Antibiotics are a lifesaving tool. Yet, due to their chronic overuse, microbes are evolving and developing immunity against them. As a result, once-effective medications can no longer stave off infections, ...

Penicillin was hailed as "the silver bullet" when it was discovered, as it had the unprecedented quality of being able to kill disease-causing bacteria without harming the human body. Since then, a multitude ...

Virginia Tech researchers have learned how bacteria manipulate molecules to infect the host organism. Daniel Capelluto and his research team have discovered the mechanism by which the bacterial pathogen ...

A protein called STING, previously shown to control a pathway that contributes to antiviral signaling, also plays an important role in cellular stress clearance and cell survival, according to a new paper ...

Penicillin was hailed as "the silver bullet" when it was discovered, as it had the unprecedented quality of being able to kill disease-causing bacteria without harming the human body. Since then, a multitude of other antibiotics have been developed that specifically target a wide range of bacteria; but the more often they are used, the greater the risk that antibiotic-resistant strains will arise.

Scientists have discovered the mechanism by which the bacterial pathogen Shigella flexneri, the causative agent of dysentery, manipulates molecular activity to assure its survival against its host's natural defenses.

Fever temperatures rev up immune cell metabolism, proliferation and activity, but they also -- in a particular subset of T cells -- cause mitochondrial stress, DNA damage and cell death, researchers have discovered. The findings offer a mechanistic understanding for how cells respond to heat and could explain how chronic inflammation contributes to the development of cancer.

When studying the spread of cancer or the behavior of a virus like the one that causes COVID-19, the irony is that working with these harmful pathogens requires gentleness. Especially in the case of COVID, ...