Page 12 - Blog
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Posted: November 07, 2018Categories: Hardy Happenings
October was Employee Ownership Month. Hardy Diagnostics, a 100% Employee-Owned medical device company, is celebrating with activities throughout the month, culminating with a company-wide tri-tip barbecue on Halloween put on by the Vandenberg Air Force Base Non-Commissioned Officer Association (NCOA). Through the Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, employees are granted stock in their company every...
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Posted: September 11, 2018Antibiotic resistance is of widespread concern and is particularly critical in developing countries, like Vietnam, where there is a higher burden of infectious disease. In these countries, the cost of new and improved antibiotics can be insurmountable, leading to the use of outdated and ineffective antibiotics. Furthermore, self-diagnosis and self-treatment can lead to antibiotic resistance and an...
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Posted: May 30, 2018From 2002 to 2014, the rate of antibiotic-resistant infections doubled from 5.2% to 11% while the overall rate of bacterial infections has remained relatively constant (13.5 million to 14.3 million). Treating an antibiotic-susceptible infection costs an average of $1,394, while an antibiotic-resistant infection costs an average of $3,698.There were approximately...
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Posted: May 11, 2018
Recently, cases of cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer) and hepatic pain in the United States have been described among Vietnam War veterans. The cause is Clonorchis sinensis, one of the most prevalent parasites in the world which is still transmitted in many regions of Asia. It is also known as the liver fluke worm. The fluke worm, Opisthorchis viverrini is another potential source...
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Posted: April 27, 2018
In recent years, greater appreciation for microbes inhabiting human body sites has emerged. In the female mammary gland, milk has been shown to contain bacterial species, reaching the ducts from the skin. Researchers have also discovered a diverse population of bacteria within tissue collected from sites all around the breast in women ages 18 to 90, not all of whom had a history of lactation...
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Posted: April 06, 2018
While GBS screenings are the standard in the US and in Europe, there are still parts of the world where the 1 in 5 women globally who carry GBS may not receive screening or treatment. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded a study led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, involving more than 100 researchers who published a series of 11 research papers reporting on GBS occurances...
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Posted: March 30, 2018
What doesn’t need water, can freeze solid and come back to life, survives intense radiation, and stays alive in the vacuum of space?
Although the answer isn’t a cinematic horror, it certainly looks the part. The humble tardigrade (also known as a moss piglet or water bear) is a small-scale animal that rarely grows larger than half a millimeter in length. It is quite possibly... -
Posted: March 23, 2018
Kombucha, an effervescent beverage originating in Asia, has received much attention lately in the neutraceutical and alternative health industries as being an anti-carcinogenic, fermented tea. It is believed to help regulate the gut microbiome, aid in metabolism and cell proliferation, increase detoxification, and help protect the liver.
Kombucha originated in China over 2,000 years ago and...
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Posted: March 16, 2018
Recent research suggests that Alzheimer’s could be due to amyloid plaque forming around an infectious agent.Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive disease that affects more than three million people each year. There are limited treatment options and no cure. While it generally affects those over the age of 60, it has been diagnosed in people... -
Posted: March 09, 2018
Dietary sugar and Clostridium difficile are not usually two things you hear of in one sentence, but it was recently discovered that a sugar additive, trehalose, may encourage the virulence of Clostridium difficile.
The supporting study titled “Dietary trehalose enhances virulence of epidemic Clostridium difficile” was very recently published in January 2018... -
Posted: March 02, 2018
According to the American Cancer Society, “colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosed in both men and women in the United States, excluding skin cancers” and is responsible for over 50,000 deaths annually.
In a recent newspaper article published in New York Times, “Gut Microbes Combine to Cause Colon Cancer, Study Suggests” by Gina Kolata, researchers have found a... -
Posted: February 12, 2018
Antibiotic development has had its challenges recently; and while the concern of drug-resistant Gram-negative has been vastly described since the past couple of decades, there is a growing light at the end of the tunnel with the recent approval of the broad spectrum antimicrobials between 2015-17. Even more encouraging is the potential regulatory filing and approval of several antimicrobial candidates...
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Posted: February 02, 2018Bananas are the world’s most exported fruit and have become a dietary staple for many people and cultures. Of the 114 million tons produced annually, 85% are produced for consumption in the United States [1]. Unfortunately, the most popular fruit in the world may be under threat by a lethal fungal disease. Fusarium wilt of banana, or Panama disease, affects the seedless Cavendish banana, which is by...
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Posted: January 26, 2018
Fluoroquinolones have been the staple of antimicrobial therapy since the launch of the flagship representative "Ciprofloxacin" by Bayer in the early 1980s.Fluoroquinolones have a fluorine atom attached to the core quinolone molecular ring and this modification results in a class of broad-spectrum bactericidal agents that show increased stability and potency against both Gram...
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Posted: January 19, 2018
A new device called the iChip, short for isolation chip, may unlock the potential to culture the majority of microbes that still remain undiscovered.So far, standard microbiology culture methods have only been able to grow about 1% of microbial species in vitro on synthetic media (1). Beginning in 2002, the iChip was designed...