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Xenex Disinfection Services announces that St. Cloud Surgical Center is the first ambulatory surgery center (ASC) in the U.S. and the first healthcare facility in St. Cloud to utilize a Xenex germ-zapping robot to enhance patient safety by destroying the deadly pathogens that can cause healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). St. Cloud Surgical Center is using Xenex’s full-spectrum UV disinfection system to disinfect its surgical suites daily.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, considered one of the world’s most urgent public health problems, infect more than 2 million people in the U.S. each year and cause at least 23,000 annual deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that antibiotic resistance results in direct healthcare costs of $20 billion annually.

This is a story about nursing education – both academic and clinical. It’s a powerful example of how one can impact the other, and how both can lead to a new evidence-based best practice that benefits patients and their providers. It’s also about nursing compassion, and a willingness to change a culture in order to prevent patient suffering.

Saint Louis University research findings published in the December issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy report a family of molecules known as nucleotidyltransferase superfamily (NTS) enzyme inhibitors are promising candidates for new herpes virus treatments.ST. LOUIS - Saint Louis University research findings published in the December issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy report a family of molecules known as nucleotidyltransferase superfamily (NTS) enzyme inhibitors are promising candidates for new herpes virus treatments.

Chlorine is a common disinfectant that is used to kill bacteria, for example in swimming pools and drinking water supplies. Our immune system also produces chlorine, which causes proteins in bacteria to lose their natural folding. These unfolded proteins then begin to clump and lose their function. Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) researchers headed by professor Lars Leichert have discovered a protein in the intestinal bacterium E. coli that protects bacteria from chlorine. In the presence of chlorine, it tightly bonds with other proteins, thus preventing them from coagulating. Once the danger has passed, it releases them again and the proteins can continue to work as usual. The researchers report their findings in the current issue of Nature Communications.