This highlights the role that inanimate objects can play in spreading the norovirus infection.

The research, which has been published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, confirmed the great potential for contamination of surfaces in norovirus outbreaks in group settings. Noroviruses are a primary cause of gastroenteritis around the world, and are highly contagious. It spreads efficiently from faeces and vomit by direct contact or by indirect transmission from viral contamination of surfaces.

In this case, the group that came down with gastroenteritis appeared to have no apparent direct physical contact with a pathogen, which prompted investigators to explore how the illness had managed to spread.

They found that a reusable grocery bag had been unfortunately stored in the bathroom of a girl that had contracted gastroenteritis, and the virus had aerosolized within the bathroom and settled onto the bag and its contents. This was confirmed when matching viruses were found on the reusable shopping bag two weeks later.

This confirmed the great potential for contamination of surfaces in group settings, and also "provides a fascinating example of how a unique exposure and transmission scenario can result in a norovirus outbreak," study authors from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention explain.

The new treatment is currently being used in contact lenses to prevent infections and new biomedical products are now close to being manufactured. The idea was conceived by researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), who created a coating which has a magnetic-like feature that attracts bacteria and kills them without the need for antibiotics.

With a success rate of 99 per cent, two companies have already signed up for the 'killer coating', with a contact lens manufacturer and an animal care products firm showing interest in the new treatment. The researchers will now look to expand their market appeal to biomedical companies and other consumer products, such as implants and surgical instruments to kitchen utensils and cutlery.

The development is particularly prevalent considering that antibiotics have been found to be ineffective against superbugs. This new solution could become a replacement for antibiotics, changing the way we perceive bacterial treatment.

Bacteria is drawn to the positive charge of the sponge-like polymer. Once it comes into contact with the coating, the cell walls are ‘sucked’ into the nanopores causing the cell to rupture and the bacterium to die.

Professor Mary Chan, acting chair of NTU’s School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering said: “The coating can also be applied on biomedical objects, such as catheters and implants to prevent bacterial infections, which is a serious cause of concern as many bacteria are now developing resistance to antibiotics – currently our main source of treatment for infections.

“By developing novel materials which uses physical interaction to kill bacteria cells, we envisage this can be an alternative form of treatment for bacterial infections in the near future.”

Professor Chan is now looking to develop the solution in order to meet a growing demand for such products as superbugs continue to emerge.

Seasonal influenza causes serious illness to three to five million people a year, and can also lead to between 200,000 and 500,000 deaths.

The H1N1 pandemic killed over 14,000 people worldwide, which highlighted the need for better protection when it comes to preventing seasonal flu.

This is something Professor John Schrader and his team looked to do, conducting research at the University of British Columbia's Biomedical Research Centre. They found that the vaccine used in the 2009 H1N1 outbreak could protect against many influenza viruses, making it the basis of a universal flu vaccine which could emerge in the future.

Their research has been documented in the journal Frontiers in Immunology, where Mr Schrader said: "The flu virus has a protein called hemagglutinin, or HA for short. This protein is like a flower with a head and a stem.

"The flu virus binds to human cells via the head of the HA, much like a socket and plug. Current flu vaccines target the head of the HA to prevent infections, but because the flu virus mutates very quickly, this part of the HA changes rapidly, hence the need for different vaccines every flu season."

Vaccines work by using bits of weak or dead germs that prompt the human immune system to produce antibodies that circulate in the blood to kill those specific germs. However, the H1N1 vaccine has been found to induce broadly protective antibodies capable of fighting different variants of the flu virus.

Mr Schrader said: "This is because, rather than attacking the variable head of the HA, the antibodies attacked the stem of the HA, neutralizing the flu virus.

"The stem plays such an integral role in penetrating the cell that it cannot change between different variants of the flu virus."

Experts from Imperial College London have been observing blood samples from thousands of women at various different ages to test how genes are altered by environmental factors such as alcohol and hormones.

The process, known as epigenetics, could hold the key to predicting the likelihood of breast cancer in women by tracking a genetic switch called methylation.

Baroness Delyth Morgan of Breast Cancer Campaign said: "By piecing together how this happens, we can look at ways of preventing the disease and detecting it earlier to give people the best possible chance of survival.”

Through analysis of blood samples, the researchers were able to find a strong link between breast cancer risk and molecular modification in ATM. They then looked to see whether methylation was causing this change, finding that women with the highest methylation levels affecting the ATM gene were twice as likely to develop breast cancer compared with those with the lowest levels.

This could lead to significant improvements in the prevention and early diagnosis of the cancer type, with researchers finding that in some cases the changes were evident up to 11 years before the breast tumour was diagnosed.

Dr James Flanagan, of Imperial College London, who led the new research, said: "We know that genetic variation contributes to a person's risk of disease.

"With this new study we can now also say that epigenetic variation, or differences in how genes are modified, also has a role. We hope that this research is just the beginning of our understanding about the epigenetic component of breast cancer risk and in the coming years we hope to find many more examples of genes that contribute to a person's risk."

The researchers now face the challenge of incorporating this discovery into computer models that can predict risk. In the future, a simple blood test could help to predict a woman's chance of getting the disease.

Dutch researchers have examined 4,500 bowel cancer patients living in the Netherlands and documented their findings in the British Journal of Cancer. Participating patients took a low dose of the drug each day (80mg or less), which is something that is already recommended for people living with heart disease.

This research adds to a growing bank of data that suggests aspirin could both prevent and treat various forms of cancer. However, researchers have noted that it is too early to start routinely offering it for bowel cancer. There are several side effects associated with aspirin, such as irritation of the stomach lining and internal bleeding in a small amount of cases.

The research findings were based on evidence that has been compiled over almost a decade. A quarter of the patients involved in the study did not use aspirin, a quarter only took aspirin after being diagnosed with bowel cancer, and the remaining half took aspirin both before and after their diagnosis.

They found that taking aspirin for anytime after the diagnosis cut the chance of dying from bowel cancer by 23 per cent. Those who took the drug on a daily basis for at least nine months after their diagnosis cut the chance by 30 per cent.

Lead researcher Dr Gerrit-Jan Liefers, of the Leiden University Medical Centre, said: "Our work adds to growing evidence that aspirin not only can prevent cancer from occurring but if it is there it can help prevent it spreading.

"It's possible that some older people may have other health problems which mean that they are not well enough to have chemotherapy. Bowel cancer is more common in older people so these results could be a big advance in treatment of the disease, particularly in this group. But we need further research to confirm this."

The chemistry professor exclaimed that science is cool again after performing a series of wonderful and weird chemical reactions to audiences at this year's Science World at Wembley. He is currently on a mission to produce educational games designed to engage players in subjects and get them to learn through play.

Dr Hal is becoming quite a regular at Science World, and told reporters that he thoroughly enjoys the event every year. He said after this year's event: "It's been a brilliant day for us. We've been doing the science we really like doing to an appreciative audience of science connoisseurs and had a lot of fun doing it. They had a lot of fun too – we've been doing it for about seven years now and I think it really just adds to the event. There's science, there's commerce – everything's going on."

He also commented on the range of people attending the event, saying that he had met people on the day from all warps of the scientific spectrum. The event is designed for scientists, researchers, doctors to discover new products and network with other people within the industry. But it isn’t all commerce, there is also entertainment and educational events booked each year that give aspiring scientists a chance to get in touch with where the industry is at.

It is becoming an increasingly important event in the calendar, as more and more people start to engage with the sciences. Dr Hal said celebrity speakers such as Dr Brian Cox are helping to bring the sciences into the public realm, making it an interesting and engaging industry to work in.

He said: "There is a resurgence of science – it's cool to be a scientist now, and I think it went through a phase when it wasn't that cool."

The new technology is used for identifying and targeting unique protein receptor ZIP Codes on the cellular surface, and could lead the way for the development of targeted drugs.

Researchers at the University of Texas led the study, which has been published this week in Nature Communications. They managed to achieve the results by packaging the phage particles with a peptide called penetratin in order to reach inside the cell. This new capacity can be used for a host of different objectives, such as screening for binding and ribosomes.
                                  
Renata Pasqualini, Ph.D., co-senior author of the paper and a professor in MD Anderson's David H. Koch Center for Applied Research of Genitourinary Cancers, said: "We provided proof-of-concept for a direct intracellular ligand-receptor screening technology, which is clearly an unmet need in cancer biology, along with the discovery of an organelle ZIP Code that mediates cell death."

Author: Dave Bunnell

Researchers from McMaster and the University of Akron in the US travelled to the depths of New Mexico's Lechuguilla Cave to make the discovery. The cave has been completely absent of human contact until recently, owing to its depth and inaccessibility.

Finding that bacteria have engineered defences against antibiotics could be an indication of previously unknown, naturally occurring antibiotics that doctors could use to treat infections.

Gerry Wright and Hazel Barton from McMaster collected strains of bacteria from the cave's deepest recesses to make the findings, where they found almost all bacteria to be resistant to at least one antibiotic. In some cases, the bacteria was resistant to as many as 14 different antibiotics.

Mr Wright said: "Our study shows that antibiotic resistance is hard-wired into bacteria. It could be billions of years old, but we have only been trying to understand it for the last 70 years.

"This has important clinical implications. It suggests that there are far more antibiotics in the environment that could be found and used to treat currently untreatable infections."

The researchers additionally found that there was resistance in the bacteria relating to the bacterium that causes anthrax. Although this isn’t a problem now, it is possible that it could develop into one, and clinics should be prepared to respond to the threat.

Antibiotic resistance among bacteria is a growing health concern, with bacteria such as Staphylococcus growing which is resistant to a number of drugs.

Mr White added: "In extreme cases these organisms are resistant to seven or more drugs and are untreatable using traditional treatment, and doctors must resort to surgery to remove infected tissue."

Studying Lechuguilla Cave, where antibiotics have had no influence, was therefore a perfect laboratory for the researchers.

Credit: Rocky Mountain Laboratories

Michael Mahan and Douglas Heithoff, researchers from the University of California, US, recently documented findings in a paper titled ‘Intraspecies Variation in the Emergence of Hyperinfectious Bacterial Strains in Nature,’ emphasising the potential for these sometimes fatal strains of salmonella to be detected, and therefore eradicated.

Salmonella is one of the most common causes of infection, hospitalisation and death due to food-borne illness. The researchers looked to address this problem by looking for the dangerous strains present in salmonella, finding  hypervirulent strains that present a potential risk to food safety and the livestock industry.

An international team of scientists  conducted a global search for hypervirulent salmonella strains. They were found among isolates derived from livestock, and rendered current vaccines obsolete. The severe strains were compared to the fifth gear of a car, acting much like a Trojan Horse by exposing their weapons only after initiating infection.

The findings required new techniques, after previous efforts failed to find hypervirulent strains owing to the fact that bacteria behaves much like their less-virulent cousins after environmental exposure. Professor Mahan  explained: "The trick was to assess their virulence during infection –– before they switch back to a less-virulent state in the lab.”

Knowing what to look for is half the battle when it comes to detecting and discriminating more harmful strains. The strategy is aided by a special medium utilised by the researchers that forces the bacteria to reveal their weapons in the laboratory. The researchers will now look for ways to rapidly detect the strains, using the data to design of therapeutics to combat them.

As hypervirulent strains pose a potential risk to human and animal health, mitigation efforts warrant researchers' careful attention. "Now that we have identified the problem –– and potential solutions –– we just need to get to work," Heithoff concluded.

The tests were commissioned after a 35-year-old man on the drug reported fatigue and sexual disinterest.

The tablets, which are commonly used in patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), were licensed by the Food and Drug Administration in August of last year because of their dramatic and long-lasting suppression of ALK positive lung cancer.

However, Andrew Weickhardt, MD, senior clinical fellow at the CU Cancer Center, and colleagues made further analysis of the drug when they heard about the specific issues the 35-year-old man reported.

Dr Weickhardt said: "While testosterone was low in only about 30 per cent of men on other therapies, it was low in one hundred per cent of the men who were on crizotinib. And when we started to track it over time, we could clearly see testosterone levels dropping within days of starting on the drug."

According to Macmillan Cancer Support, lung cancer is the second most common cancer in the UK and more than 38,000 people are diagnosed each year.