

[EMBARGOED FOR DEC. 9, 2011] The investigation of a 2009 multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), an important cause of bacterial gastrointestinal illness, led to a new culprit: ready-to-bake commercial prepackaged cookie dough.

A new study published on bmj.com today supports the claim that the introduction of breast cancer screening in the UK may have caused more harm than good.

Harms included false positives (abnormal results that turn out to be normal) and overtreatment (treatment of harmless cancers that would never have caused symptoms or death during a patient's lifetime). This may be because the cancer grows so slowly that the patient dies of other causes before it produces symptoms, or the cancer remains dormant or regresses.

SAN ANTONIO — An intermittent, low-carbohydrate diet was superior to a standard, daily calorie-restricted diet for reducing weight and lowering blood levels of insulin, a cancer-promoting hormone, according to recent findings.

Researchers at Genesis Prevention Center at University Hospital in South Manchester, England, found that restricting carbohydrates two days per week may be a better dietary approach than a standard, daily calorie-restricted diet for preventing breast cancer and other diseases, but they said further study is needed.

SAN ANTONIO -- Exemestane steadily lowered levels of "good" cholesterol in women taking the agent as part of a breast cancer prevention study, say researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Exemestane, an aromatase inhibitor used to treat estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, is being tested to prevent breast cancer in women at an increased risk of developing the disease.

SAN ANTONIO -- Precisely quantifying the amount of three different HER growth proteins, along with several other proteins believed linked to breast cancer, did not predict a patient's outcome after treatment for HER2-Positive Breast Cancer with Herceptin, say Mayo Clinic researchers. HER2-positive breast cancer gets its name from a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 that promotes cancer cell growth.

Scientists have found the 'key' that HIV uses to enter our cells' nuclei, allowing it to disable the immune system and cause AIDS The finding, published today in the open access journal PLoS Pathogens, provides a potential new target for anti-AIDS drugs that could be more effective against drug-resistant strains of the virus.

DURHAM, N.C. – One of the most comprehensive studies to date of the microbes that are found in extremely low-birthweight infants found that hard-to-treat Candida fungus is often present, as well as some harmful bacteria and parasites.

Researchers at the Duke University Medical Center and Nicholas School of the Environment looked at the microbes in 11 premature infants and found much less diversity than in full-term infants.

People with prehypertension had a lower risk of stroke when they took blood pressure-lowering medicines, according to research reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Prehypertension, which affects more than 50 million adults in the United States, is blood pressure ranging between 120/80 mm Hg and 139/89 mm Hg. Hypertension is 140/90 mm Hg or higher.

TAMPA, Fla. (Dec. 8, 2011) – Women who have non-melanoma skin cancers are more likely to have smoked cigarettes compared to women without skin cancer, said researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., who published study results in a recent issue of Cancer Causes & Control.

Shahriar Mobashery, a University of Notre Dame researcher, is one of the coauthors of a new paper by a group of the world's leading scientists in academia and industry that calls for strong steps to be taken to control the global crisis of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. The group issued a priority list of steps that need to be taken on a global scale to resolve the crisis.

The paper is an outgrowth of a meeting the group held at the Banbury Conference Centre in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., to discuss the crisis and it appears in the journal Nature Reviews Microbiology.