Recent Sepsis Literature

SIRS, sepsis, severe sepsis, septic shock is a continuum, a crescendo of signs and symptoms associated with an infection uncontrolled by host responses. An avalanche or cascade of seemingly unstoppable events occurs often in a matter of hours which has defied causal intervention but for which symptomatic treatment has improved Continue reading Recent Sepsis Literature

Polyphor POL7080 And The Journey to The Land of Pyocyanea  (Part 1)

When Roche inlicensed Polyphor’s anti-pseudomonas drug POL7080 in November 2013, it marked a turning point. It seemed that Big Pharma that had all but abandoned the field in the last decade and was getting engaged in anti-infectives again. When a company with as much experience in antibiotic drug development as Roche Continue reading Polyphor POL7080 And The Journey to The Land of Pyocyanea  (Part 1)

Streptomyces – The Industrious Antibiotic Producer

Like other actinomycetes, the Streptomyces group of microbes straddles the somewhat artificial boundary between bacteria and fungi. Growth on culture plates looks ‘fungal’ and the organism produces spores and germtubes that look like mycelia.  Nonetheless these soil organisms are bacteria and of great interest to microbiologists as the producers of many antibiotics Continue reading Streptomyces – The Industrious Antibiotic Producer