antibiotics

Biofilms are home to millions of microbes, but disrupting their interactions could produce more effective antibiotics.

Free-swimming bacteria settle on a surface to cooperate and form a protective biofilm.

Syphilis is among the oldest known sexually-transmitted infections. Scientists still struggle to detect and treat it.

The Scientist spoke with Jonathan Kagan about his idea that immune cells respond to “errors” made by unsuccessful pathogens, not the pathogens themselves.

Mycoplasma pneumoniae with pathogenic genes replaced by biofilm-degrading ones enhance survival in a mouse model of ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Studies are finding that a single course of antibiotics alters the gut microbiomes of healthy volunteers—and that it can take months or even years to recover the original species composition.

Use of the drugs in children under the age of two was associated with lower antibody levels after the jabs—perhaps, researchers suggest, due to microbiome alterations.

Making specific alterations to the bacterial population in a rat’s lungs either better protects the animals against multiple sclerosis–like symptoms or makes them more vulnerable, a study finds—the first demonstration of a lung-brain axis.

In Salmonella, two seemingly similar antibiotic survival strategies result from very different molecular mechanisms.

A new study has identified a molecular tradeoff between growth and immunity in moths in response to the administration of subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics, a common practice in animal husbandry.

Levels of pharmaceuticals considered unsafe for aquatic organisms were found at more than one-quarter of sampling sites.

Low doses of continuous penicillin exposure altered mouse pups’ microbiomes and gene expression in brain areas associated with emotional and cognitive function.

The health of the microbial community is associated with COVID-19 severity, but it’s not yet clear if the relationship is causal.

The UCSF microbiologist pioneered investigations into the deadly disease starting in the late 1960s that have led to the near eradication of trachoma, a chlamydia-related eye infection.

Researchers could one day use the method to deliver antibiotics to topical wounds infected by hard-to-treat masses of bacteria.