Bacterial Infections and Mycoses Commons^™

Idiopathic Acute On Chronic Osteomyelitis Mimicking Metastatic Lesion In Humeral Head: A Case Report, Lucas Marks, Gavin Cobb, Nick Duff, Holli Barber

Continental, MidAmerica, & Mountain Divisions GME Research Day 2024

No abstract provided.

Large C. Albicans Vegetation On A Native Tricuspid Valve, Mark Kluever, Neha Patel, Rami Akel

West Florida Division GME Research Day 2024

No abstract provided.

Congenital Syphilis: A Case Report Of Heightened Awareness In Pregnancy, Madison Kaelin, Manasi Patwardhan

South Atlantic Division GME Research Day 2024

No abstract provided.

Prophylactic Antibiotics For Aspiration: Does It Prevent Pneumonia?, Akash Patel, James Dunne, Himani Patel

South Atlantic Division GME Research Day 2024

No abstract provided.

Incidence Of Syphilis And Neurosyphilis Testing In A Large Sample Of Adults, Amy Mackenzie, Nayda Parisio-Poldiak, Caroline Minton, Barbara Gracious

South Atlantic Division GME Research Day 2024

No abstract provided.

Mast Cell Colitis Associated With Yersinia Enterocolitica, Olufemi Osikoya, Gregory Brennan

North Texas GME Research Forum 2024

Introduction: Mast cells (MCs) have many functions including regulation of GI epithelial homeostasis, cross talk of the brain gut axis, host immune defenses, and inflammatory pathways. MCs are found in all layers of the GI tract and have been implicated in various gastrointestinal diseases. Although previously described in the literature, mast cell colitis is not considered a distinct clinical entity. This poses a challenge to the gastroenterologist who encounters such pathologic findings. Case Presentation: This is a case of a 76-year-old woman who was referred to the gastroenterology clinic for evaluation of a new diagnosis of colitis. The patient …

Puerperal Group A Streptococcus Infection Mimicking Gastrointestinal Ileus, Juhi Singhal, Mollie Mcdonnold, Carol Wang, Clarissa Villareal

Central & West Texas GME Research Day 2024

No abstract provided.

Microbial Profile And Antimicrobial Resistance Patterns Of Surgical Intra-Abdominal Infections At A Tertiary Hospital In Tanzania A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study, Abduel Julius Kitua

Master of Surgery

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Among infections of surgical importance, intra-abdominal infections prevail among the most common in surgical patients with considerable morbidity and mortality. The ever-rising microbial resistance to commonly available antibiotics and geographical variations in microbial profile and resistance patterns poses a challenge to the management of these surgical infections of abdominal origin. The aim of this study was to evaluate microbiological characteristics and antibiotic susceptibility of isolates from intra-abdominal infections at a tertiary hospital in Tanzania and how these influence early treatment outcomes.

Managing Stress: A Study Of Stress Response Mechanisms In Mycobacteria, Augusto C. Hunt Serracin

Biology Dissertations - Archive

Mycobacteria encompass many pathogenic species known to cause severe disease in humans. A well-known example is Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of the lung disease tuberculosis, which kills millions of humans worldwide yearly. Pathogenic mycobacteria like Mtb are challenging to treat because of their innate ability to adapt to environmental stress. Their unique cell physiology and conserved stress responses allow them to combat biological insults, regulate growth, and regulate genes involved in stress; all these responses increase tolerance to antibiotics. The current therapies to treat mycobacterial infections are lengthy and, at times, unsuccessful, partly due to antibiotic tolerance. A …

Cerebrovascular Accident Complicating Pulmonary Tb: A Rare Co-Existence, Tesnim Hamdan, Iryna Witt, Nameer Ascandar, Srija Reddy

West Florida Division GME Research Day 2024

No abstract provided.

Reiq-Mediated Alarmone Signalling Regulates Growth, Stress-Induced Biofilm Formation And Spore Accumulation In Clostridioides Difficile, Areej Malik, Adenrele Oludiran, Asia Poudel, Orlando Berumen Alvarez, Charles Woodward, Erin B. Purcell

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The bacterial stringent response (SR) is a conserved transcriptional reprogramming pathway mediated by the nucleotide signalling alarmones, (pp)pGpp. The SR has been implicated in antibiotic survival in Clostridioides difficile, a biofilm- and spore-forming pathogen that causes resilient, highly recurrent C. difficile infections. The role of the SR in other processes and the effectors by which it regulates C. difficile physiology are unknown. C. difficile RelQ is a clostridial alarmone synthetase. Deletion of relQ dysregulates C. difficile growth in unstressed conditions, affects susceptibility to antibiotic and oxidative stressors and drastically reduces biofilm formation. While wild-type C. difficile displays increased biofilm …

Exploring The Physiology Of Clostridioides Difficile: Selenium-Dependent Catabolism Of Host-Derived Nutrients, Michael A. Johnstone

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Clostridioides difficile is a bacterial pathogen that causes pseudomembranous colitis and the majority of antibiotic-associated diarrheal cases. Broad-spectrum antibiotic usage disrupts the normal gut microbiota and thereby compromises colonization resistance, the main defense against C. difficile infection. Treatment options are limited to vancomycin, fidaxomicin, and the fecal microbiota transplant. Addressing the scarcity of these therapeutics, we documented two explorations in C. difficile drug discovery: (i) evaluation of antibacterial and toxin-suppressing activity of (+)-puupehenone and similar derivatives, and (ii) clarification of a discrepancy in the hypothesized mechanism of auranofin against C. difficile. A better understanding of how C. difficile colonizes …

Acute Mastoiditis, That Must Be Hard To Hear!, Minda Guirguis, J Burton Burton

South Atlantic Division GME Research Day 2024

No abstract provided.

Improving Clostridium Difficile Detection At Medical City Arlington: A Quality Improvement Project, Bremmy Alsbrooks, Nur-Alhuda Shahub, Shabaz Mallick, Jesse Brown, Afsha Rais, Afsha Rais

North Texas GME Research Forum 2024

INTRODUCTION: Hospital acquired Clostridium difficile infection are one of the costliest hospital acquired infections. Over the past year, there were 19 C diff cases. Reasons for this uptick in cases from previous years could be waiting too long for collection (where a patient has C diff on admission, but does not receive testing until several days later), antibiotics, environmental (for example, using the same toilet brush to clean bathrooms on the floor as well as the bathroom in a C diff patient's room, cleaning high touch areas less than two times during the day, etc.), or staff education. From our …

A Case Report On Syphilitic Lymphadenitis, Kelly Davis, Ryan Spilman, Alexander Enurah

Continental, MidAmerica, & Mountain Divisions GME Research Day 2024

No abstract provided.

An Atypical Presentation Of Tuberculoid Leprosy On The Heel, Clara Barranco, Karthik Krishnamurthy, Angelia Stepien

South Atlantic Division GME Research Day 2024

No abstract provided.

A Challenging Diagnosis Of Intestinal Tuberculosis Mimicking Crohn's Disease, Justin Sanchez, Gabriel Gonzales, Monte Troutman

North Texas GME Research Forum 2024

Intestinal tuberculosis (ITB) is an underrecognized disease that shares many clinical, radiologic, endoscopic, and pathologic features with Crohn's disease, making differentiation difficult. This poses a significant problem as initiation of immunosuppressives for an assumed diagnosis of CD in a patient with ITB can lead to exacerbation of infection and life-threatening consequences. A 30-year-old Nepali man with a medical history only significant for Raynaud disease presented with a febrile illness, right lower quadrant abdominal pain, and productive cough over the course of a month. He immigrated from Nepal 3 years prior to presentation, denying other risk factors or specific symptoms of …

Harnessing Antagonistic Pleiotropy: Tolc-Dependent Coliphages Can Drive Reduced Antibiotic Resistance In E. Coli, Cooper Mckenna

CMC Senior Theses

The rise of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial pathogens has been a growing concern in healthcare around the world, and bacteriophage (phage) therapy is a promising method to combat MDR infections. One defense mechanism of E. coli against antibiotics is the TolC-AcrAB efflux pump. At the same time, some phages use TolC as a surface receptor to infect the cell. This puts TolC at a crossroads in which it is beneficial to the bacteria to protect against antibiotics but harmful by allowing phage infection, creating the potential for evolutionary trade-offs. Previous research has identified only three TolC-dependent phages and shown phage-resistant E. …

Evaluating A High School Mrsa Prevention Program: A Case Study, Jamie Henning

Theses and Dissertations--Public Health (M.P.H. & Dr.P.H.)

MRSA poses a significant health risk to athletes nationwide. This case study examines the application of an online training module to address knowledge gaps regarding Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) among key decision-makers for high school athletes. It reviews the development and initial evaluation of a web-based training program designed to empower decision-makers with the knowledge to prevent MRSA infection and respond to suspected cases. Program evaluation recommended expanding the training module to wrestling staff with improved evaluation methods while continuing implementation and effectiveness assessment for the football staff. Despite initial data quality limitations, the online training module evaluation offered valuable …

Machine-Learning-Enabled Diagnostics With Improved Visualization Of Disease Lesions In Chest X-Ray Images, Md. Fashiar Rahman, Tzu-Liang (Bill) Tseng, Michael Pokojovy, Peter Mccaffrey, Eric Walser, Scott Moen, Alex Vo, Johnny C. Ho

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

The class activation map (CAM) represents the neural-network-derived region of interest, which can help clarify the mechanism of the convolutional neural network’s determination of any class of interest. In medical imaging, it can help medical practitioners diagnose diseases like COVID-19 or pneumonia by highlighting the suspicious regions in Computational Tomography (CT) or chest X-ray (CXR) film. Many contemporary deep learning techniques only focus on COVID-19 classification tasks using CXRs, while few attempt to make it explainable with a saliency map. To fill this research gap, we first propose a VGG-16-architecture-based deep learning approach in combination with image enhancement, segmentation-based region …