"The new approach we take rests on the premise that anytime we are exposed to something in our environment, whether it's cigarette, smoke, changes in our diet and infection, our bodies react to that'" Frank of Duke University. He and his colleagues investigated gene expression. Which genes are activated, which remain dormant in 270 emergency room patients. Some had a bacteria infection, some had a viral one,some had both and some had no commutable disease at all.The researchers also studied  body for  healthy adult as a control. "What we found are some elements in certain genes that are turned on and off in a certain way that is very characteristic of a response to a viral infection. Other sets of genes that are turned on and off in a way that is very characteristic of a bacteria infection, and then other genes that are turned on and off in a way that is indicative of no infection at all."

They then tested these genetic activation signatures against the publically available datasets of patients and infections. The method was eighty-seven percent accurate. The study is in the journal Science Transitional Medicine.Right now such gene tests will take about ten hours to attain a diagnosis, so the researchers are working to develop a diagnostic tool that would cut that turnaround time to just one hour so that doctors could quickly prescribe antibiotics but only to patiets who had get a benefit because they have a bacteria and not a viral infection, which ultimately benefits everyone.

  Decrease the amount of antibiotics that are used in general is one of the strategies to trying improve the antibiotic resistance prob