Tag Archives: antibiotic

This micrograph image depicts a gastrointestinal bacteria that can become pathogenic after trauma, surgery or other disruptions. Smith Collection/Gado/via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Smith Collection/Gado/via Getty Images One of the pillars of modern medicine is showing its cracks, according to a new report from the World Health Organization. Antibiotics have turned once deadly infections into minor inconveniences. They …

Scientists have released new images showing, in incredible detail, antibiotics defeating disease-causing bacteria by piercing the microbes’ membranes and infiltrating their innards. The antibiotics, called polymyxins, were observed forcing the armored membranes around Escherichia coli bacterial cells to grow bumps and bulges. The bacteria then shed their outer membranes, leaving space for the antibiotic to enter the cells. “It was …

For patients with inflammatory bowel disease, antibiotics can be a double-edged sword. The broad-spectrum drugs often prescribed for gut flare-ups can kill helpful microbes alongside harmful ones, sometimes worsening symptoms over time. When fighting gut inflammation, you don’t always want to bring a sledgehammer to a knife fight. Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and McMaster …

Maddamsetti, R. et al. Duplicated antibiotic resistance genes reveal ongoing selection and horizontal gene transfer in bacteria. Nat. Commun. 15, 1449 (2024). Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar  Liu, G. & Stokes, J. M. A brief guide to machine learning for antibiotic discovery. Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 69, 102190 (2022). Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar  Naghavi, M. et al. Global …

Wednesday, September 3, 2025 NIH-funded clinical trial shows potential to simplify treatment for early syphilis.  Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found that a single injection of the antibiotic benzathine penicillin G (BPG) successfully treated early syphilis just as well as the three-injection regimen used by many clinicians in the United States and elsewhere. These findings …

You’d assume that a medicine you can buy without a prescription at any pharmacy, big-box retailer, or grocery store is completely safe, right? But as more research comes out, we’re learning that over-the-counter (OTC) drugs can come with a long list of potentially dangerous side effects. The latest such study shows that two very popular and very common pain meds …

Most UTIs, or urinary tract infections, are anything but subtle. When you’ve got one, you constantly feel like you need to pee even if you just went, it burns when you go and your urine looks suspiciously cloudy. UTIs are also quite common: More than 50% of women will deal with at least one in their lifetime, and what’s worse …

In the last year, there has been a surge in proteins developed by AI that will eventually be used in the treatment of everything from snakebites to cancer. What would normally take decades for a scientist to create — a custom-made protein for a particular disease — can now be done in seconds. For the first time, Australian scientists have …