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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,077

Common drug-resistant superbug develops fast resistance to ‘last resort’ antibiotic

A study published today in Cell Reports reveals how populations of a bacterium called Pseudomonas respond to being treated with Colistin, a “last resort” antibiotic for patients who have developed multi-drug resistant infections.

Antibiotics play a key role in by helping to combat , but bacteria can evolve resistance to antibiotics patients rely on. Antibiotic– now cause 1 million deaths worldwide per year.

With a small number of “last-resort” antibiotics available, researchers from the University of Oxford are investigating the processes that drive the rise, and fall, of resistance in common bacterial pathogen populations, which is key to tackling the increase in antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Catatonia: the person’s body may be frozen, but their minds are not

One theory for is that it is similar to the “death feint” that some animals show. When faced with a predator of overwhelming size or strength, some prey animals will freeze and presumably the predator may not notice them.

One patient in the study vividly described seeing a snake (which also spoke to her). We can’t say from one example that her body was adopting a primitive defence to a predator, but it’s certainly a possibility.

Catatonia remains a mysterious condition, stuck halfway between neurology and psychiatry. At least by understanding what people may be experiencing, we can provide reassurance and empathy.

How the Genome Shapes Up for Cell Division

Our cells perform a marvel of engineering when it comes to packing information into small spaces. Every time a cell divides, it bundles up an amazing 4 metres of DNA into 46 tiny packages, each of which is only several millionths of a metre in length. Researchers from EMBL Heidelberg and the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg have now discovered how a family of DNA motor proteins succeeds in packaging loosely arranged strands of DNA into compact individual chromosomes during cell division.

The researchers studied condensin, a protein complex critical to the process of chromosome formation. Although this complex was discovered more than three decades ago, its mode of action remained largely unexplored. In 2018, researchers from the Häring group at EMBL Heidelberg and their collaborators showed that condensin molecules create loops of DNA, which may explain how chromosomes are formed. However, the inner workings by which the protein complex achieves this feat remained unknown.

“We have been working on this problem for a long time. But only now, by combining different experimental approaches, we have found an answer to this long-standing question,” said Christian Häring, former Group Leader at EMBL Heidelberg and now Professor at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg.

Drug combination shows promise against cancer’s ‘death star’ protein

A drug combination targeting multiple mutant versions of cancer’s “death star” protein has shown promise in a small, early-phase clinical trial for some patients with advanced lung, ovarian and thyroid cancer.

The two– was effective against with a range of mutations to the KRAS gene—dubbed the “death star” because its protein drives one in four cancers and has a largely impenetrable, drug-resistant surface.

The phase I trial tested the drugs VS-6766 and everolimus in 30 patients with a range of mutations to KRAS—including 11 with highly advanced, .

Monkeypox treatment: Smallpox antiviral shows promise

Although the researchers cannot say for sure whether this was a direct result of tecovirimattreatment, the results suggest tecovirimat could help to prevent progression to severe disease and shorten the time spent in hospital. They recommend a 2-week course of treatment in order to fully clear the virus.

Speaking to Medical News Today, Dr. Stephen Morse, professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Medical Center, and director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Certificate Program, noted that “tecovirimat is the most effective known antiviral for the orthopoxviruses, which includes smallpox — now officially eradicated — monkeypox, and others.”

“The mechanism of action of the drug, and the relatedness of these viruses, suggests that tecovirimat should be equally effective for other orthopoxviruses, but rigorous comparisons have not been possible because of small case numbers,” he added.

Quantum information was teleported over a network for the first time

When Heroes (now streaming on Peacock!) hit the airwaves in September of 2006, few characters were as immediately beloved as the appropriately named Hiro Nakamura. Granted the ability to manipulate space-time, Hiro could not only slow down, speed up, and stop time, he could also teleport from one place to another. That’s a useful skill if you need to get to a specific point in time and space to fight an evil brain surgeon or prevent the end of the world. It’s also useful if you want to build the quantum internet.

Researchers at QuTech — a collaboration between Delft University of Technology and the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research — recently took a big step toward making that a reality. For the first time, they succeeded in sending quantum information between non-adjacent qubits on a rudimentary network. Their findings were published in the journal Nature.

While modern computers use bits, zeroes, and ones, to encode information, quantum computers us quantum bits or qubits. A qubit works in much the same way as a bit, except it’s able to hold both a 0 and a 1 at the same time, allowing for faster and more powerful computation. The trouble begins when you want to transmit that information to another location. Quantum computing has a communications problem.

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