Back in November, I posted about a superbug that emerged in China. The mcr-1 gene is known to be resistant to Colistin, a last resort antibiotic for superbug infections. Today, the first known case of the resistant strain of E. coli was reported here in the US (Pennsylvania). This is scary for many reasons and …
New research has shown that patients take more than astronomical medical bills away from hospital visits; they take away superbugs as well. This research letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine by Jie Cao et al., found that 24.1% of patients moving from the hospital to a post acute care facility had at least one multidrug …
You have all heard of Tilikum the killer whale. He’s known for killing 3 of his trainers and is featured in the documentary Blackfish. Regardless of where you stand in all of the controversy, Tilikum has been making the news once again due to an untreatable bacterial infection in his lungs. Here is the statement from SeaWorld: …
The Los Angeles Times posted an article yesterday on “Deadly superbugs from hospitals get stronger in the sewers and could end up in the Pacific Ocean”. While there is some truth to the matter, it is necessary to approach it with some skepticism. It is well known that antibiotic resistant bacteria are extremely prevalent in …
There are a few news articles that have been coming out (like this one) that draw attention to this recently published paper in ISME Journal, entitled “Iron availability shapes the evolution of bacteriocin resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.” The big picture of the paper was to study how resistance evolves and to explore the effectiveness of …
Last week, a bunch of news articles came out (like this one) that talk about how we are on track to figuring out new ways to tackle antibiotic resistant superbugs. The research they are referring to highlights a paper recently published in Nature (a closed access journal) by Changjiang Dong’s group at the University of East …
A terrifying, yet not surprising article was published today in The Lancet Infectious Diseases about mcr-1. For those who aren’t familiar with it, mcr-1 is a gene associated with antibiotic resistance to colistin, a type of polymyxin antibiotic used to treat infections that are already resistant to several other types of antibiotics. News sources have …