<i>Background</i> - Norwegian guideline recommendations on first-line empirical antibiotic prescribing in hospitalised patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) are penicillin G/V in monotherapy, or penicillin G in combination with gentamicin (or cefotaxime) in severely ill patients. The aim of this study was to explore how different empirical antibiotic treatments impact on length of hospital ...

The Barents Sea is a nursery area for many commercially and ecologically important fish stocks, and this whole region is presently subject to rapid climatic change from a cold period in the 1980s to a record warm period in the latest decade, with a peak in 2016. The present study focuses exclusively on year 2016, which was characterized by record warm air and seawater and an exceptionally large ...

Carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative pathogens are a critical public health threat and there is an urgent need for new treatments. Carbapenemases (β-lactamases able to inactivate carbapenems) have been identified in both serine β-lactamase (SBL) and metallo-β-lactamase (MBL) families. The recent introduction of SBL carbapenemase inhibitors has provided alternative therapeutic options. Unfortunately, ...

Mucosal drug delivery accounts for various administration routes (i.e., oral, vaginal, ocular, pulmonary, etc.) and offers a vast surface for the permeation of drugs. However, the mucus layer which shields and lubricates all mucosal tissues can compromise drugs from reaching the epithelial site, thus affecting their absorption and therapeutic effect. Therefore, the effect of the mucus layer on drug ...

The enzyme UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 2B17 (UGT2B17) has a major role in androgen metabolism, being involved in the conjugation of both testosterone and its potent metabolite dihydrotestosterone. The enzyme catalyses the transfer of glucuronic acid from UDP-glucuronic acid to the lipophilic androgen substrate. As a consequence, the water solubility of the substrate is increased, and it is more ...

Background: This master’s thesis was a part of a project involving mass cultivation of microalgae at the smelting plant Finnfjord AS. Microalgae are primary producers of the important omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids EPA and DHA. At Finnfjord, the algae use CO2 from the flue gas for their production of lipid and protein rich biomass. The algal biomass can potentially function well as ...

Nanoparticles are usually defined as particles in a size range of 1-100 nm, and these particles often have different properties than the non-nanoscale material of the same chemical composition. In recent years, as the interest and use of nanoparticles has increased and so has the interest in understanding their behaviour, impact and fate in the environment. In the last decades, there has been special ...

The Arctic University of Norway and the ferrosilicon smeltery Finnfjord AS has started a microalgal mass cultivation project where sequestration of CO2 and NOx from factory fumes are used in the production of diatom biomass. Primary application of the produced biomass is fish feed. This requires information regarding lipid content and storage stability. In this study the lipid content, fatty acid ...

The emergence of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains is a rising global problem that does not only result in fatal infections of previously treatable cases, but increases also the economic burden of health care systems. The same applies for cancer as treatment of some cancer types is difficult and also resistance to treatment is an increasing problem in cancer chemotherapy. Novel treatment ...

To understand how antibiotic use affects the risk of a resistant infection, we present a computational model of the population dynamics of gut microbiota including antibiotic resistance-conferring plasmids. We then describe how this model is parameterized based on published microbiota data. Finally, we investigate how treatment history affects the prevalence of resistance among opportunistic ...