Jonathan Beck discusses online sample pre-concentration and extraction of water samples followed by analysis with high-resolution, accurate mass (HR/AM) detection, quantitation and confirmation. Screening, confirmation and quantitation of antibiotics in drinking water was done in the same analytical run with the Thermo Scientific Orbitrap platform.

Dr. Konstantinos Vardakas, Internal Medicine physician from Alfa Institute of Biomedical Sciences, in Athens, Greece, reviews his article appearing in the April 2012 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, which compares the effectiveness of vancomycin and other antibiotics in treating patients with gram-positive infections. Available at:
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(12)00208-X/fulltext

In episode 51 of MicrobeWorld Video, filmed at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting in Washington, D.C., on February 18, 2011, Dr. Stan Maloy talks with David Relamn, M.D., Thomas M. and Joan C. Merigan Professor, Department of Medicine - Division of Infectious Diseases, and Department of Microbiology & Immunology in the Stanford University School of Medicine. Maloy and Relman discuss microbial flora in the mouth and gut and why they are important for human...

Anti-malarial drugs are being used inappropriately for sick children in Zambia -- a problem that can be addressed by arming community health workers with a simple rapid-diagnostic test and a supply of antibiotics, a study led by researchers at Boston University School of Public Health has found. Listen to Kojo Yeboah-Antwi, assistant professor of international health at BUSPH, and David Hamer, professor of international health at BUSPH, discuss the study. Learn more at...

The video describes my invention of Engineered cells which can act as a live vaccine. These cells are programmed to intelligently detect a particular gut pathogen and then specifically and completely kill it without affecting the normal gut microbial flora. This automated approach thus prevents from horrible side effects of current antibiotics and growing resistance against them.

Bacteria communicate with chemical languages that allow them to synchronize their behavior and thereby act as multi-cellular organisms. This process, called quorum sensing, enables bacteria to do things they can’t do as a single cell, like successfully infect and cause disease in humans. Bonnie Bassler, Ph.D., the Squibb Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University and President-elect for the American Society for Microbiology, has been researching strategies that can interfere...

Bacteria, primitive single-celled organisms, communicate with chemical languages that allow them to synchronize their behavior and thereby act as enormous multi-cellular organisms. This process is called quorum sensing and it enables bacteria to successfully infect and cause disease in plants, animals, and humans. Investigations of the molecular mechanisms underlying quorum sensing are leading to the development of novel strategies to interfere with quorum sensing. These strategies form the...

This lecture covers the biochemical basis of actin-based motility (focusing on the pathogen Listeria as a model system for this process), the biophysical mechanism of polymerization-based force generation, and an evolutionary perspective of cell shape in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The first part covers our understanding of how cells use the actin cytoskeleton to crawl. The pathogenic bacteria Listeria (which causes food poisoning) uses the actin cytoskeleton to propel itself in the...

Most bacterial cells have their genes arranged in a single circle of DNA. The circle of DNA plus some attached proteins is referred to as the bacterial chromosome. Up until quite recently, it was thought that the chromosome in the tiny bacteria cell resembled a tangled ball of yarn. It is now known that multiple factors cooperate to condense DNA into a highly dynamic assembly of supercoiled loops. Although there is variability in the lower levels of chromosome structure, the global...

In the final episode of this 3 part video series on how to optimize antibiotic use and minimize the emergence of drug resistant pathogens, Dr. Linda Tollefson, Assistant Commissioner for Science at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, goes in depth on the use of antimicrobial drugs in agriculture, their efficacy, and adverse human health consequences. Dr. Stuart Levy, professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at Tufts University School of Medicine, discusses policy, regulatory and...