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Volume 3 Issue 3, March 2018

Functional fluctuations in faecal flora

Longitudinal metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses of human faecal microbiomes reveal similar strain-level variation within and between individuals and allow dynamic functional variation to be tracked.

See Mehta et al. and Abu-Ali et al.

Image: Jason Lloyd-Price. Cover Design: Samantha Whitham.

Editorial

  • Fittingly for a bacterium whose slow growth rate has frustrated researchers for decades, progress towards ending the TB epidemic has built only at a snail’s pace. 2018 should see a much needed stimulus, with increased political awareness of the scale of the problems faced, and the adoption of a coordinated global response.

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Comment & Opinion

  • Antimicrobial resistance is one of the great challenges for twenty-first century healthcare. While new therapeutics are undoubtedly required, there are major challenges in rapidly identifying resistant infections and tailoring therapy accordingly; and in how we deploy antimicrobials with suppression of resistance in mind.

    • Gavin Barlow
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News & Views

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    • Alireza Edraki
    • Erik J. Sontheimer
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  • An alternative nitrogenase enzyme that only utilizes iron as its cofactor is shown to reduce carbon dioxide while actively fixing dinitrogen, so that it simultaneously produces ammonium, hydrogen and methane.

    • Oliver Einsle
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  • Geographic mapping of pathogen emergence risk, as recently done for viral haemorrhagic fever in Africa, provides an important tool for targeting interventions. More comprehensive preparedness and prediction systems that increase surveillance and forecast infectious disease outbreak growth and spread in real time are also needed.

    • Jeffrey Shaman
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  • Effective treatment and eradication of tuberculosis requires highly sensitive and specific, easy-to-use detection methods. New advances in molecular tools and technology are driving improved tuberculosis diagnostics, including ways to rapidly identify highly drug-resistant infections.

    • Eric J. Rubin
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