Home About us MoEF Contact us Sitemap Tamil Website  
About Envis
Whats New
Microorganisms
Research on Microbes
Database
Bibliography
Publications
Library
E-Resources
Microbiology Experts
Events
Online Submission
Access Statistics

Site Visitors

blog tracking


 
Abstracts


001. Robert Bragg, Wouter van der Westhuizen, Ji-Yun Lee, Elke Coetsee, Charlotte Boucher. Central Department of Chemistry, Tribhuvan University. Bacteriophages as Potential Treatment Option for Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology,807, 2014, Pages: 97-110.

The world is facing an ever-increasing problem with antibiotic resistant bacteria and we are rapidly heading for a post-antibiotic era. There is an urgent need to investigate alterative treatment options while there are still a few antibiotics left. Bacteriophages are viruses that specifically target bacteria. Before the development of antibiotics, some efforts were made to use bacteriophages as a treatment option, but most of this research stopped soon after the discovery of antibiotics. There are two different replication options which bacteriophages employ. These are the lytic and lysogenic life cycles. Both these life cycles have potential as treatment options. There are various advantages and disadvantages to the use of bacteriophages as treatment options. The main advantage is the specificity of bacteriophages and treatments can be designed to specifically target pathogenic bacteria while not negatively affecting the normal microbiota. There are various advantages to this. However, the high level of specificity also creates potential problems, the main being the requirement of highly specific diagnostic procedures. Another potential problem with phage therapy includes the development of immunity and limitations with the registration of phage therapy options. The latter is driving research toward the expression of phage genes which break the bacterial cell wall, which could then be used as a treatment option. Various aspects of phage therapy have been investigated in studies undertaken by our research group. We have investigated specificity of phages to various avian pathogenic E. coli isolates.

Furthermore, the exciting NanoSAM technology has beenemployed to investigate bacteriophage replication and aspects of this will be discussed.

Keywords: Bacteriophage; Therapy; Antibiotic resistance; Escherichia coli; NanoSAM

002. Aaron S. Hess, Michael Kleinberg, John D. Sorkin, Giora Netzer, Jennifer K. Johnson,Michelle Shardell, Kerri A. Thom, Anthony D. Harris, Mary-Claire Roghmann. University of Maryland School of Medicine, 685 W. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD, 21201. Prior colonization is associated with increased risk of antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteremia in cancer patients. Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease, 79(1), 2014, Page: 73 - 76.

We hypothesized that prior colonization with antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria is associated with increased risk of subsequent antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative
bacteremia among cancer patients. We performed a matched case-control study. Cases were cancer patients with a blood culture positive for antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Controls were cancer patients with a blood culture not positive for antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Prior colonization was defined as any antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria in surveillance or non-sterile-site cultures obtained 2–365 days before the bacteremia. Thirty-two (37%) of 86 cases and 27 (8%) of 323 matched controls were previously colonized by any antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Prior colonization was strongly associated with antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteremia (odds ratio [OR] 7.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.5–14.7) after controlling for recent treatment with piperacillin-tazobactam (OR 2.5, 95% CI 1.3–4.8). In these patients with suspected bacteremia, prior cultures may predict increased risk of antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteremia.

Keywords: Antimicrobial resistance; Surveillance  cultures; Neutropenic fever

ENVIS CENTRE Newsletter Vol.12, Issue 1 Jan - Mar 2014 Back 
 
Copyright © 2005 ENVIS Centre ! All rights reserved
This site is optimized for 1024 x 768 screen resolution