Publications by authors named "Claire Cormie"
Enteric fever remains a major public health problem in South and Southeast Asia. The recent roll-out of the typhoid conjugate vaccine protecting against S. Typhi exhibits great promise for disease reduction in high burden areas.
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- * Serial analyses of bowel samples from five transplant patients revealed that many infections originated from bacteria that had colonized the gut shortly before the clinical infections occurred.
- * The study suggests that monitoring gut microbiota through fecal metagenomics could help predict and potentially prevent infections in small-bowel transplant patients, especially since better outcomes were associated with more diverse donor grafts.
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- Whipworms are parasites that live in the large intestines of humans and other animals, causing sickness.
- Scientists studied how these larvae enter and infect the intestines using mice and a special lab model.
- They found that whipworm larvae break down mucus to invade cells and can cause damage, which might trigger the body’s immune response to fight back.
Airborne severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detected in a coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) ward before activation of HEPA-air filtration but not during filter operation; SARS-CoV-2 was again detected following filter deactivation. Airborne SARS-CoV-2 was infrequently detected in a COVID-19 intensive care unit. Bioaerosol was also effectively filtered.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Human-to-human transmission of symbiotic, anaerobic bacteria is a fundamental evolutionary adaptation essential for membership of the human gut microbiota. However, despite its importance, the genomic and biological adaptations underpinning symbiont transmission remain poorly understood. The Firmicutes are a dominant phylum within the intestinal microbiota that are capable of producing resistant endospores that maintain viability within the environment and germinate within the intestine to facilitate transmission.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a pressing global health crisis, which has been fueled by the sustained use of certain classes of antimicrobials, including fluoroquinolones. While the genetic mutations responsible for decreased fluoroquinolone (ciprofloxacin) susceptibility are known, the implications of ciprofloxacin exposure on bacterial growth, survival, and interactions with host cells are not well described. Aiming to understand the influence of inhibitory concentrations of ciprofloxacin we subjected three clinical isolates of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium to differing concentrations of ciprofloxacin, dependent on their MICs, and assessed the impact on bacterial growth, morphology, and transcription.
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- A study found that 3% of asymptomatic healthcare workers and 15% of symptomatic workers tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during April 2020 at a hospital in Cambridge, UK.
- By late May 2020, the rate of positive tests for both groups dropped to near-zero, paralleling a decrease in COVID-19 patient admissions during the UK lockdown.
- The findings suggest that effective infection control measures, including regular staff testing, can help prevent hospitals from spreading the virus and can inform safe returns to on-site work in other sectors.
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- - Xenopsin, a new subtype of opsin photopigment, challenges previous beliefs about the evolution of opsins and photoreceptors, suggesting it diverged from ciliary opsins long before bilaterians existed.
- - A study in flatworms revealed that xenopsin is found in both ciliary cells of larval eyes and extraocular cells in adult brains, with extraocular cells containing many cilia in a structure called a phasosome.
- - Functional tests in human cells indicate that xenopsin mainly drives phototransduction by connecting to Gαi, showing similarities to c-opsin and revealing a new type of opsin-expressing cell comparable to rods in vertebrates.
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- Researchers discovered a Salmonella-targeting phage, YSD1, in UK waterways, which helps to examine how Chi-like bacteriophages attach to bacterial flagellae.* -
- Genome sequencing revealed that YSD1 is closely related to the original Chi phage and identified key proteins involved in forming its tail structure, specifically YSD1_22, YSD1_25, and YSD1_29.* -
- The protein YSD1_29 is crucial for the phage's infection process, as antibodies against it were found to block infection of Salmonella, although the phage's effectiveness varies across different Salmonella serovars.*
The sixth global cholera pandemic lasted from 1899 to 1923. However, despite widespread fear of the disease and of its negative effects on troop morale, very few soldiers in the British Expeditionary Forces contracted cholera between 1914 and 1918. Here, we have revived and sequenced the genome of NCTC 30, a 102-year-old Vibrio cholerae isolate, which we believe is the oldest publicly available live V.
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