'Whodunnit' of Irish potato famine solved

An international team of scientists reveals that a unique strain of potato blight they call HERB-1 triggered the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century.

Investigating a hospital superbug's resistance power

Treatment of severe infections caused by pathogenic bacteria relies on "last resort" antibiotics, but rising resistance by "superbugs" to most clinically approved drugs leaves patients exposed to possible fatalities.

Scarlet fever pathogen draft genome sequence released

Scarlet fever has revealed unusual high infect rate in Hong Kong this year. So far, 466 children were infected and 2 of them dead. Scarlet fever is caused by Streptococcus pyogenes, a gram-positive pathogen that can be transmitted ...

Infectious disease may have shaped human origins, study says

An international team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, suggest that inactivation of two specific genes related to the immune system may have conferred selected ...

How E. coli cells work in the human gut

(Phys.org) -- The bacterium Escherichia coli, commonly known as E. coli, has a duplicitous reputation. Scientists tell us that most strains of the microbe live peacefully in our guts or the guts of other mammals, munching ...

New protein identified in bacterial arsenal

(PhysOrg.com) -- Nearly a billion years ago, bacteria evolved an insidious means of infecting their hosts — a syringe-like mechanism able to inject cells with stealthy hijacker molecules. These molecules, called virulence ...

Biology of emergent Salmonella exposed

Researchers have characterised a new multi drug resistant strain of Salmonella Typhimurium that is causing life-threatening disease in Africa.

New compound defeats drug-resistant bacteria

It's no wonder that medicine's effort to combat bacterial infections is often described as an arms race. When new drugs are developed to combat infections, the bacterial target invariably comes up with a deterrent.

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