Sunday, January 22, 2017

Microbiology: Diseases Caused by Exotoxins


Diseases Caused by Exotoxins:

Exotoxins are:
- Produced inside the cell
- Mostly produced by Gram +ve bacteria (hint eXo = +)
- Released by living cells

Table:


Monday, January 16, 2017

Bacteria and Diseases


A simple list of bacteria and infections/diseases they cause for intro microbiology course, organized alphabetically for ease. Re-organize in Excel and print!




BacteriaDiseases they cause
Aeromonas caviae: gastrointestinal disease, chronic diarrhea
Afpia felis: Cat Scratch fever, noscomial infections.
Bacillus anthracis: Anthrax disease
Bacillus cereus: Food poisoning
Bartonella henselae: Cat scratch fever
Bordetella Pertussis: whooping cough
Borrelia burgdorferi: Lyme disease
Brucella abortus: Brucellosis/undulant fever, Bang's disease.
Brucella melitensis: Brucellosis (AKA undulant fever)
Burkholderia mallei: glanders
Burkholderia mallei: Glanders
Campylobacter fetus: Food poisoning, intestinal infection
Campylobacter jejuni: foodborne intestinal illness
Chlamydia trachomatis: Chlamydia
Clostridium botulinum: botulism
Clostridium difficile: C. difficile-associated diarrhea to severe colitis.
Clostridium Tetani: (lock-jaw), tetanus
Corynebacterium diptheriae: diptheria
Coxiella Burnetii: Q fever acute and chronic
Ehrlichia chaffeensis: human monocytic ehrlichiosis
Enterobacter aerogenes: Urinary tract infections and other hospital acquired infections, septicemia and meningitis
Enterococcus faecalis: endocarditis, UTI's, and bateremia
Escherichia coli: traveler's diarrhea; others can cause urinary tract infections (UTI).
Francisella tularensis: tularemia (rabbit fever)
Gardnerella vaginalis: bacterial vaginosis
Haemophilus ducreyi: Chancroid (STD)
Haemophilus influenzae: Pneumonia (lung infection), Bacteremia (bloodstream infection), and
Meningitis (infection of the covering of the brain and spinal cord).
Heliobacter pylori: gastritis, peptic ulcer
Klebsiella pneumoniae: Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia
Klebsielle oxytoca: infections in the urinary tract, respiratory tract, and gastrointestinal tract.
Listeria monocytogenes: meningitis, abortion, septicemia, Mastitis.
Moraxella catarrhalis: Sinusitis, otitis media, and lower respiratory infections, Normal respiratory flora
Moraxella Lacunata: blepharoconjunctivitis (pink eye with inflammation of the eyelid)
Mycobacterium avium: non- tuberculous mycobacteria.tuberculosis
Mycobacterium Leprae: leprosy or Hansen's disease
Mycobacterium ulcerans: Buruli ulcer or Bairnsdale ulcer, Daintree ulcer, Mossman ulcer, and Searl ulcer
Neisseria gonorrhoeae: Gonorrhea
Neisseria meningitidis: Meningitis and sepsis called meningococcemia

Pharmacology: notes of drugs - tables


Compiled lists of drugs for pharmacology course: 
- Cardiovascular
- Cholinergic and anti-cholinergic
- GI
- Pain
- Endocrine
- Visual 
- Psychotherapeutic 
- Immune
- Anti-infective
- Respiratory 




































Microbiology: Suggested Books

Suggested books for success:



1. EasyTerms Terminology Guidebook for Microbiology, by Ed Creager:
Very useful, especially for timers with microbiology. I used it for my online course, and it helped a    lot saving me tons of time with open book examinations.



Obesity and the Future of Medicine

It is possible that you have tried every possible diet out there and still have not found the one that works for you? Well guess what, you are not alone, losing weight is difficult, and it is a very subjective process. For some people cutting a little bit of calories out of their diet can result in more weight loss, while for others, cutting calories out of their diet is not something they cannot easily achieve in the first place. Why does this happen?

This variation in responses to diet is attributed to each person’s physiological composition. Every one of us has their own distinct genetic makeup that defines our appearance and biological functions, and so it goes for metabolic responses (i.e. the processes that break food down into energy). Some individuals are more genetically inclined to lose weight and metabolize calories faster than others, while for others it is a much slower process. However, it is crucial to understand that the biological code is not going to completely define your ultimate appearance. Other major factors play very important roles in the final body composition and its attributes i.e. the environment, person’s gender, age, habits and physical activity… and so on. Remember, it is nature AND nurture. We know that we can change our nurture through changing our daily habits, food decisions, and adjusting out environments, but how is possible to work around our nature? This is where precision medicine would come into play.

The current approach to treatment is a “one size fits all” kind of approach. Precision medicine presents a new medical model that customizes healthcare towards the individual rather than the whole population. That is, a certain person with a certain condition (e.g. asthma) does not respond to this condition as another person would, therefore, the treatment needs to be customized according to each person’s needs, genetic sequence, their environment and other factors that could influence the condition.

This model of personalized treatment has been developing over the past 20 years, but recently and just last year the progress in precision medicine was pushed significantly forward when president Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) aided with $215 million in federal funding. A compelling project, PMI is projected to improve the standards of healthcare delivery and treatment.

In the same manner, PMI is anticipated to alleviate the obesity epidemic and provide the best practices to eradicate it through targeting predisposing genetic material. In a few years from now, it is expected that regular visits to the physicians’ office will involve a standard reading to the genetic code in order to highlight the exact gene triggering the condition in hand, and accordingly, care providers can configure a diet and a fitness plan that is customized exactly to each patient’s bodily needs.