News
Dr. Boyle-Vavra invited to present in Brazil.
Susan Boyle-Vavra, PhD, presented, “The essential role of a three component regulatory system in methicillin resistance,” at the XXVI Brazilian Congress of Microbiology in Foz de Iguaçu, Brazil, October 15, 2011. Also in October 2011, Dr. Boyle-Vavra presented, “Insights into virulence and heteroresistance of MRSA strain USA300,” at the Instituto de Microbiologia Paulo de Góes, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Tell the FDA: 70% of Animal Antibiotics is Enough!
From the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming:
Tell the FDA: 70% of antibiotics is enough! The FDA is accepting comments on a rule that could make it easier to feed antibiotics to healthy food animals. Already, up to 70 percent of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are fed to poultry or livestock to compensate for overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.
Send your comment now! Protect humans and animals from the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria by telling the FDA to protect antibiotics today.
New book! SUPERBUG: The Fatal Menace of MRSA
Maryn McKenna signing her book, Superbug, at the University of Chicago MRSA Research Center, April 23, 2010
Medicine disregarded it. Antibiotics can't control it. MRSA — drug-resistant staph — may be the most frightening epidemic since AIDS.
Read more about this in the new, "hot-off-the-press" book:
SUPERBUG: The Fatal Menace of MRSA
By Maryn McKenna
Free Press/Simon & Schuster March 2010
To order this book, visit http://www.Superbugthebook.com
PIP Expands to Three Additional Chicago South Side Hospitals
Three community hospitals in the south side of Chicago—Roseland Community Hospital, Mercy Hospital and Medical Center, and St. Bernard Hospital—will join the expanding Lisa Verber Pediatric Immunization Program (PIP) network. Mothers of newborns at these three institutions will be interviewed at birth and their babies given the first immunization of the pediatric series (Hepatitis B, first dose). Plans will be made to follow mothers as they make their way through the intensive immunization and well-child visit period of the first three years of life. PIP Outreach Specialists, hired from individuals residing in the south side community, will work with the three designated Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) where new moms will be referred for follow-up and comprehensive pediatric care. All newborns will also be enrolled in the electronic State of Illinois I-CARE Immunization Registry.
Lab to Move to Knapp Center Facility
By fall 2009, the MRSA Research Center Laboratory will move to the brand new Gwen and Jules Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery at the University of Chicago. Gwen and Jules Knapp donated $25 million toward this state-of-the-art facility that will provide a new focal point for researchers who work at the interface between basic science and better care for patients.
