Personalized medicine is a promising treatment for recurrent cancer and superbugs, but it is labour-intensive and expensive, and pathways for its regulatory approval and reimbursement are complicated.
We tend to just think of viruses in terms of their damaging impacts on human health and lives. But viruses can also be used to benefit human health, agriculture and the environment.
Ivan Erill, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Viruses have gotten a bad rap for the many illnesses and pandemics they’ve caused. But viruses are also genetic innovators – and possibly the pioneers of using DNA as the genetic blueprint of life.
The CDC just released a list of bacteria and fungi that pose, or have the potential to pose, a serious health threat. Here are four strategies for curbing the rise of these superbugs.
Bacteria are becoming resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics. These expensive, hard-to-treat infections are prompting physicians to reassess using viruses to destroy bacteria.
Luc Henry, EPFL – École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
Bacterial infections remain a major threat to human and animal health. Worse still, the catalogue of useful antibiotics is shrinking as pathogens build up resistance to these drugs. There are few promising…
The introduction into clinical practice of antibiotics is arguably the most significant medical advance of the 20th century. Together with immunisation and better public sanitation, they’ve had a significant…
Bacteria-eating viruses that kill the hospital superbug C. difficile have been isolated by scientists. The use of these kinds of viruses, known as phages, to tackle bacterial infection was employed before…