In The News

According to Business Week, researchers from Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital contributed to a major breakthrough in medicine's understanding of flesh eating bacteria. The Toronto scientists, in partnership with Houston Texas' Methodist Hospital Research Institute, have been able to shed new light on how the bacteria functions. The result of the impressive study is that the deadly bacteria will be easier to track and prevent in the future.

"The sequencing of nearly 100 full genomes from three successive epidemics of flesh-eating bacteria have given scientists the first clear picture of the biological events that contribute to deadly epidemics of severe infection.The approach can be used to track and help prevent major epidemics in the future, the American and Canadian researchers said"

"A study co-author, Dr. Donald Low, chief microbiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, said in the news release that "until now it has been a mystery why sometimes we see two opposing types of infection in patients who appear to have the same strain of flesh-eating bacteria. In some cases, patients suffer from a devastating infection of tissue and muscle requiring extensive surgery, and other patients present with a skin infection readily treated with antibiotics," Low said. "Now, we understand in part why this happens."

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original source Business Week