By studying a bacterium responsible for a severe heart infection, the scientists show that disrupting bacterial communication can be associated with adverse clinical outcomes. Published in Nature Communications, these findings open the door to more targeted – and potentially more effective – therapeutic strategies against this type of infection. A team from NTU’s SCELSE (Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences and Engineering), a multidisciplinary biofilm and microbiome research centre, and UNIGE’s Faculty of Medicine is challenging a widely held assumption in infectious disease research: that blocking bacterial communication is always beneficial. Scientists found that when Enterococcus faecalis can no longer communicate with neighbouring bacteria, it forms larger, more resilient biofilms on heart valves, resulting in more severe clinical outcomes.

In proof-of-concept study, scientists at Cincinnati Children's discover a method to reduce heart damage risk for people with cancer taking immune checkpoint inhibitors.