Body

Staphylococcus aureus is both a transient skin colonizer and a for- midable human pathogen, ranking amongst the leading causes of skin and soft tissue infections, as well as severe pneumonia. Scientists attempt to work out new strategies to fight against this pathogen, of which numerous strains are now resistant to antibiotic treatments. One of the bacterium's most impressive weapons is α-toxin, which provokes the destruction of human cells.

It's short, ugly and deadly. But James Cook University scientists have found a cancer-causing, parasitic worm could help patients recover from their wounds.

JCU scientists at the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM) have discovered that the parasitic worm that kills tens of thousands of people every year may also supercharge recovery from wounds.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Despite the fact that nearly two million women every year reach menopause (that's equivalent to 6,000 women each day), many experts agree that OB/GYN residents are not being properly prepared to address menopause-related health issues. A new study published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), however, demonstrates how adding a menopause-focused curriculum is helping residents to meet this growing challenge.

Vultures have a unique genetic make-up allowing them to digest carcasses and guard themselves against constant exposure to pathogens in their diet, according to the first Eurasian vulture genome published in the open access journal Genome Biology. The study also finds that this species of Asian vulture is more closely related to the North American bald eagle than previously thought.

The use of faecal transplants to treat severe infections has rapidly become the treatment of choice, but as use increases and widens proper screening of donors, and good long term trials and monitoring are urgently needed in order to provide sensible advice to patients, say experts in The BMJ today.

Gut microbes play a key role in our immune systems and health - and transplanting faecal matter from one person to another is increasingly being used to control severe life-threatening infections like recurrent Clostridium difficile that kill thousands of people annually.

New research published in The Lancet shows that the use of vital life-saving generic (and supposedly inexpensive) medicines for prevention in people with existing heart disease is poor worldwide. In low-income and middle-income countries these medicines are not widely available and, when available, can often be unaffordable. In rich countries, although such medicines are both available and affordable, 35% to 50% of patients who have heart disease or a previous stroke still do not receive them.

Chemical signaling among social insects, such as bees, ants and wasps, is more complex than previously thought, according to researchers at Penn State and Tel Aviv University, whose results refute the idea that a single group of chemicals controls reproduction across numerous species.

DALLAS, Oct. 20, 2015 -- Botox -- known for reducing facial wrinkles -- may also prevent irregular heart rhythms when injected into fat surrounding the heart after bypass surgery, according to research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology.

Botulinum toxin, commonly known as Botox, is produced by Clostridium botulinum bacteria. When a small amount of Botox is injected into a muscle, it blocks nerve signals that tell muscles to contract.

Gliomas are extremely aggressive brain tumors that are resistant to standard cancer therapeutics. Oncolytic viral (OV) therapy, which uses engineered viruses to infect and target tumor cells for destruction by the immune system, is currently being explored for use in refractory cancers. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation indicates that inhibition of histone deaceteylases (HDACs) improves the ability of oncolytic herpes simplex virus type 1 (oHSV-1) to kill glioma cells.

For the first time researchers from Newcastle University and the Science and Technology Facilities Council have produced a working model giving access to unprecedented information about the bacteria which is notoriously hard to study due to its size and complex exterior.

The results, published in the leading chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, are featured as a 'Research Highlight' in Nature Chemical Biology. (20 October 2015). The work was funded by The Wellcome Trust.

La Jolla, Calif., October 20, 2015 - In a collaborative study led by Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP), researchers have combined two publicly available 'omics' databases to create a new catalogue of 'cancer drivers'. Cancer drivers are genes that when altered, are responsible for cancer progression. The researchers used cancer mutation and protein structure databases to identify mutations in patient tumors that alter normal protein-protein interaction (PPI) interfaces.

Vaccines help prevent disease by inducing immunological memory, the ability of immune cells to remember and respond more quickly when re-exposed to the same pathogen. While certain phases of the pathway are well understood, little is known about the role of helper T cells, a "master orchestrator" of the immune response that send signals to activate the immune system.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 25

Remember those old math questions you had in Algebra class? Where water is entering a container at a certain rate and leaving at a different rate and you need to figure out when it'll be empty? Well, that concept is critical to the "Mark Watney doesn't die" project I'm working on.

I need to create calories. And I need enough to last four years. I figure if I don't get rescued by Ares 4, I'm dead anyway. So that's my target: four years.

Dietary fat may impact the severity and duration of autoimmune flare-ups, suggests a study published on October 20 in the journal Immunity. Adjusting the length of fatty acids consumed by mice altered the function of T helper cells in the gut--either intensifying or alleviating symptoms in an animal model of the autoimmune disease (i.e., multiple sclerosis).

A UC San Diego study of the underground "architecture" of harvester ant nests has found that the more connected the chambers an ant colony builds near the surface entrance, the faster the ants are able to collect nearby sources of food.

The reason is simple: Increased connectivity among chambers leads to more social interactions among the ants within the nest. So when one group of ants within a colony--comprised of individuals working toward a common goal--finds a particularly good source of food, it's able to more quickly communicate that finding to the rest of the colony.