Imagine a world where a minor injury or infection could be a death sentence. It sounds like the dark ages, the pre-antibiotic era before WWII, but it could once again become reality. The world is fast running out of effective antibiotics. Bacteria have evolved resistance to all known antibiotics, and the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant infections is on the rise. The problem is so bad that the World Health Organisation predicts that in 2050 10 million people will die from antibiotic-resistant infections. Source. Image Credit: Katie McKissick Used with permission. Part of the problem is that it’s really hard to find new antibiotics. Many are based on natural compounds that other bacteria produce as a defence mechanisms, and here all the low-hanging fruit has been picked. Purely synthetic (man-made) compounds are another avenue, but often compounds that seem initially promising are later found to be ineffective because they can’t pass through cell membranes to actually kill the infection. Oh, and there’s never enough funding. Like with all drugs, antibiotic discovery has a high failure rate. The best way to get around this is to try lots and lots of compounds. I’m talking hundreds of thousands. No, not hundreds and thousands
To overcome these limitations, a team of researchers at The University of Texas at Austin has come up with a new technique to screen potential antibiotics: Surfaced Localised Antimicrobial Display aka SLAY (because everything in science needs a cool acronym, even if slightly contrived). Here’s my three favourite things about the technique:
Of the 800,000 random sequences, the team found 7,968 potential new antimicrobial peptides. They tested 22 of these against four different strains of bacteria and approximately 80% were active against the bugs. They’re now working on developing these active compounds further to make them even more effective. With any new compound it is only a matter of time before the bacteria evolve and catch up. Antibiotic resistance is inevitable. Like in the And the scientists working on it? I bet they SLAY all day.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Author
Emi Schutz Archives
March 2018
Categories |