Category archives: Microbiology

New hope against tuberculosis: spectinamides

New hope against tuberculosis: spectinamides

BiologyBiomedicineMicrobiology

By Ignacio López-Goñi

Tuberculosis (TB) represents a serious public health problem. The latest reports estimate an incidence of 8.7 million cases in 2001 and over 1.4 million deaths per year. The disease is usually be treated with a first-line drugs, isoniazid and rifampin, the two most potent anti-tuberculosis agents. However, the prevalence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis cause by […]

Bessel beam plane illumination microscopy: another smart solution for an old challenge.

Bessel beam plane illumination microscopy: another smart solution for an old challenge.

BiologyMicrobiologyMolecular biology

By Daniel Moreno Andrés

Since the emergence of the microscope in the early seventeenth century, many claimed its invention, but many more have tried to improve it. Many problems have been resolved on the way, allowing us to poke directly with our own eyes about the heart of the living or inert matter as far as optical physics allows […]

Inside a cell, no one can hear you turn into an infective zygote

Inside a cell, no one can hear you turn into an infective zygote

BiomedicineMicrobiology

By Carlos Romá-Mateo

It is common to think that sci-fi writers are extremely creative and smart when they depict alien creatures with weird (and usually disgusting) ways of reproducing, generally using for this purpose the bodies of incautious and often naïve human characters. And they truly are that creative and imaginative, I’m not going to take that credit […]

A mediator for horizontal gene transfer between eukaryotes and prokaryotes

A mediator for horizontal gene transfer between eukaryotes and prokaryotes

BiologyGeneticsMicrobiology

By Enrique Royuela

In biology few issues are as basic as the division and classification of living things. Despite the differences shown by taxa that occupy each of the categories, all living things have a common ancestor and characteristics that unite them. Since Linnaeus (in 1735) to the newest division created by Cavalier-Smith (in the late twentieth century) […]