infectious disease, microbiology

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab mistakenly transferred the wrong Ebola samples—ones that may have contained live virus—to another agency lab.

Infection rates in Liberia decline; aid organizations struggle to procure gear; Merck enters the vaccine race; more

Willy Burgdorfer, the medical entomologist who first found the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, has passed away at age 89.

Researchers discover a densovirus that is associated with sea star wasting disease.

Funding for African science; microbiome studies may have contamination worries; mind-controlled gene expression; DNA record keeper

Trouble obtaining Ebola samples; Republicans take over Congressional science committees; postdoc participation

As the number of people infected with the deadly virus in West Africa surpasses 10,000, some countries seek to protect themselves against imported infections, while researchers race to bring vaccines to the hardest-hit nations.

In the wake of a handful of biosafety lapses at federal research facilities, the US government is temporarily halting funding for new studies aiming to give novel functions to influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses.

Lengthy stints in intensive care units pare down patients’ gut microflora, a study shows.

The United Nations Security Council declares the situation in West Africa a “threat to international peace and security” and calls for even more resources to fight the spread of the Ebola virus.

Microlesions in heart muscle may contribute to cardiac complications in elderly patients, a study shows.

ZMapp effectively rescued macaques from Ebola in a small trial, but it could be several months before supplies of the drug meet the growing human demand for it.

An experimental monoclonal antibody therapy, tested only in animals, is given to two Americans infected with Ebola virus.

A study shows that the herding dogs can be an effective means of controlling bacterial infections spread by seagulls.

The overly simplistic notion of a Lactobacillus-dominated vaginal microbiome is giving way to an appreciation of diverse and dynamic bacterial communities.

Researchers reveal the molecular mechanisms of Streptomyces platensis’s defense from its own antibiotics, which inhibit fatty acid synthesis in other microbes.

A single hospital was at the epicenter of an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

A long-term study confirms transplants of stool microbes from healthy donors can successfully clear recurrent Clostridium difficile infections.

A new tick-borne disease has emerged in the US Midwest—and the culprit is not a bacterium. 

Switching up the drugs used to treat bacterial infections could help clinicians battle both illness and resistance at the same time.