We all know that influenza vaccination helps prevent disease, but a new study from Canada suggests it may also prevent another public health problem: inappropriate antibiotic use. The findings come from a new study in the September 1, 2009 issue of Clinical Infectious Disease, which is now available online.

In an advance that could help ease the antibiotic drought, scientists in Massachusetts are describing successful use of a test that enlists pinhead-sized worms in efforts to discover badly needed new antibiotics. Their study appeared in ACS Chemical Biology, a monthly journal.

More and more bacterial stems are developing resistance to previously life-saving antibiotics. Physicians have been warning that fatality rates from infections could increase dramatically in the very near future. Researchers at the Technische Universität München (TUM) have now cast light on a metabolic step that appears in many aggressive microorganisms like tuberculosis or malaria pathogens and that may provide a promising target for a new class of antibiotics.

The resistance pattern for antibiotics in gulls is the same as in humans, and a new study by Uppsala University researchers shows that nearly half of Mediterranean gulls in southern France have some form of resistance to antibiotics. The study is being published today in the journal PLoS One.

A mineral found at health food stores could be the key to developing a new line of antibiotics for bacteria that commonly cause diarrhea, tooth decay and, in some severe cases, death.

Nearly 20 years ago, it was discovered that bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori were responsible for stomach ulcers. Since then, antibiotics have become the primary therapy used to combat the H. pylori infection, which affects approximately six percent of the world population and is also a primary cause of stomach cancer. But today the bacteria is growing increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

Researchers have determined the structure of a key genetic mechanism at work in bacteria, including some that are deadly to humans, in an important step toward the design of a new class of antibiotics, according to an accelerated publication that appeared online today as a "paper of the week" in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

With an epidemic of antibiotic-resistant infections growing, experts are warning grocery-store pharmacies that antibiotics giveaways are an unhealthy promotional gimmick.

Bacteria hunker down and survive antibiotic attack when a protein flips a chemical switch that throws them into a dormant state until treatment abates, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the Jan.16 edition of Science.

As bacteria resistant to commonly used antibiotics continue to increase in number, scientists keep searching for new sources of drugs. In this week's JBC, one potential new bactericide has been found in the tiny freshwater animal Hydra.

If an antibiotic is just what the doctor orders during the ‘cough-and-cold’ season, your prescription won’t cost you a penny at Wegmans.

Administering antibiotics as a preventive measure to patients in intensive care units (ICUs) increases their chances of survival. This has emerged from a study involving nearly sixthousand Dutch patients in thirteen hospitals.