Microbe Magazine

When ranked with other pathogens of humans, Trichomonas vaginalis sets few records for effectiveness. Although tenacious among those it infects, this flagellated protist and sexually transmitted parasite of the human urogenital tract is generally more irritating than damaging—except in cas... More...

First noted two years ago in South Africa, extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis is found widely in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and other parts of the world. Attributable to strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis that resist isoniazid, rifampin, any fluoroquinolone, and at l... More...

The population growth of West Nile virus (WNV) in North America declined recently, perhaps indicating that the virus has passed its peak prevalence, according to Edward C. Holmes and undergraduate first author Katherine W. Snapinn, who are both at the Pennsylvania State University, University Par... More...

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and five nations pledged $1.5 billion in February for the first Advance Market Commitment (AMC) to speed the development and availability of a vaccine against pneumococcal disease that is expected to save the lives of 5.4 million children by 2030. This pilot ... More...

A one-time, novel “antisense” treatment carried on an engineered lentiviral vector successfully reduced HIV loads and partly restored damaged immune functions for up to a three-year period for five HIV-infected patients. This approach is “a potential breakthrough for HIV and other chronic conditi... More...

A large-scale clinical trial of a candidate HIV vaccine was set to begin in South Africa last February, only days after a separate large-scale trial involving a microbicide was halted there and in Benin, Uganda, and India. That phase III clinical trial of cellulose sulfate, a topical microbicide ... More...

“Take off your ties,” decreed one official from the Department of Energy (DOE), mandating both informal dress and mood for the 2007 Joint Genomics: GTL Contractor-Grantee Workshop V and USDA-DOE Plant Feedstock Genomics for Bioenergy Joint Program Meeting that were held in Bethesda, Md., last Feb... More...

For the first time in more than 30 years, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) plans to send a new instrument to Mars to address the question of life there. Called the Urey organic and oxidant detector to honor the late Nobel Laureate in chemistry Harold C. Urey, the compact instrumen... More...

The small molecule c-di-GMP, already recognized as an intracellular signaling molecule for a wide range of bacterial species, can serve as an immunostimulatory agent, modulating immune responses in mammalian hosts that c-di-GMP-carrying bacteria infect, according to David Karaolis of the Intragen... More...

Although basic research involving bacteria has had a “significant impact” over many decades, the discipline is now “at a crossroads” and very much in need of a renewed investment, according to the report “Basic Research on Bacteria, the Essential Frontier.” Moreover, despite a recent trend that f... More...