Superbacteria Threat: Treatment Options for 2050 and Beyond
- Antibiotics, the miraculous drugs that revolutionized medicine in the twentieth century, quickly lose their power.
- By 2050, drugs resistant to drugs could kill up to 10 million people a year, according to the World Health Association (WHO). Bacteriophage therapy could help us avoid...
- A new study published in Cell Reports has found that bacteria can use a survival trick when attacked by viruses.
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Phage Therapy: A Potential Solution to Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotics, the miraculous drugs that revolutionized medicine in the twentieth century, quickly lose their power. But a forgotten treatment, first discovered more than a century ago, offers hope.
By 2050, drugs resistant to drugs could kill up to 10 million people a year, according to the World Health Association (WHO). Bacteriophage therapy could help us avoid this scenario.It uses viruses that naturally feed on bacteria, hijacking them and destroying them from the inside out, reports Newsweek.
A new study published in Cell Reports has found that bacteria can use a survival trick when attacked by viruses. Rather of allowing the infection to spread, the bacteria creates a kind of internal ”quarantine area” around the virus, isolating it from the rest of the cell. Relieved of resources, the virus cannot multiply and dies.
In Search of a Method to Neutralize Bacterial Defense
Scientists at the University of melbourne and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered this process after conducting genetic experiments and using advanced imaging tools capable of visualizing cells in 3D.This allowed them to follow, almost in real-time, how bacteria where fighting the invading virus.
“I discovered that the attacked bacteria can divide asymmetrically, so they can exclude the infected part and save the rest of the cell,” said the author of the work and professor of Microbiology Sigal Ben-Yehuda, as cited in the publication.
Understanding how this mechanism works is an essential first step in discovering a method of neutralization,to make the therapy more effective,the researchers explained.
One approach could involve,such as,the addition of a special compound that would prevent the bacterium sensor protein from detecting the intruder.