When you think of ancient medicine, what comes to mind? Potions? A concoction of herbal ingredients bubbling away? Old books full of recipes? Before modern medicine, people have been creating ways to treat various ailments. So in today’s blog post, we see how one of these recipes holds up scientifically.
To address the growing antimicrobial resistance problem, scientists have been searching nature in attempts to find new classes of antibiotics, optimizing existing ones, or designing new antimicrobial molecules. These efforts all focus on one thing: finding stronger, newer antibiotics. Unnecessary exposure to antibiotics enables bacteria to evolve defenses and increases resistance risks. While caution in…
“Finish the entire course of antibiotics you were prescribed, even if you feel better.” You may have been told this by your doctor or have this saying deeply ingrained in your mind from infections past. You may also have been told that if you don’t finish your full course of antibiotics, your infection could come…
By Ananya Sen A straight walk from India to the Arctic is approximately 4,000 miles. The trip includes the hot and humid climate of India, the temperate and dry climate of central Europe, and finally the rugged and frozen tundra of Svalbard in the Arctic Circle. Imagine embarking on this adventure as a gene. Seem…
For bacteria, addiction to DNA can be a life or death situation. Lose that DNA and the bacterium suffers an unfortunate toxic death. Many bacteria easily transfer DNA amongst themselves in the forms of plasmid DNA. Plasmids are mobile genetic elements that replicate independently of the chromosome. These small circular pieces of DNA often contain…