After more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, you might picture a virus as a nasty spiked ball—a mindless killer that gets into a cell and hijacks its machinery to create a gazillion copies of itself before bursting ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 16, 2022
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15
Amoebae receive surprising support in defense against viruses: The bacteria they are infected with prevent them from being destroyed by giant viruses. A research team led by microbiologist Matthias Horn from the Center for ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 29, 2022
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54
Since they were first discovered in the 1980s, retrons have puzzled researchers who simply wanted to know what these bacterial DNA sequences actually did. Now, EMBL scientists have identified that some retrons encode toxin ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 18, 2022
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151
Many different types of bacteria and viruses can cause pneumonia, but there is no easy way to determine which microbe is causing a particular patient's illness. This uncertainty makes it harder for doctors to choose effective ...
Biochemistry
Jun 13, 2022
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167
Viruses have a bad reputation. They are responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic and a long list of maladies that have plagued humanity since time immemorial. Is there anything to celebrate about them?
Molecular & Computational biology
Oct 20, 2021
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11
The mechanism by which acute viral respiratory infections promote secondary bacterial growth and infection in the airways depends on iron-carrying extracellular sacs secreted by the cells lining the host's airways, report ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 26, 2021
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95
Scientists have discovered how a common virus in the human gut infects and takes over bacterial cells—a finding that could be used to control the composition of the gut microbiome, which is important for human health.
Biotechnology
Nov 18, 2020
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24
The adage 'all things in moderation' applies not to just to food and drink, but also to the legions of bacteria inside our guts helping us digest that food and drink. It turns out the rule may also extend to the lesser understood ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 21, 2020
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293
We know how important bacteria and fungi are for the health of plants. In marine environments and in our own gut, bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) are important in regulating the microbiome. Yet, their effect ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 16, 2020
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5
When a new virus emerges, biologists rush to reconstruct its genome—a prerequisite for future diagnostic and vaccine development. The challenge with viral sequencing during an outbreak is that a sample from a patient, like ...
Molecular & Computational biology
May 27, 2020
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2
