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Bacteriophages May Be Able to "Watch and Listen in" on Their Hosts

  A recent study published in Frontiers in Microbiology attracts researchers' attention because it reveals that some viruses might have the ability to monitor their surroundings and take action accordingly. T o be specific, viruses can sense the environment around themselves and their host and then decide whether or when to suspend their activities, spread infection, attack or kill the host cells, multiply, and burst out inside their hosts at any given time. T hi s finding is significant to uncover unknown interactions between viruses and their hosts and may have implications for the development of a new generation of antiviral drugs.   Bacteriophages , or simply phages, are viruses that infect and harm bacteria. In this study, researchers look into a phage that can only infect the host when the bacterial cells have special appendages—pili and flagella that can help the bacteria move and mate. Specifically, this flagellotropic phage infects Caulobacter bacteria cells, which ha...
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Combination of Machine Learning Analytics and Proteomics for Better Diagnostics

  It's  highly recognized that digitized healthcare technologies present numerous possibilities and opportunities for reducing human errors, improving clinical outcomes, tracking data over time, etc. Due to  the ability to analyze vast amounts of data quickly and in detail, artificial intelligence (AI) methods, from machine learning to deep learning, are taking on more and more crucial functions in numerous healthcare domains, especially in identifying the diagnosis of different types of diseases.   AI-Based Biomarker Detection   T hriving digitized healthcare technologies enable  researchers and technicians from University College Dublin to combine proteomics, the large-scale study of proteins, with data science and machine learning analytics, to deliver highly specific and  personalized diagnostic information for various diseases. Their strategies are based on the concept that personalized medicine is the general  trend of future healthcare whic...
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Phage Therapy: Promising Alternative to Control Multidrug-Resistant Pathogens

  Overuse  of antibiotics has heavily contributed to the prevalence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and antimicrobial resistant (AMR) pathogens, the  result of which, antibiotic resistance has   become  one of the top threats to humanity, causing approximately 0.7 million annual deaths across the globe, and the number may exceed to cancer-driven mortality in the near future. Gene mutation and horizontal gene transfer can easily lead to ineffective antibiotic treatment of an infection and enable pathogens  to evolve  the ability   to   evade most   therapeutics. This continuously forces researchers to discover  new antibiotics with improved features, even though antibiotic agents have a weak research pipeline and it takes a long time for most antibiotic drugs to enter the market for practical use. Some researchers take this from a different perspective, including finding alternatives to antibiotics that can treat multidrug-resistant pat...
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Finding the Best Animal Model Organisms for Biliary Atresia

  Biliary atresia   (BA)   is  a congenital condition  that  a blockage   happ ens  in the tubes  responsible for  carry ing  bile from the liver to the gallbladder. It results from abnormal development of the bile ducts inside or outside the liver  and results in progressive fibrous obliteration with different degrees of inflammation in the hepatobiliary system. According to incomplete statistics, about 1 out of 10,000–20,000 live births would be identified with b iliary atresia , but actually, the situation could be worse given the late diagnoses. Up to now, the causes for this condition remain unclear and seem to be heterogeneous, but it undoubtedly would lead to an inestimable mental and financial burden for patients and their families, as well as the healthcare system.   To better understand and identify the etiology of b iliary atresia , researchers are dedicated to finding the best animal model organism  to ver...
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Macrophages as Biomarkers of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Progression

  Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), as its name indicated, is a condition caused by abnormal or excessive fat  buildup in   liver , which is not a result of heavy alcohol use. It has become a common chronic liver disease and is affecting up to 25% of people worldwide. Most people have no symptoms, and 2% to 5% of people will experience complications from the fat in their liver and a more serious condition named non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) due to liver inflammation and cell damage, which ultimately could develop into liver cirrhosis. Thus, early detection is important before some  irreversible results in the liver disease progression pose clinical and economic burdens.   Evidence shows that changes in immune cells in the liver are related to the development of NAFLD. And the presence of chronic low-grade inflammation characterized by immune cell activation, abnormal cytokine production, and increased acute phase proteins is a hallmark of NAFLD. ...
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Bacteriophage Therapy to Treat Acne Caused By Specific Strains of Bacteria

  The microbiome of humans consists of different microorganisms that both live inside and outside the body, in which the skin, the oral mucosa, and the gastrointestinal tracts are the most common h abitat for the complex microbial community. Each individual has different microbiome composition and form s  a symbiotic association with them. Take the skin microbiome as an example, it's made up of diverse organisms such as different strains of bacteria, viruses, and fungi, and usually, they live in a state of balance. But when alterations occur, the skin microbiome may lead to some skin diseases, such as acne vulgaris . Acne vulgaris  is one of the most common inflammatory skin conditions , which is related to a gram-positive bacterium, Cutibacterium acnes (C. acnes) .   C. acnes is the most abundant skin commensal of the human skin microbiome and has different strains, some of which predominate in healthy skin and others are associated with acne. Healthy skin means dif...
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Biotech Companies Invest Microfluidic Device Development for Pathogen Detection

  Emerging COVID-19 variant s  have encouraged many biotech giants to actively participate in developing microfluidic devices for rapid and accurate SARS-CoV-2 detection.   Though the current global wave of the omicron COVID-19 variant is relatively mild in terms of causing severe disease and death, it's necessary to continuously develop new technologies and strategies to identify and resist COVID-19 infection in case more aggressive variants may  come around from nowhere. Microfluidics, a highly miniaturized, automatic, and integrated technology, is   expecte d to perform rapid, low-cost, accurate, and point-of-care detection of infectious diseases like COVID-19. Researchers from leading life science companies like Creative Biolabs have gotten involved in developing and designing microfluidic devices for different applications, including devices for quick and accurate SARS-CoV-2 detection.   Microfluidic Chips for Pathogen Detection   Infectious disea...
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