2022 Western Medical Research Conference

different types of staph infections :: Article Creator

Why You May Want To Stop Letting Your Dog Lick Your Face (We're Not Happy Either)

For parents of fur babies — particularly of the canine variety — one of the biggest joys is coming home after a long day and receiving endless loving licks. We all love a good puppy kiss, and some of us even let them get that slobber all over our faces. However, knowing how much bacteria resides in your pal's mouth might make you think twice before you let them take another lick at your mouth.

The American Kennel Club notes that dogs have about "600 different types of bacteria in their mouths," which is almost as much as humans. That being said, many people assume that coming into contact with whatever is in their dog's mouth can't be that bad, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has data that negates this widespread belief. Unfortunately, your furry best friend has the potential to transfer bacteria to you, which can ultimately make you ill. Some of these include bacterial diseases and staph infections, and while the transmission is rare, it is still possible. This can be especially hazardous for people with weakened immune systems.

Dogs are also known for being able to transmit parasites and their eggs to humans. This can result in tapeworms and hookworms, which require medical treatment. All of this being said (and we're not thrilled about it either), you may want to stop letting your dog lick your face — but there are also ways you can ensure that both you and your dog stay healthy while sharing the love.

To Kiss Or Not To Kiss

People who have compromised immune systems, elderly adults, and children should be more cautious when coming into contact with pets, including dogs. However, everyone has a heightened health risk if they allow their dog (or their saliva) to come into contact with their eyes, nose, and mouth. These areas of your body have "permeable mucous membranes," which are more likely to absorb germs, as Dr. Mia L. Geisinger described to SELF.

When it comes to nailing down a definitive answer as to whether we should be allowing our dogs to lick our faces, some experts don't think it's worth the risk — and saliva isn't the only reason. "It is not just what is carried in saliva," John Oxford, microbiology expert and professor of virology at Queen Mary University of London, tells The New York Times. "Dogs spend half of their life with their noses in nasty corners or hovering over dog droppings, so their muzzles are full of bacteria, viruses, and germs of all sorts."

But this topic tends to be debated between professionals, with some saying the risk is low. Family medicine physician Dr. Laura Purdy told Well + Good, "The fact that dogs eat poop is a concern for many people, but this doesn't necessarily pose a significant risk to humans. While eating poop can introduce harmful bacteria into a dog's mouth, the risk of transmission to humans from a dog's lick is still relatively low."

How To Show Your Dog Some Love While Staying Healthy

One of the easiest ways you can reduce negative health risks after coming into contact with your dog (aside from avoiding face kisses) is by washing your hands. This is because even the cleanest-looking dogs come into contact with a wide array of bacteria — germs from toys, treats, other animal saliva, and fecal matter can all travel with your pet. If you can't wash your hands with soap and water after making contact with your fur baby, the CDC recommends using a hand sanitizer that consists of at least 60% alcohol.

While the risks associated with puppy licks might make you want to stop letting your fur baby kiss you on the face, allowing it every now and then probably wouldn't hurt — but a talk with your vet may answer any lingering questions and give you a definitive answer. "Every time I come home, [my dog] Dottie gets super excited and crazily licks my face while wagging her tail — and I let her," said veterinarian Heather Berst while speaking to Well + Good. "That being said, I think you need to talk to your physician and your veterinarian if your dog licks your face regularly, as there can be some risks."

Read this next: The Wellness Trends Set To Take Over 2023

How To Dress For Different Types Of Offices

Sometimes just knowing where to start is the best way to find what to wear.

Being Black in office spaces is a complex and nuanced experience that deals with the notions of professionalism. The definition of professionalism for many workspaces tends to be inherently anti-Black For Black professionals, the office environment often presents unique challenges and expectations that can impact our sense of belonging and even can make you question if you deserve the role in the first place (which is exactly what white supremacy wants you to think.) While professionalism is commonly associated with conservative attire and a certain code of conduct, it can inadvertently perpetuate biases and limit the expression of cultural identity, like hairstyles, for example. Then you have to factor in body types. Black women just tend to be on the curvier side, and with that comes a whole new set of politics to go by in the office.

Anyway, while it can be the most annoying this to wear a sort of uniform to work, sometimes not thinking about what you have to wear every day lifts a small weight off the day. On the other hand, it can cause stress if you're not sure what to wear in the first place. Well, no worries, we've got you covered.

Here are the best things to wear depending on the types of offices you're working in below.

Start Up Office

In a start-up company office, dressing casually is usually the norm. You get to express some of your own personal style and still feel comfortable in your workspace (for the most part.) This relaxed dress code creates a much more relaxed and creative atmosphere. Layering will be your best friend try a chill oversized vest over a longsleeve button-down or even a plain t-shirt and jeans and call it a day.

Co-Working Spaces

Co-working offices tend to also give you space to blend business and casual. Depending on your dress code, opt for a business casual look that is cool and comfy. Jeans and a pair of loafers won't be looked down upon, we promise.

Corporate/Administrative Office

When dressing for a corporate or administrative office, you're probably not going to have as much leeway. Stick to the dress code while adding your own personal touches. If you're allowed to, add some color to your suiting like below. You'll look put together and still be the most interesting person in the room.

Remote/Hybrid

While remote working gives you lots of space to just wear lounge clothing, we highly recommend wearing at least a professional top like a button-down or appropriate blouse in case you have any random Zoom meetings. Comfort and professionalism can still coexist. And in case you end up having to leave the house for a work-related event or meeting, you'll be ready (or at least halfway there.)

Zara Wrap Blouse With Bow

This is the ultimate business casual top out.

Available at Zara

FRAME Le Straight Denim Jeans

A good pair of everyday denim will do you good for the office and out of the office.

Available at FRAME

River Island Structured Blazer

Add a little color to your suiting with this blazer.

Available at ASOS

COS The Longline Waistcoat

Wear this over a simple t-shirt to elevate your look.

Available at COS

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. If you click on the links we provide, we may receive compensation.

Using AI, Scientists Find A Drug That Could Combat Drug-resistant Infections

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Using an artificial intelligence algorithm, researchers at MIT and McMaster University have identified a new antibiotic that can kill a type of bacteria that is responsible for many drug-resistant infections.

If developed for use in patients, the drug could help to combat Acinetobacter baumannii, a species of bacteria that is often found in hospitals and can lead to pneumonia, meningitis, and other serious infections. The microbe is also a leading cause of infections in wounded soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Acinetobacter can survive on hospital doorknobs and equipment for long periods of time, and it can take up antibiotic resistance genes from its environment. It's really common now to find A. Baumannii isolates that are resistant to nearly every antibiotic," says Jonathan Stokes, a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster University.

The researchers identified the new drug from a library of nearly 7,000 potential drug compounds using a machine-learning model that they trained to evaluate whether a chemical compound will inhibit the growth of A. Baumannii.

"This finding further supports the premise that AI can significantly accelerate and expand our search for novel antibiotics," says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering. "I'm excited that this work shows that we can use AI to help combat problematic pathogens such as A. Baumannii."

Collins and Stokes are the senior authors of the new study, which appears today in Nature Chemical Biology. The paper's lead authors are McMaster University graduate students Gary Liu and Denise Catacutan and recent McMaster graduate Khushi Rathod.

Drug discovery

Over the past several decades, many pathogenic bacteria have become increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics, while very few new antibiotics have been developed.

Several years ago, Collins, Stokes, and MIT Professor Regina Barzilay (who is also an author on the new study), set out to combat this growing problem by using machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence that can learn to recognize patterns in vast amounts of data. Collins and Barzilay, who co-direct MIT's Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health, hoped this approach could be used to identify new antibiotics whose chemical structures are different from any existing drugs.

In their initial demonstration, the researchers trained a machine-learning algorithm to identify chemical structures that could inhibit growth of E. Coli. In a screen of more than 100 million compounds, that algorithm yielded a molecule that the researchers called halicin, after the fictional artificial intelligence system from "2001: A Space Odyssey." This molecule, they showed, could kill not only E. Coli but several other bacterial species that are resistant to treatment.

"After that paper, when we showed that these machine-learning approaches can work well for complex antibiotic discovery tasks, we turned our attention to what I perceive to be public enemy No. 1 for multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, which is Acinetobacter," Stokes says.

To obtain training data for their computational model, the researchers first exposed A. Baumannii grown in a lab dish to about 7,500 different chemical compounds to see which ones could inhibit growth of the microbe. Then they fed the structure of each molecule into the model. They also told the model whether each structure could inhibit bacterial growth or not. This allowed the algorithm to learn chemical features associated with growth inhibition.

Once the model was trained, the researchers used it to analyze a set of 6,680 compounds it had not seen before, which came from the Drug Repurposing Hub at the Broad Institute. This analysis, which took less than two hours, yielded a few hundred top hits. Of these, the researchers chose 240 to test experimentally in the lab, focusing on compounds with structures that were different from those of existing antibiotics or molecules from the training data.

Those tests yielded nine antibiotics, including one that was very potent. This compound, which was originally explored as a potential diabetes drug, turned out to be extremely effective at killing A. Baumannii but had no effect on other species of bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae.

This "narrow spectrum" killing ability is a desirable feature for antibiotics because it minimizes the risk of bacteria rapidly spreading resistance against the drug. Another advantage is that the drug would likely spare the beneficial bacteria that live in the human gut and help to suppress opportunistic infections such as Clostridium difficile.

"Antibiotics often have to be administered systemically, and the last thing you want to do is cause significant dysbiosis and open up these already sick patients to secondary infections," Stokes says.

A novel mechanism

In studies in mice, the researchers showed that the drug, which they named abaucin, could treat wound infections caused by A. Baumannii. They also showed, in lab tests, that it works against a variety of drug-resistant A. Baumannii strains isolated from human patients.

Further experiments revealed that the drug kills cells by interfering with a process known as lipoprotein trafficking, which cells use to transport proteins from the interior of the cell to the cell envelope. Specifically, the drug appears to inhibit LolE, a protein involved in this process.

All Gram-negative bacteria express this enzyme, so the researchers were surprised to find that abaucin is so selective in targeting A. Baumannii. They hypothesize that slight differences in how A. Baumannii performs this task might account for the drug's selectivity.

"We haven't finalized the experimental data acquisition yet, but we think it's because A. Baumannii does lipoprotein trafficking a little bit differently than other Gram-negative species. We believe that's why we're getting this narrow spectrum activity," Stokes says.

Stokes' lab is now working with other researchers at McMaster to optimize the medicinal properties of the compound, in hopes of developing it for eventual use in patients.

The researchers also plan to use their modeling approach to identify potential antibiotics for other types of drug-resistant infections, including those caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

###

The research was funded by the David Braley Center for Antibiotic Discovery, the Weston Family Foundation, the Audacious Project, the C3.Ai Digital Transformation Institute, the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health, the DTRA Discovery of Medical Countermeasures Against New and Emerging Threats program, the DARPA Accelerated Molecular Discovery program, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Genome Canada, the Faculty of Health Sciences of McMaster University, the Boris Family, a Marshall Scholarship, and the Department of Energy Biological and Environmental Research program.

Journal

Nature Chemical Biology

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Article Title

Deep learning-guided discovery of an antibiotic targeting Acinetobacter baumannii

Article Publication Date

25-May-2023

Neglected Tropical Diseases