Mimicking tiny features seen on insect wings and shark skin that effectively keep their surfaces free of bacteria, a team from Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has found a way to prevent bacterial infection on orthopaedic implants without using any chemicals. The team led by Prof. Kaushik Chatterjee from the Department of Materials Engineering... Continue Reading →
Indian researchers reverse multidrug resistance in E. coli
Indian researchers have unravelled the mechanism by which hydrogen sulphide (H2S) gas produced by bacteria protects them from antibiotics and plays a key role in helping bacteria develop drug resistance. And by blocking/disabling the enzyme that triggers the biosynthesis of hydrogen sulphide in bacteria, the researchers from Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Indian... Continue Reading →
IISc produces a novel salt to better combat bacterial infections
Using crystal engineering, a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore has successfully produced a highly efficacious binary salt of two commonly used drugs — norfloxacin (antibacterial) and sulfathiazole (antimicrobial). The salt is more effective than a physical mixture of the two drugs. The results were published in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.... Continue Reading →
IIT Hyderabad finds a chink in E. coli armour
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IIT-H) have made a promising start to render E. coli bacteria more susceptible to host immune response. The researchers have found a potential way of preventing the bacterial surface-associated polysaccharide — capsular polysaccharide (CPS) or K antigen — from attaching on the surface membrane and forming a protective encapsulation of the bacteria, thus... Continue Reading →
Voila! IISc’s catalyst uses sunlight to make water E. coli-free
Drinking water can now be made completely free of E. coli in about 30 minutes by exposing it to sunlight thanks to a catalyst developed by researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. The E. coli bacteria is responsible for most of the water-borne bacterial infections. The results were published on September 2, 2016 in... Continue Reading →
IISc researchers produce an improved water purification membrane
Going a step further, a team of researchers from IISc Bangalore has improved upon the water purification membrane they developed in 2014. The membrane allows higher flow of water across it and kills nearly 99 per cent of E. coli present in water. The results of the study were published recently in the journal Nanoscale. Instead... Continue Reading →
Mcr-1 gene found in second human sample in the U.S.
Researchers have identified a second sample of E. coli in human sample in the U.S. containing the mcr-1 gene. This comes nearly six weeks after the first case of a 49-year-old woman from Pennsylvania with a urinary tract infection caused by E. coli was found carrying the gene, mcr-1. Mcr-1 is resistant to the antibiotic colistin, the... Continue Reading →
