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Lead researcher James Paton said G-PN would help to increase immune responses to pneumococcus because it kept the antigenic structure of protein surfaces on the bacterium. "Pneumococcus is a big deal in terms of disease and it is the biggest bacterial killer on the planet," he said. "There are currently similar wholesale vaccines being developed, which have used chemical killing but that is nowhere near as good. The fact that gamma radiation is being used to inactivate it makes it a better vaccine.

According to a new study reported in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, a human breast milk protein complex called HAMLET can help reverse the antibiotic resistance of bacterial species, including penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.The image shows a healthy Streptococcus pneumoniae bacterial cell, upper left, next to a bacterial cell destroyed and lysed by the human milk protein complex HAMLET, lower right (Laura R. Marks) In petri dish and animal experiments, HAMLET (Human Alpha-lactalbumin Made Lethal to Tumor Cells) increased bacteria’s sensitivity to multiple classes of antibiotics, such as penicillin and erythromycin.“The effect was so pronounced that bacteria...

Triggers protective immune response while preventing fatal inflammationFebruary 22, 2011 — (BRONX, NY) — Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed an experimental vaccine that appears to protect against an increasingly common and particularly deadly form of pneumococcal pneumonia. Details of the new vaccine, which was tested in an animal model, are reported in a paper published today in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Pneumococcal pneumonia can occur when the lungs are infected with the bacterial species Streptococcus pneumoniae (also known as pneumococcus). "Like many microbes that cause pneumonia, pneumococcus is spread from person to...