Multidrug resistant bacteria such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) pose a major problem for patients, doctors, and the pharmaceutical industry. To combat such bacteria, it is critical to understand how resistance is developed in the first place. It is commonly thought that an incomplete course of antibiotics would lead to resistance to that particular antibiotic by allowing the bacteria to make adaptive changes under less stringent conditions. Read the rest of this entry »

Do physicians provide more services to Medicare patients to make up for lower Medicare fees? With almost 42 million people enrolled in Medicare in the United States in 2008, it’s a question that could have a very costly answer. Read the rest of this entry »

Medical College of Georgia researchers are conducting the first FDA-approved clinical trial to determine whether an infusion of stem cells from umbilical cord blood can improve the quality of life for children with cerebral palsy. Read the rest of this entry »

Clinical testing and development of novel therapies based on advances in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine that will one day enable the repair and replacement of diseased or damaged human muscle, bone, tendons, and ligaments depends on the availability of good animal models. The highlights of a recent workshop that explored the need for and current status of animal models for musculoskeletal regenerative medicine are presented in a special issue of Tissue Engineering, Part B: Reviews, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The issue is available free online (http://www.liebertpub.com/ten). Read the rest of this entry »

The tiny tongue of a fruit fly could provide big answers to questions about human eating habits, possibly even leading to new ways to treat obesity, according to a study from a team of Texas A&M University researchers. Read the rest of this entry »