NEW DRUG RECIPE FOR TB: Adding the antibiotic moxifloxacin to the standard combination of drugs currently used to treat tuberculosis (TB)could reduce the time needed to cure patients,researchers say. The results of the study were presented at the 47th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago, United States.Researchers compared the efficiency of using the moxifloxacin and ethambutol antibiotics in 170 TB patients in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil. They found that,in the first eight weeks of treatment,85 per cent of patients taking moxifloxacin were clear of active infections in their lungs,compared with 68 per cent of those taking the combination with ethambutol.Current treatment of TB requires patients to take four drugs for eight weeks and then two drugs for four months. Shorter treatment will not only ease pressure on healthcare workers, but will improve patients' adherence to the treatment regime, therefore reducing the occurrence of drug resistance due to non-compliance. Moxifloxacin has been approved in more than 100 countries to treat pneumonia, but is not currently approved as a treatment for TB.

TREATING INFANT DIARRHOEA: Each year more than half a million infants worldwide, primarily in developing countries, die from diarrhoea caused by rotavirus. Even in industrialised countries management of the infection costs economies about $1 billion a year. Now a new study demonstrates that with the addition of probiotic bacteria, preventative measures can potentially be made far cheaper but just as effective. The researchers found that the Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG probiotic strain, in combination with a lower dose than usual of antibodies, provides protection

PRESERVING FOODS NATURALLY: Two items high on the list of public concerns are the need for greater food safety and a growing demand for natural or organic food products. Understanding this, chemists and food scientists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, joined forces to develop natural approaches to the prevention of food contamination and spoilage. The researchers employed natural antimicrobial agents derived from sources such as cloves, oregano, thyme and paprika to create novel biodegradable polymers or plastics to potentially block the formation of bacterial biofilms on food surfaces and packaging. The natural substances have general antimicrobial activities against many different kinds of microorganisms. This approach offers a number of advantages. The diversity of polymicrobial biofilms makes them difficult to defeat, with each type of microbe presenting a unique challenge to health and hygiene. An additional positive feature stems from the use of polymer "backbones "to which the natural agents were incorporated. These polymers are biodegradable due to their specific chemical composition and the nature of the bonds that hold them together. As they degrade in the presence of water and/or enzymes, they slowly release their active antimicrobials.

 against infection that is almost as effective as a higher dose of the antibodies alone, thus making a saving of up to 90 per cent on antibodies to treat diarrhoea. The antibody chosen, hyperimmune bovine colostrums (HBC),is known to be effective in clinical settings as a cure of rotaviral diarrhoea, but is an expensive treatment.

TRACING ONE’S ANCESTORY: The gene most closely linked to left-handedness has been found. A group of computer scientists, mathematicians, and biologists from around the world have developed a computer algorithm that can help trace the genetic ancestry of thousands of individuals in minutes, without any prior knowledge of their background. Unlike previous computer programmes of its kind that require prior knowledge of an individual ’s ancestry and background, this new algorithm looks for specificDNA markers known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs (pronounced snips), and needs nothing more than a DNA sample in the form of a simple cheek swab. The researchers used genetic data from previous studies to perform and confirm their research, including the new Hap Map database, which is working to uncover and map variations in the human genome.

 The researchers hope that the programme will be a valuable tool for understanding our genetic ancestry and targeting drugs and other medical treatments because it might be possible that these can affect people of different ancestry in different ways.

NEW IDEAS IN GENOMIC IMPRINTING: we come to express the genes of one parent over the other is now better understood through studying the platypus and marsupial wallaby--and it doesn't seem to have originated in association with sex chromosomes. New research has shed light on the evolution of genomic imprinting, in which specific genes on chromosomes that have been inherited from one parent are expressed in an organism, while the same genes on the chromosome inherited from the other parent are repressed. Imprinting arises from some kind of 'epigenetic memory'- modifications to the DNA from one parent, such as the way the chromosomal material is packaged, that do not allow particular genes to be expressed. The results of the studies suggest that imprinted genes were not located on an ancestrally imprinted chromosome, nor were they associated with sex chromosomes. Rather it appears that imprinting evolved in a stepwise way, with each gene or cluster becoming imprinted as the need arose.