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Cancer is often caused by improper function of a few proteins, and sometimes it takes only a few proteins to malfunction to cause drastic changes in cells. Here the authors look at the genes that were mutated in patients with a type of pancreatic cancer to identify proteins that are important in causing cancer. They also determined which proteins currently lack effective treatment, and suggest that certain proteins (named KRAS, CDKN2A, and RBBP8) are the most important candidates for developing drugs to treat pancreatic cancer.

In this article the authors look at the lung microbiome in patients with cystic fibrosis to determine what the major bacterial species present are.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are two of the fastest growing comorbid diseases in the world. Using publicly available datasets from the National Institute for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Ravi and Lee conducted a differential gene expression analysis using 184 blood samples from either control individuals or individuals with comorbid MDD and PTSD. As a result, the authors identified 253 highly differentially-expressed genes, with enrichment for proteins in the gene ontology group 'Ribosomal Pathway'. These genes may be used as blood-based biomarkers for susceptibility to MDD or PTSD, and to tailor treatments within a personalized medicine regime.

India accounts for over 2.4 million recorded cases of tuberculosis, about 26% of the world’s cases. This research ascertained the bearing of both the population density and the average elevation above mean sea level (MSL) on the number of cases of TB recorded by the districts in Maharashtra, India. The results found a strong positive correlation between the number of TB cases per thousand people and the population density and a strong negative correlation between the number of TB cases per thousand people and the average elevation above MSL.

The misfolding of proteins leads to numerous diseases including Akzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Type II Diabetes. Understanding of exactly how proteins fold is crucial for many medical advancements. Chenna and Englander addressed this problem by measuring the rate of hydrogen-deuterium exchange within proteins exposed to deuterium oxide in order to further elucidate the process of protein folding. Here, mass spectrometry was used to measure exchange in Cytochrome c and was compared to archived 1H NMR data.

Antibiotics are used to treat dangerous diseases. Over time, however, bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics - which poses a threat to humans and animals alike. In this paper, the authors examine how E. coli gains resistance to the antibiotic amoxicillin.

Systematic consumption of traditional foods is a popular way of treating diseases in India. Rasam, a soup of spices and tomato with a tamarind base, is a home remedy for viral infections such as the common cold. Here, we investigate if rasam, prepared under household conditions, exhibits antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, two common pathogenic bacteria. Our results show rasam prepared under household conditions lacks antibacterial activity despite its ingredients possessing such properties.

The emergence of antibiotic-resistant pathogenic bacteria is a major concern for human health, rendering some antibiotics ineffective in treating diseases. The authors of this study tested the hypothesis that exposing rumen bacteria to tetracycline will gradually lead to the development of tetracycline-resistant bacteria, some of which will develop multidrug resistance.

The study explored the role of testosterone beyond its well-established effects on male sex characteristics, focusing on its association with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D), using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis on genomic data.

Antibiotics are one of the most common treatments for bacterial infections, but the emergence of antibiotic resistance is a major threat to the control of infectious diseases. Many factors contribute to the development of antibiotic resistance. One is bacterial conjugation from Gram-positive to Gram-negative bacteria where there is a transfer of resistance genes from Gram-positive to Gram-negative bacteria that could increase antibiotic resistance in the latter. In light of these observations, we decided to test whether Gram-negative bacteria that came into contact with Gram-positive bacteria had a higher resistance to the antimicrobial properties of spices than Gram-negative bacteria that did not come into contact with Gram-positive bacteria.