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Germ-killer making you itchy?

The umpteen soaps and toothpaste products on the supermarket shelves that boast germ-fighting chemicals might be doing more harm than good — especially for your kids.

The antibacterial chemical, triclosan, used in household products to inhibit growth of a variety of bacterial and fungal species, has been banned in various products around the globe for good reasons: It has been linked to serious health conditions like endocrine system damage and breast cancer, and could potentially pose significant risk for antimicrobial resistance.

A new study of 347 children aged 1-12, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, reveals that those with higher triclosan levels are also 23 percent more likely to have eczema and 12 percent more likely to struggle with allergies such as hay fever.

Researchers believe that triclosan could wreak havoc on the immune system by disrupting healthy bacteria that train our bodies not to overreact to harmless things like pollen.

This is in line with the hypothesis that suggests too much sanitizing may make kids more allergy prone.

Although in 2020 triclosan was banned from soaps and hand sanitizers, it still finds a way into other products like toothpaste and cutting boards.

If your child struggles with allergies or eczema it is advisable to check labels and be wary of those that include triclosan.

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AI builds super-charged proteins

Scientists at the University of Illinois have made it possible to command a computer to enhance a protein and a robot does all the work — no PhD needed. This new system mixes artificial intelligence with lab automation.

In a recent study, published in Nature Communications, researchers showed off a robotic setup that takes a protein’s fundamental makeup, experiments with hundreds of tiny tweaks and finds the best-performing version without any human stepping in to decide what to try next. The result is enzymes that work significantly better than before.

The team succeeded in boosting one plant enzyme’s ability to pick the right chemical by 90 times and made it 16 times faster at completing its job. They also upgraded a bacterial enzyme to work 26 times better at a pH level important for animal feed, potentially helping farmers and food producers.

The ease of the platform’s use is highly notable as it was trained to predict useful changes and could easily be operated by a layperson with simple, plain English commands. The testing, planning and analysis are all taken care of inside a modular robotic lab.

This could accelerate methods of creating better medicines, greener chemicals and more efficient industrial processes as protein design can be as simple as giving a computer a task.

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Immune cell sabotage

Antibiotic resistance, a specific type of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), is a growing global health concern. This occurs when bacteria develop resistance to the antibiotics created to kill them.

As antibiotic resistance grows, viruses called bacteriophages that are used to attack bacteria are making their mark as a new method of fighting infections.

The problem is alveolar macrophages, immune cells in the lungs, clean up these viruses before they can do their job.

A group of researchers in Paris, France recently discovered that in mice with complicated lung infections in which the macrophages were active, the phages were gone quickly and the infections remained. But in the mice without the immune cells, the phages were able to completely wipe out the bacteria.

This demonstrates that though microphages help to fight infection, they can also sabotage phage therapy by eliminating helpful viruses.

The paper, published in Nature Communications, says strategies are needed to work around these immune cells in order for phage treatments to succeed against drug-resistant lung infections.

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Off the cuff

The bulky blood pressure cuff that inflates and squeezes the bicep to within an inch of combustion is something many patients are familiar with, but it may be time to say good-bye to such discomforts. Scientists at Boston University, Boston Medical Center and Meta have come up with a plan to do just that, using a high-speed speckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS).

By observing how tiny blood vessels make light (shone on the wrist and finger) dance in speckle patterns and amalgamating this information with the usual pulse sensor technology (photoplethysmography or PPG), they collect data about the flexibility and resistance of blood vessels — the two big players in blood pressure.

The results of the combined information are loaded into a personalized AI model, and in testing, blood pressure errors were reduced by more than 30 percent compared to the PPG on its own. The readings also stayed accurate weeks later — a major win for consistent monitoring.

This means we may soon have a more comfortable, continuous and precise means of keeping tabs on our heart health.

The paper, published in Biomedical Optics Express, notes that although this is a step forward, larger studies are needed before this enters mainstream use.

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200 times bitten, still not shy

Before the chickenpox vaccine existed, there were “chickenpox parties”— gatherings where parents deliberately exposed their children to an infected child so they could catch the disease and develop lifelong immunity.

Similarly, autodidact herpetologist and snake collector Tim Friede has made it his sole task to build immunity to venomous snake bites by consistently exposing himself to small doses of venom from over a dozen of the world’s deadliest snakes. Unlike chickenpox, however, the stakes are much higher as the bites he endures could easily be fatal.

He began by dosing himself with diluted doses of venom and continued this practice for over 20 years, self-administering over 700 doses and escalating the potency over time. This resulted in the ability to survive bites of cobras, taipans (considered to be the most venomous snake in the world), black mambas, rattlers and more. Friede has been bitten over 200 times.

His initial goal as a snake expert was to develop his own immunity, should he ever be bitten but after realizing his ultimate level of immunity, that goal evolved to help scientists use his blood to produce antivenom.

IMAGE: Shutterstock

His antics have landed him in some precarious situations, especially in the beginning when he was bitten by two cobras and ended up in a coma. But still he persevered.
“It just became a lifestyle, and I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing as hard as I could push – for the people who are 8,000 miles away from me who die from snake bite.” Friede told the BBC.

An estimated 5.4 million people sustain snake bites annually of which 80,000 to 140,000 are fatal. As many as three times this number endure life-altering disabilities including bleeding disorders, kidney failure and amputation. However, these statistics from the World Health Organization are believed to be significantly underestimated.

In many countries, snake bite statistics are under-reported.

This means that a universal anti-venom is more required than the world realizes.

In 2017, Friede put himself out there to the science community to be tested, resulting in a collaboration with Jacob Glanville, a computational and systems immunologist and entrepreneur.

“I’m really proud that I can do something in life for humanity.”

– Tim Friede, May 25, 2025 Quote of the Day – The New York Times

Centivax, founded in 2019, where Friede is director of herpetology (an area of zoology studying amphibians and reptiles), is a biotechnology company focused on the development of vaccines.

The development of a universal antivenom is complex, however, as the toxins differ between species and the antivenom needs to closely match the venom.

Because of this, researchers at Centivax and the Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States, have been working to target the parts of a toxin common across entire toxin classes.

Scouring Friede’s blood for resistant defenses against 19 Elapids (a family of highly venomous snakes, including the most venomous snake on the planet), they found two powerful antibodies that work against two kinds of nerve poisons. Then they then topped it off with a drug that targets a third for a resulting antivenom mix.

In the lab, mice survived fatal doses from 13 of the 19 Elapids and had partial defense against the other six.

The research, published in Cell continues as the team aims to strengthen the antivenom to include the entire slithery species and ultimately move the work forward for others.

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