Creative Bios

  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...

  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...

  R ecent research conducted by researchers from Yale University is published in  Applied and Environmental Microbiology , suggesting  that natural bacteriophage, or phage, can kill dysentery-causing bacteria and reduce virulence in surviving bacteria. It's a piece   of  inspiring news as  treating dysentery has become a challenge with the rising antibiotic resistance.   Background   Shigella flexneri , the culprit causing contagious infection marked by inflammatory diarrhea and dysentery in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, kills about 160,000 people globally every year. The World Health Organization (WHO) takes priority to this pathogen in terms of increasing cases, antimicrobial resistance, and limited treatment options.   S. flexneri  is active primarily in low-income countries, like southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In these places, dirty drinking water is a concern causing dysentery, while antibiotics are expensive and unav...

  I t's  widely accepted that  HIV, Hepatitis C, Ebola, and the ongoing coronavirus have acquired a bad reputation for viruses due to their aggressive and infectious nature. But actually, there are nice guys in the virology world, microscopic bacteriophages . Different from dreadful bad viruses that will invade the host cell to tak e  over the cellular machinery, release more infectious viral particles, and finally cause illness, phages are protective viruses that can attack and destroy bacteria.   About Phages   Bacteriophage, or known as phage, whose name is derived from the Greek word phagein , indicating the eater of bacteria. These spidery-looking viruses have  a population of over 10 31 , larger than the total number of all other organisms, including bacteria, remaining the most abundant life-form on the planet. They could be found almost everywhere bacteria exist , including water, air, soil, the mucous membrane lining of digestive, respiratory,...