It is now well known that antibiotic use in animal husbandry far exceeds antibiotic use in humans. There is now considerable corporate and individual interest in reducing the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry – see for example McDonald’s (!) which even has a corporate vision for antibiotic stewardship in food animals. One issue is […]
Had a little spare time on Tuesday, and visited this very small museum which is sited at St Mary’s Hospital in London. It was opened in 1993 with financial support from SmithKline Beecham (before the pharmaceutical company merged with Glaxo Wellcome to become GlaxoSmithKline), and the main attraction is the reconstruction of Alexander Fleming’s laboratory […]
The rather boring term “type VI secretion system” (it is the 6th bacterial secretion system discovered) refers to a remarkable molecular contractile “sting” that can be assembled and disassembled, and is found in multiple Gram-negative bacteria. Its primary purpose – as the term suggests – is to secrete proteins into another cell. It is deployed […]
A personal and primarily local look back at the year. What are the major infectious diseases events in modern Singapore in 2017? Outbreaks The World Health Organization (WHO) has a list of outbreaks by year on its website, and the 2017 list is depressingly long. There are the usual “suspects” like cholera (Africa) and diphtheria […]
In June last year, the Ministry of Health Singapore initiated a large-scale on-site voluntary tuberculosis (TB) screening for the residents of a 10-storey apartment block after a cluster of 6 multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) cases in the Block were diagnosed over the preceding 4 years. The results were released in an academic paper published in the […]
A paper published in Lancet Infectious Diseases (behind a paywall) by researchers from the Institut Pasteur and the French National Reference Centre for Escherichia coli, Shigella and Salmonella generated much buzz online among those interested in antimicrobial resistance. They had studied 288 historical (1911-1969) isolates of Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium – a zoonotic bacterium that is one of the most common causes of non-typhoidal Salmonella […]
It is one week after World Antibiotic Awareness Week. Nonetheless, raising awareness of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance is an ongoing process, and the team led by Dr Clarence Tam from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health set up their stations at Marine Parade Public Library this weekend. The library did not see as […]
I was privileged to be invited for the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) annual scientific retreat last Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately, I was only able to attend the Thursday sessions, but I was very impressed by the work done there. It is virtually all basic science, but the results of the metagenomics […]
While the first prize was the JC/Polytechnic section was deservedly awarded to Mstr Fong Khi Yung from Raffles Institution, for his work of futuristic fiction. More by the microscopic than the colossal On some evenings, I walk through the expressionless countryside fields undulating in the wind, gazing up at the crimson heavens and golden sunset […]
And the top prize for the Post-Antibiotic World Essay Competition goes to Chan Ger Hui. Well-deserved! A Post-Antibiotic World It all started with one small holiday And one very small spore. Stray fungi growing on a petri dish Was soon to be so much more. Remember for this discovery Fleming— But forget not Florey, Chain, […]
MIPHIDIC 