A new study by researchers at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston could help experts better decide whether to continue the current practice of retesting women during their second pregnancies for a common bacterial infection if they had tested positive for the infection previously.

The next time you have difficulty fighting a bacterial infection, your next trip to the doctor might be to the family veterinarian. A new University of Missouri-Columbia study is investigating whether the family pet could be a reservoir for infections of multi-resistant bacteria in humans.

The Infectious Diseases Society of American is calling on members of Congress to support the "Antibiotic Safety and Innovation" amendment introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to the Food Drug Administration (FDA) Revitalization Act. Without innovative public policy, the practice of medicine may return to the pre-antibiotic era when acquiring a bacterial infection was often a death sentence.

The study provides new evidence that Nod1, a member of the Nod-like Receptor (NLR) protein family, is activated by the protein SGT1, which also activates Resistance (R) proteins in plants; R proteins protect plants from various pathogens. The study also confirms structural similarities between the Nod1 protein, which plays a pivotal role in the innate immune system's recognition and response to bacterial infection and members of the R protein family.