Salmonella

Cancer vaccines are a medical holy grail – but what if you could repurpose a vaccine you’ve already had? Scientists have demonstrated in mice a way to trick the immune system into attacking tumors by mistaking them for a pathogen it already targets.

Salmonella bacteria are responsible for the most common type of food poisoning, which can cause people to become quite ill. A new test, however, is able to detect the microbes' presence in food faster and easier than ever before.

Bacteria are extremely good at evolving in response to drugs, which can render vaccines ineffective. But now, researchers at ETH Zurich have found a way to weaponize that ability against them, forcing the bugs down harmless evolutionary dead ends.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria might also be one of the biggest medical issues of the 21st century. Now, a bacterial gene that grants resistance to “last resort” antibiotics has been detected in a patient in the US, for the first time.

Bacteria are quickly evolving resistances to antibiotics, to the extent that our best drugs might not work in the terrifyingly-near future. Now, researchers from Thomas Jefferson University have found a new way to weaken bacterial defenses, slowing down the development of antibiotic resistance.

A promising new cancer-fighting approach developed at Virginia Tech leans on the penetrative properties of a salmonella infection, which they’ve found can be used as a vehicle to smuggle important nanoparticles into a tumor in a huge abundance. ​

With bacteria rapidly evolving resistance to our best antibiotics, scientists are searching high and low for new ones. Researchers have now found that a potent peptide normally used for digestion has strong antimicrobial effects, and could form the base of new drugs.

Impressive research has revealed a molecule produced by a certain type of gut bacteria can offer natural protection from Salmonella infections. As well as pointing toward potential new treatment strategies, the discovery could explain why some people get sicker from the pathogen than others.

Food poisoning will knock you off your feet, but a few days later you’ll hopefully be back to your old self. But new research suggests that certain types of salmonella can have longer-lasting effects. In some cases it could permanently damage your DNA, leaving you more vulnerable to future illness.

Certain Salmonella strains have been shown to kill off cancer cells, but to use them as a form of treatment on humans without inducing its nasty side effects has proven difficult. But now, researchers have developed genetically modified Salmonella that turns toxic only after it enters a tumor.