The Search for New Antibiotics: Looking for Achilles’ Heel (Again)

Some of the first available doses of penicillin were used to treat allied soldiers wounded on D-Day. It was the end of one war, but just the beginning of another–one that has gone on for a long time. The story of the development of antibiotics, and the emergence of resistant bacteria, followed by the renewed search for new antibiotics, seems neverending. As soon as a new antibiotic is discovered, it seems only a matter of time before a resistance mechanism emerges, and remaining one step ahead of the bugs can seem like a relentless challenge. Continue reading “The Search for New Antibiotics: Looking for Achilles’ Heel (Again)”

Quorum Sensing in Bacteria: How a Picture can be Worth a Thousand Words

Increasingly, multimedia and video are being used in addition to traditional delivery methods to communicate scientific findings. Journals such as PLoS ONE, Cell, Nature and others often use video to either showcase particular articles, or offer authors the opportunity to include multimedia elements as part of their article. Some subjects lend themselves better to video delivery than others. Every so often a video report comes along that perfectly complements the content of the associated paper, illustrating the power of video to enhance communication of research findings.

In my opinion, the effective use of video to highlight results is beautifully illustrated by the report below, highlighting the publication “A synchronized quorum of genetic clocks” by Danino et al, which was published in Nature this week.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnjdAr4EjI0]
Continue reading “Quorum Sensing in Bacteria: How a Picture can be Worth a Thousand Words”