Anti-Infectives Week articles from April 2003

Anti-Infectives Week archives from April 2003

Review on cefditoren, a new aminothiazolyl cephalosporin, published.
April 7, 2003... 2003 APR 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A researcher has described a new aminothiazolyl cephalosporin, cefditoren, which is effective against a variety of microorganisms. According to recent research from the United States, "Cefditoren...

PCR/DGGE is useful screening method to determine impact of antibiotic treatment.
April 7, 2003... 2003 APR 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- PCR/DGGE is useful screening method to determine impact of antibiotic treatment. "A large and complex bacterial community inhabits the distal intestinal tract of humans. This collection, known as...

Rhamnolipid surfactant production affects microbial community architecture.
April 7, 2003... 2003 APR 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Microbiologists at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, have demonstrated that rhamnolipid surfactant production affects biofilm architecture in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1. "In response to certain...

Addition of a macrolide to beta-lactam antibiotics lowers mortality.
April 7, 2003... 2003 APR 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Addition of a macrolide to beta-lactam antibiotics lowers mortality. According to a study from Spain, "Ten years of data from a database were analyzed to assess the association between inclusion of...

Mayor Bloomberg backs clean needles for NYC.
April 7, 2003... 2003 APR 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Harm Reduction Coalition reports that Mayor Mike Bloomberg has come out in support of needle exchange programs. "These programs have been operating in New York City for over 10 years," the mayor...

New data confirms therapeutic efficacy and safety of Intercept platelet system.
April 7, 2003... 2003 APR 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Recently published data demonstrates that physicians in Europe can safely provide their patients with the added security of pathogen-inactivated platelets while delivering the therapeutic benefits...

BCBSM seeks researchers for women's health projects, releases antibiotic use data.
April 7, 2003... 2003 APR 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) Foundation is seeking letters of interest from Michigan-based nonprofit community, healthcare, and research organizations to develop and evaluate projects...

Antioxidant carrier photosensitizer inactivates bacteria.
April 7, 2003... 2003 APR 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Bar Ilan University researchers reported on antioxidant carrier sensitizers-3 (ACS-3) that they said could be used as a specific photosensitization agent for photoinactivation of Gram-negative bacteria....

Morphochem and Xenogen collaborate on candidates against bacterial biofilms.
April 14, 2003... 2003 APR 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Morphochem AG and Xenogen Corp. have entered into a research collaboration to discover targets and develop compounds effective against bacterial biofilms. Biofilms occur when bacteria or other...

Scientists yield new clues to why bacteria stick to things.
April 14, 2003... 2003 APR 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A bacterium's ability to change its hairstyle may help in the effort to clean contaminated groundwater for drinking, according to Penn State researchers. People are continually moving into places...

Animal efficacy data released for preclinical candidate for fungal infections.
April 14, 2003... 2003 APR 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Genelabs Technologies, Inc., (GNLB) announced that it presented new data on GL486 56, its preclinical antifungal compound, at FOCUS on Fungal Infections 13, an annual conference held with an emphasis...

Gentamicin produced cochlear hair cell toxicity could be treated with M40403.
April 14, 2003... 2003 APR 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The superoxide dismutase mimetic M40403 protects cochlear hair cells from gentamicin, but not cisplatin toxicity. "Gentamicin, an aminoglycoside antibiotic, and cisplatin, a platinum based...

Monoclonal antibody drug effective against anthrax.
April 14, 2003... 2003 APR 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Cambridge Antibody Technology (CATG) acknowledged the announcement by Human Genome Sciences, Inc., (HGSI) that it has discovered and developed a human monoclonal antibody drug, ABthrax, that is...

DARPA provides funding for autonomous pathogen detection systems.
April 14, 2003... 2003 APR 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- MicroFluidic Systems, Inc., (MFSI), a privately held company, announced that it has received a contract for $1.5 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of a...

Massachusetts chemical developer to sell antimicrobial products.
April 14, 2003... 2003 APR 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Global Medical Products Holdings, Inc., (GMDP) announced that it has received a memorandum of understanding from a Massachusetts based developer of antimicrobial products. The memorandum centers...

Patent granted for inhaled polypeptide treatment.
April 14, 2003... 2003 APR 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Demegen, Inc., (DBOT) has received United States patent 6,528,488 for a method for treating cystic fibrosis (CF) in a human with a polypeptide via inhalation. CF is a genetic disease, which...

Food safety company reports record third quarter, 25% increase in net income.
April 14, 2003... 2003 APR 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Neogen Corp. (NEOG) announced that net income for the third quarter of its 2003 fiscal year, which ended February 28, was 25% higher than the previous year's third quarter. Net income per share...

Two novel clostridial bacteriocins identified and characterized.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- University of Groningen biotechnologists have identified and characterized two novel clostridial bacteriocins. R. Kemperman and colleagues purified, N-terminally sequenced, and characterized "two...

CDC publishes information on world's first reported infection with VRSA.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported the first case of vanomycin resistance involving the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, the most common cause of skin infections in...

FDA approves Valtrex caplets for recurrent infections in HIV patients.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved GlaxoSmithKline's supplemental new drug application (sNDA) for Valtrex (valacyclovir HCl) caplets for the suppression of recurrent genital...

Lactobacillus plantarum can prevent cheese-borne Listeria outbreaks.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Certain Lactobacillus strains can be used by cheese producers to prevent listeriosis outbreaks. In a recent study published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, "the growth of...

DsbA is essential for multiple virulence factor formation.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- DsbA is an enzyme that is involved in protein folding and disulfide bond formation is necessary for P. aeruginosa infection, and could be a useful antibacterial target. According to recent...

Sulperazon is effective in about 64% of immunocompromised patients.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Immunocompromised patients given Sulperazon for fever responded to the antibiotic in many cases. According to a study from Russia, "The antibacterial activity of Cephoperazon/sulbactam...

Bacteria gene transfer blamed.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The way antibiotic resistance spreads and possible problems from genes transferring have been identified by researchers from the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, supporting new evidence about the...

Japanese company enters license agreement for new anti-infective.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Pfizer, Inc., announced it has entered into a license agreement with Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., of Japan for a potential new anti-infective agent that has been shown in preclinical testing to be...

Antimicrobial peptides that exist in nature have large therapeutic potential.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A review of what is known about an array of natural antimicrobial peptides also covers aspects of drug development and production. "Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are effector molecules of the...

An antimicrobial peptide was found on sea hare Dolabella auricularia.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The skin and mucus of the sea hare contain a novel antibacterial peptide termed dolabellin B2. "The sea hare Dolabella auricularia is a marine, shell-less gastropod. Four cytotoxic glycoproteins...

Reimplantation of total femoral prosthesis is successful after deep infection.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Reimplantation of total femoral prosthesis is successful after a deep infection. According to recent research published in the Journal of Arthroplasty, "A 16-year-old boy developed a deep infection...

Exclusive rights obtained to HIV microbicide candidate.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Biosyn, Inc., announced that the company has acquired exclusive, worldwide rights from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the development and commercialization of the novel protein,...

Vatica cinerea extracts show antiretroviral activity.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Extracts from a Vietnamese medicinal plant have demonstrated potent antiretroviral activity. "In a continuing search for anti-HIV compounds from the plants of Vietnam, 19 compounds, including a...

N-terminal E-cadherin peptides act as decoy receptors for bacteria.
April 28, 2003... 2003 APR 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- N-terminal E-cadherin peptides act as decoy receptors for Listeria monocytogenes. According to a study from New Zealand, "The observation that E-cadherin is the principal epithelial receptor for...