Antibiotics

The world’s attention has been focused on the coronavirus pandemic for the past couple of months, and rightly so. The global death toll has hit 285,000, the economy is in shambles, and our day-to-day lives are completely transformed. It’s obviously a huge deal. But as we all focus on that,…

For hundreds of millions of years plants have had the ability to harness carbon dioxide from the air using solar energy. The Max Planck research network MaxSynBio is on the trail of building artificial cells as sustainable green bioreactors. A Max Planck research team led by Tobias Erb from the…

Sepsis may not be on your radar but it is an extremely deadly killer. Worldwide, a stunning one-third of people who get it die, and many who do live have life-changing side effects such as chronic pain and fatigue, organs that don’t work well, even amputations. Sepsis is caused by…

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 87, had to be hospitalized recently after he complained of uneasiness in the chest and recorded a fever as well. He was rushed to AIIMS, Delhi, where he was kept under observation by doctors. While his health remains stable as of now, doctors have now…

Mixing and matching genes of marine and terrestrial origin in the biosynthesis of the mupirocin antibiotics† Author affiliations * Corresponding authors a School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Cantock's Close, Bristol, UK E-mail: chris.willis@bristol.ac.uk, matt.crump@bristol.ac.uk b School of Biochemistry, University of Bristol, University Walk, Bristol, UK c School of Cellular…

Image: Getty Images As the end of the second world war neared, mass production of the newly developed antibiotic penicillin enabled life-saving treatment of bacterial infections in wounded soldiers. Since then, penicillin and many other antibiotics have successfully treated a wide variety of bacterial infections. But antibiotics don’t work against…

According to a new Position Paper published in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) online, improved everyday hygiene practices, such as hand-washing, reduces the risk of common infections by up to 50%, reducing the need for antibiotics, by up to 30%. Global public health experts responsible for the Position…

An efficient divergent synthetic strategy that leverages the natural product spectinomycin to access uniquely functionalized monosaccharides is described. Stereoselective 2′- and 3′-reduction of key spectinomycin-derived intermediates enabled facile access to all eight possible 2,3-stereoisomers of 4,6-dideoxyhexoses as well as representative 3,4,6-trideoxysugars and 3,4,6-trideoxy-3-aminohexoses. In addition, the method was applied to…

The next time you’re gasping for breath in the middle of a cardio routine, try to imagine doing the same thing while decked out in a flowy dress and corset. That’s what female exercise enthusiasts faced in the 1800s. According to Atlas Obscura, tailors weren’t churning out loose leggings or…

While tracing the movement of Escherichia coli, a team of French researchers noticed that near solid surfaces, the bacteria run in circles. Loop after loop, the tracing almost looks like an Olympic figure skating rink before the Zamboni irons the sheet of ice smooth. Breaking down E. coli's routine step…