Microbiology and Immunology

The (very) older folks may remember initial polio vaccination in US - 1st the injected Salk and the later, sugar-cubed Sabin. Neither went without issue. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1383764/pdf/0156.pdf

Why do people get the cold and flu in the winter time? People say flu season is in the winter from October to April. They say it not the cold weather causing it but people indoors more but I’m confuse because in the sun belt cities like Phoenix and Miami in the summer the AC is on and they are indoors more yet they get cold and flu in the winter time there with the AC off in the winter there and not the summer. Also the window is open and they are out doors more in the winter time there. So what is causing the cold and flu to spread so much in the winter time? Other warm tropical countries where it is hot all year round get the cold and flu there.

What is wrong with people immune system? They say 1 in 4 will get cancer in their life? And the latest data say 1 in 4 will get cancer in their life And that number is to change to 1 in 3 will get cancer in their life. What is wrong with people immune system? What is causing cancer? How long before there is cancer cure and how long will it take for cancer cure? Do you think 50 years from now there will be cancer cure? How long before cancer is cure 50 years from now or like 100 years from now?

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/recall/byheart-baby-formula-recalled-state-outbreak-infant-botulism-rcna242783 Recall of baby formula reportedly contaminated with botulinum toxin. Honey has been another source of the issue. . https://www.nature.com/articles/7211651

Don't you reckon it's a great idea to train people to vaccinate each other in public? Like, the process of administering an injection is very simple, I've seen tutorials on youtube, like a 4 step process. If everybody in the world were trained to administer flu shots, or tetanus shots, for instance There could be random booths put up all over the place, one could just walk upto a person on the street and be like "Wanna give me my flu injection" Just an idea I had wanted to share.

Gradually, the bacteria adapt to antibiotics. In the nature of bacteria, viruses sometimes win. In the future, when antibiotics stop working on bacteria, we should be ready to use viruses. Do you think this is possible?

fyi https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2025/Woolite-Delicates-Detergent-Recalled-by-Reckitt-Due-to-Risk-of-Exposure-to-Bacteria-Sold-Exclusively-on-Amazon-com Woolite contamination. Some may household cleaner contamination from a few years back - https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/a42805515/fabuloso-cleaner-recall-full-list/

It's not moving however it appears to be an organism to me. Is it? If so, what is it ? Thank you

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I'm probably worrying about nothing but since the pandemic I've been even more worried about germs. I was given a used laptop - the keyboard I sprayed lightly with an alcohol aerosal and then wiped down with antibacterial wipes. I didn't take the keys off, so I'm not confident that the underneath of the keys got cleaned. How long do harmful germs last on a keyboard anyway? I've had it for about 2 months and since I don't really understand microbiology and have only seen the scaremongering in adverts about germs, I'm freaking out. I didn't wait for the alcohol spray to dry either before I wiped, so I'm also freaking out that the two agents mixed and possibly cancelled out …

I'm a beginner when it comes to S.aureus. Can anyone explain to me some terms related to S. aureus sequencing such as Cluster complex, spa type, SCCmec, Clonal complex, accressory gene Regular? And some information about popular types of spas in humanistic medicine and veterinary medicine. Thank for all

I've been a heavy smoker since I was 19. Just background fact. After maybe 17 malaria-free years in Nigeria, I eventually came down with it in 2016 (P. falciparum) and running 400 C I was immediately hospitalised for 3 days on a combination quinine/paracetamol drip. This repeated 2 years later. On both occasions, I had three days of no urge to smoke whatsoever, which was a really big deal to me. Normally two hours abstention pushes me into a tense, hyperactive somewhat sociopathic state that can alarm those around me. Basically. I smoke to stay in employment (and married!). So any way out of this circular trap would be highly beneficial. Of course, I discussed t…

I have a series of combination plasmids based on the pET-28a vector, each of which contains the ppk gene from different bacteria inserted at the same site. The sequence length of these plasmids is approximately 7300 base pairs each. I am curious about whether the copy numbers of these plasmids remain consistent after they are separately introduced into E. coli cells?

I am writing my thesis/dissertation. It dealt with the antimicrobial activity of novel compounds. Next to determining the MIC, I also subcultured the organisms to conclude about the mode of action. I determined the MBCs for every compound and also calculated the MBC/MIC ratio. This ratio tells me more about the potential mode of action (static or cidal). For instance, smaller than 4 would be bactericidal. I don't know how to deal with these results. Can I already assign the mode of action after naming the results, or should this be part of the discussion? I had the same question about my synergy experiment. I tested two compounds together and calculated the frac…

Is it true that the lab in Wuhan is one of only three labs in the world that do gain of function research? If this is true, I don't understand how this could NOT be a lab leak (and please fact check me on these points, perhaps I got something wrong): - COVID is a new variant of a previous virus - the previous virus had only the capacity to infected bats/animals, no bat->human transmission - gain of function modification can give a virus the ability to infect humans when it previously couldn't - only three labs in the world do this kind of modification - there are wet markets in Wuhan where such a virus could have originated, but presumably…

I think this is a fairly simple question, but I'm interested in such research. If you heat yogurt in the microwave, will the bacteria in it die or not? I understand that this is a very simple question, so don't laugh, but I didn't find the answer. Some people think that the bacteria will die and the milk will lose its beneficial properties, others think that everything will be fine, what do you think? I also wanted to add at the same time why the immune system does not kill beneficial bacteria in our intestines? If the second question is difficult then just give a link to a book on the subject.

Can someone help identify these spots?

This is a photograph of a human blood stain on an organic (inert) substrate. As I am no expert in this field, what am I looking at? and what is the "winding" in the middle of the photo.. does blood present like this under magnification?

Some days ago, I developed a fever and a severely painful sore throat. This lasted for 2-3 days and I'm now on my second day of being symptom free. I did a COVID test this morning and it came back positive. Seeing how I now feel fine, but have a positive test result, is there anything I should be taking to treat the infection or is the recommendation to just wait? Should I take anything to reduce risk of long COVID? I read a meta analysis of COVID guidelines and it seems there's a tremendous number of guidelines with a lot of disagreement between them, so I'm not sure what authority to consult. From popular media, I remember hearing monoclonal antibodies as…

I have recently had genetic testing to rule out BRCA gene, but came up with a PTEN mutation (p.Y336... c.1008C>G)- tumor suppressant gene . I have a medical history of a tiny breast cancer about 12 years ago (a few millimeters), colon polyps, and macrocephaly. Other than that I am perfectly healthy. My physicians have told me I have Cowden syndrome, and it is now a 4 alarm fire with need for multiple tests per year, but all the studies I read on this indicate incidence is about 1/200,000. Not sure about the actual pathogenicity of this, as they are just reporting case studies and acknowledging there could be bias in diagnosis. Anyone out there able to help me sort o…

Hi everybody, I am currently working on a 1st year assignment to make a bar chart of bacterial germ count in (CFU/mL) of various objects that have been disinfected. Since the data between the different objects varies considerably (12 CFU/mL to 3.2 x 10^9 CFU/ml) I thought about log transforming the data. However, I ran into the following: the counts are performed in triplicate, I would like to calculate a standard deviation of this, do I need to calculate the SD (or even the relative standard deviation) of the log transformed data or of the non-log transformed data. Thanks in advance for your answers! Regards, Steve

I recall reading about the history of medicine and one interesting topic is the concept of The Magic Bullet which is basically a drug that zeroes in on the putative cause of an illness (bug/cancer/etc.), avoiding all healthy tissue, and takes them out in a manner of speaking. Such an idea has been worked on with considerable progress made in the military: precision munitions, heat-seeking and guided missiles, tactical nuclear weapons, and so on. The objective is the same in both medicine and weaponry: a sniper rifle instead of a machine gun. However, more ground has been covered in arms than in drugs. Is there an opportunity for comparing/sharing notes…

My niece just had surgery and has developed a fever for about a week now. The doctor told us she has high CRP but a normal blood count. How can this be possible? I would imagine her tissue damage and fever would trigger increased white blood cells in conjunction with the elevated CRP. Thank you for any inputs or thoughts

I keep reading the one of the ways monkey pox is transmitted is by ‘skin to skin’ contact. This seems like an ambiguous statement. For instance does it go through the skin, do you need to have a cut or bruise too, does it live on your skin and then it might find its way in somewhere else? can someone please give me a bit of insight in the meaning of ‘skjn to skin contact’ and the mechanism for transmission?

I used MHA media as a medium for testing the inhibitory power of the extract against bacteria, but the research that became my reference used Nutrient agar media for the test media. and the results of our study are very different, so whether the media used can affect the results of the inhibition zone formed?