Microbiology

Research from the Francis Crick Institute has revealed a key mechanism that increases tolerance to drugs amongst microbial communities. The findings could help the development of more effective antifungal treatments.    Background  Antimicrobial drug resistance and tolerance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites no longer respond, or have less sensitivity, to treatments. It is […]

BaseClear has appointed Alex Van Belkum as Chief Scientific Officer. He is a molecular microbiologist with extensive experience in molecular- and culture-based diagnostics, antimicrobial resistance testing and clinical microbiology. He will lead BaseClear’s science and innovation arm together with Innovation Manager Walter Pirovano and a team of PhD-level Product Managers.   Official comment  “We are extremely pleased to announce that Alex […]

Destiny Pharma, a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the development of novel medicines that can prevent life threatening infections, has released data from its recent Phase IIb clinical trial. In March 2021, the company announced that this study had met its primary endpoint, demonstrating a reduction of 2.5 log (>99%) in nasal Staphylococcus aureus […]

Genetic Analysis (GA) has announced that the Norwegian Research Council has approved its grant application of NOK 16 million (€1.6 million) for its project developing new innovative microbiome-based diagnostics to be used to aid selection and treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) patients. In this project, GA will develop an easy to use, in vitro […]

An electron microscope, reported to break new ground in biological imaging, is being installed at the Franklin’s new building on Harwel Campus. The machine can image biological samples at up to a million frames per second, which is one thousand times faster than the current standard. It is the first of three instruments being developed […]

The latest episode of the free DDW podcast is out, “Precision medicine in the era of artificial intelligence”. It covers one narrated article of the same title written for DDW and read aloud by Megan Thomas. It was written by Dr Lofti Chouchane and Dr Javaid Sheikh. Dr Chouchane is a professor in the departments […]

By Dr Karin Bottcher High content screening (HCS) has played a significant role in infectious disease research and drug discovery to date and can be a strong tool in the age of COVID-19 and beyond. With a focus on viral diseases, this article will describe how HCS has been used by laboratories around the world […]

Image: Pille-Riin Priske Avacta has begun work with the UK government’s CONDOR programme to evaluate and clinically validate the high throughput COVID-19 bead-assisted mass spectrometry (BAMS) laboratory assay developed with Adeptrix. The COVID-19 National Diagnostic Research and Evaluation Platform (CONDOR), recently funded by the National Institute for Health Research, UK Research and Innovation, Asthma UK […]

9 July 2020 Image: Science in HD So far there are no approved drugs for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease In an effort to combat a growing worldwide epidemic of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), scientists have discovered a new target and a new therapy that has shown promising results in preclinical mouse models, according to […]

30 June 2020 Image: Glen Carrie In lab tests, virus-like DNA structures coated with viral proteins provoke a strong immune response in human B cells, by Ann Trafton, MIT News Office By folding DNA into a virus-like structure, MIT researchers have designed HIV-like particles that provoke a strong immune response from human immune cells grown in a […]