Scientists Find New Way To Destroy Anthrax

t0rnt0pieces writes "Yahoo news is reporting a story about how scientists have discovered a new way to combat the anthrax bacteria, even if the strain is drug resistant. The method uses an enzyme from bacteriophages, virii which attack bacteria. The scientists say that this method could even be adapted to combat other virii. This truly looks to be a fantastic breakthrough in the treatment of drug-resistant bacterial infections."

Comments

ARUGH!! PSEDUOSCIENCE EATING MY HEAD!!!

[JabberWokky]

Dear Submittor:

So, which is it? A method to kill bacteria or a method to kill viruses? You know the two are *totally different things*, right?!?!?!

There is no cure for any virus. Never has been, and imo, there won't be in our lifetimes. The best thing we can do is bolster the human immune system before infection (vaccine) or after infection (ranging from simply getting rest to AZT cocktails that always remind me of Milkplus from A Clockwork Orange).

Bacteria, however, can be beaten with a wide varity of medicines, from that trusty old blue moldy favorite, penecillin, to modern antibiotics.

Now repeat after me: Anthrax is a bacteria. This article is about using virus style or derived tools to kill a bacteria. It has nothing to do with combatting viruses (or as you put it, virii). The two are totally different biological forms, like tapeworms and right whales.

Arugh! Even CNN and AP can't get it right, so maybe I should be more forgiving. Maybe I should just blithely lump dogs, cats, sofas and trees into the same generic category and not worry about any sort of technical consideration, especially in a friggin' scientific article submission!!!

Thank you, I have now vented. Bacteria != Viruses.

--
Evan (no reference)

Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[immanis]

The human body is an ecosystem.

Bad things happen when you introduce foreign living things into an ecosystem.

A significant lesson could be learned from examining what the Cane Toad did to Australia as a good example of what happens when you do this.

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[ceejayoz]

That'd be why they test it on animals first to see what happens.

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[Jerf]

One: An enzyme is not a living thing. Thus, it is also not a "foreign" living thing. A "foreign" thing it may be, but this is hardly unusual; your body manages to survive well despite the amazing array of foreign things it comes into contact with.

Two: Your body is not an ecosystem. While some aspects may be modelled that way, it can not be completely reduced to an "ecosystem". You have conciousness and a will to live, and you can die, a binary "dead/alive" process that ecosystems can not be said to experience. (While we talk of killing ecosystems, ecosystems always change. The only truly dead ecosystem is the one that contains no life. The state of the ecosystem naturally changes over time; it may change to the point that we say its no longer the same ecosystem, but there's really no natural reason to say such things.)

Thus, even accepting the fallacious point that this treatment consists of an induced viral infection, because we face the possibility of true death, it may make perfect sense to choose not-certain-(and-quite-unlikely-)death (this treatment) over certain death (anthrax), a choice embedded in an ethical system that has no real analogue in your ecosystem reduction. Thus the reduction is of no value.

(On a final note, "Bad things happen when..." is an amazing, horrific oversimplification on just about every level. For instance, try a clear definition of "foreign". It's a hell of a lot harder then you may think. Just as a sampler, would it be "foriegn" to re-introduce the mammoth now into the Great Plains, even though it's now extinct? What about ten years after the extinction? That's just a sampler of the sampler, too; "bad things" do not always happen; more often, the 'foreign' transplantee just dies. Major havoc is the exception, rather then the rule. Proof of that on the body level is your continued existance despite exposure to all kinds of foreign life forms, some of which even get so far as causing you to get a "cold", a significant infection, yet not managing to kill you.)

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[ceejayoz]

Test animals - rats, pigs, primates - are chosen for their similarity (in some ways) to humans. After the animal tests come limited human tests. It's not as if they just start using it on everyone, for goodness sake.

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[DrSkwid]

in some ways

Lucky for them they lack self awareness and don't suffer pain.

It's odd how other species are so close to us that they make ideal test candidates and yet far enough away from us that this is considered acceptable.

I've got a new claw hammer and I want to test it for vivisector injuring capabilities, know where I can find any?

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[ceejayoz]

Sacrificing a tiny number of animals in order to cure diseases that cause suffering for millions of humans is bad, then?

The idiocy of your argument amazes me.

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[ceejayoz]

How, then, do you suggest testing anti-viral drugs before doing widespread human trials?

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[ceejayoz]

Unfortunately, that kind of testing only shows the effect on the virus itself - not its possible side effects on the rest of the organism. It'd be like testing shampoo only on hair samples, selling it, and then - oh shit - finding out that it burns peoples' skin off.

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[ceejayoz]

I find this quote amusingly relevant:

"That's one thing the leadership of PETA has in common with their precious salamanders, an inability to think." [?]

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[ceejayoz]

Everyone knows there are fanatics on both sides. I could easily find a similar rabid e-mail from the opposing side.

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[ceejayoz]

'cause it applied to the point - you posted a "solution" to animal testing that wasn't properly thought out - it can't replace testing.

Re:Using a Virus to Destroy Bacteria?

[DrSkwid]

I'm sorry but I think that's a lie.

"I find this quote amusingly relevant:"

You just wanted to try and insult me somehow.

But what you have failed to discuss is that animals have consiousness and self awareness. They feel pain and suffering and yet your solution to less suffering is to inflict more of it.

The only argument you can come up with in favour of it is that shampoo might burn.

I'm quite happy to contend that the primary motivation for pharmacuetical and cosmetic companies is not to benefit humankind but to seprarate it from it's money and that in the ruthless persuit of this goal they are likely to rush products to market that will injure and maybe kill members of the public. As some sort of barrier to this market govts. introduced mandatory animal testing. Yet the system doesn't work. They lie and cheat to get products to market and if the drugs fail in the regulated markets then they you may well find them on sale in India or Malaysia or Mexico. So the people doing the testing, for our "protection" can't even be trusted. Heck they even try to kill us.

"According to 1989 US EPA data, Hoechst Celanese was one of the leading releasers in the USA of known or suspected carcinogens."

YET animal testing is not in and of itself necessary to develop such products. A point which is conceeded and acknowledged by many eminent doctors around the world.

Maybe you missed the quotes so I'll pop one in again and see if you can ignore it once more :

"Giving cancer to laboratory animals has not and will not help us to understand the disease or to treat those persons suffering from it."

Dr. A. Sabin, 1986, developer of the oral polio vaccine.

We don't need a solution to animal testing.
We just need to stop doing it.

Antiviral medications...

[rjh]

... Look into Amantadine or its ilk, which are effective drugs for the treatment of influenza.

There aren't many antiviral drugs, and the ones we have are not especially effective, but it's incorrect to say antivirals don't exist.

Re:Antiviral medications...

[JabberWokky]

Oh, they exist, certainly, but from the day you get a virus, to the day you die, that virus potentially inhabits your body. Generally you have the acute phase (with one, Chicken Pox, in another, a low grade flu like experience), and then later a secondary reaction (Chicken Pox leads to shingles, and that low grade flu is from HIV, which leads to AIDS). Viruses stick around. Basically, while there are antiviral medications that aim to slow the replication of viral bodies, they don't cure, and they don't affect the long term effects of viral infection. Much like a diamond, herpies is forever.

Basically, what you call antivirals really just lessen aspects of the viruses life cycle in the body. I'm not aware of anything that can actually "cure", i.e., remove a virus, from a host. I've long since ceased following the medical publications, though - there may be cutting edge research that has had some nice breakthroughs, but I haven't heard of any, and I follow the general medical press with quite an interest, followinug the interesing bits back to the source.

--
Evan (no reference, but I almost put in a bit about Captain Trips)

Re:Antiviral medications...

[rjh]

but from the day you get a virus, to the day you die, that virus potentially inhabits your body.

What's your point? Every human being is a colony of thousands of different unique bacteria. From the day you catch strep throat to the day you die, there are strep bacteria living somewhere on your skin. Just counting the number of different Escheria coli bacteria living in your gut would push me past Slashdot's space limitation. Just counting the number of different helpful, necessary bacteria would make me go on for paragraphs and paragraphs.

Sure, bacteria and viruses are with you for life. What's your point? That's why we acquire immunities.

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly....

[oobeleck]

So you eat bateria to kill a virus. (I thought viruses merged with your DNA...).
But then you will probably have a reaction to the bacteria.
Sooooo then they will give you a drug to fight the reaction.
But then the drug will cause strange side effects.
They will give you other drugs to fight the effects of the side effects.
Thus giving you MORE side effects. (I am beginning to see a nasty pattern here...)
So then you will probably get sick of this and try herbal remedies to ease the side effects.
That won't work so you will take up drinking which will destroy you liver and give you heart disease...
This will necessitate MORE drugs.
(Repeat previous steps.)
In the end you will still die anyways...
At least it will keep you busy on the way though, eh?

The only thing I'd worry about this would be..

[pedro]

Some bright guy might attempt to engineer a broad spectrum bacteriophage, which would, of course, shut down our entire foodchain.
That would be bad.
If I was George W., I'd be much more concerned about stuff like this emanating from Iraq than nasty gasses and stuff.
After all, we're talking Doomsday weapon here...
Total climate change, and utter devastation with but one tiny twiddle of a genetic code.
I pray that these guys have thought this through..

Re:The only thing I'd worry about this would be..

[RML]

If a broad spectrum bacteriophage was possible, the possibility of it never happening by random mutation is approximately 0.00000000% (viruses mutate very quickly, and there are lots and lots and lots of them). And if it happened, being able to infect all bacteria would be such a terrific advantage that it would already have overrun the planet. So the fact that no such virus has wiped out the foodchain yet is a good reason to think that it's impossible.

Re:The only thing I'd worry about this would be..

[gene_tailor]

>Some bright guy might attempt to engineer a broad spectrum bacteriophage

You'll be reassured to know that phages have exquisite specificity for their targets-- according to the Nature article:
"High-affinity binding (the affinity constant Ka = 3-6 10X^8, similar to affinity-matured antibodies) is directed towards species- or strain-specific cell-wall carbohydrates".
So creating a broad-specificity phage would be like making a broad-specifity antibody-- kind of a contradiction in terms.

Re:The only thing I'd worry about this would be..

[pedro]

>the possibility of it never happening by random mutation is approximately 0.00000000%

ITYM 'ever happening' :)
You'll have to concede, however, that such a mutation would quickly snuff out it's own source of propagation. Locally, at least.
Hence, we have a *Possible* genetic configuration, that nature has weeded out as nonviable, and has not repeated in further mutations.
This does NOT mean that we, as humans, cannot reintroduce it, or something similar.
Think of DNA as an OS with various levels of API's and I think you'll get what I mean.

Re:The only thing I'd worry about this would be..

[pedro]

A deliberately designed phage that is focused on low level functions and vulnerabilities of the DNA (DNA is a state machine.. think hacking) could easily hijack the internal processes of a bacterium, since they are ALL based on a universal tech foundation.
What the guys in the article were doing was getting really close to using an enzyme (think packet) to transmit information to a virus (crude processor) so as to press it into service so as to accomplish a task.
This idea is so cool that I'm peeing myself.
Hope this helps.

"Virii"

[RML]

Of course it's spelled right. When in doubt, consult this handy chart:

SINGLE PLURAL
bonus bonii
bus bii
campus campii
chorus chorii
genius geniii
plus plii
virus virii
walrus walrii

Tomato! tomah-to.

[capnjack41]

Ok ok, I'll let the "virii" slide, even though it is "viruses" (to be honest, I wasn't sure myself). That issue's been beaten to death anyway!

What's interesting to note is that, in addition to fighting the anthrax itself, this method is also useful in detecting the spores (below is a snippet of the article which wasn't mentioned in the article summary...it's all in the yahoo! article link):

Fischetti said that the enzyme had another potential use: detection of small numbers of anthrax spores. When PlyG destroys an anthrax bacterium, the cell releases a substance that can be detected with the help of a fluorescent agent and a hand-held device.

Links to the Nature articles concerned

[mcockerill]

If you have a subscription to Nature, you can get a rather more accurate summary in this News and Views piece.

The research article itself is here.

Perhaps reading

[j_w_d]

the original article would help, or perhaps carefully reading the original post. The poster is incorrect about spelling the plural of "virus" as "virii" but did accurately restate from the article that The method uses an enzyme from bacteriophages, virii which attack bacteria. .

Ignoring the spelling blunder, the poster has offered a portion the original article's gist. There was no mix-up of bacteria and viruses.

Re:Perhaps reading

[JabberWokky]

From the submittor: "The method uses an enzyme from bacteriophages, virii which attack bacteria. The scientists say that this method could even be adapted to combat other virii."

Where in the article does it say that this method combats any virus? PlyG lysin, if I interpret it correctly, destroys the bacteria by shredding the cell membrane. A virus does not have a cell membrane, nor is there anything in the article that would lead someone to think that this could be used to treat a virus, or "combat other virii".

Perhaps *you* should read the article and submission again.

--
Evan

Re:Perhaps reading

[j_w_d]

You are quite correct. I read the article first and "read" what I expected in the OP. Mea culpa.

Re:Perhaps reading

[JabberWokky]

No problem - I'm actually quite easy going about spelling mistakes or errors due to quick reading or simple insufficient knowledge. The bacteria/virus misuse issue has just become a massive personal pet peeve since anthrax became a major news item. Time, AP, CNN and other news sources have science and medical editors who should spot egregious errors. I even saw one story on the BBC that made the mistake. Slashdot just happens to be the one place where I can vent about the rampant equivelence of the two terms in the media and thus in common usage. :)

--
Evan (no reference)

Re:Perhaps reading

[j_w_d]

Slashdot just happens to be the one place where I can vent about the rampant equivelence of the two terms in the media and thus in common usage. :)

Same here. Too many cranks in the family.

Re:Can somebody explain?

[gene_tailor]

See the "the only thing I'd worry about.." thread for more on this... Basically the way this phage enzyme binds to its target bacterium surface molecule is the same sort of very very specific "3D lock and key" fit that an antibody has for its target molecule. The original Nature article is not very well explained by Yahoonews, but the scientists did testing, and the PlyG did not bind at all to several closely-related (Bacillus) bacteria, though it did bind to one that is almost identical to anthrax. Humans aren't the normal place these bacteria are found, so it's extremely unlikely that any "normal" bacteria could be targetted by this.

I'm trying to think of a non-biology comparison here... uh, how about thinking of the recognition of a bacterium by the phage enzyme in terms of cryptography -- the phage has a key to get into this particular bacterial species, but it's really unlikely that the same key would work on any other type of bacteria.

Oh, and viruses leave the body all the time, eg folks pick up cold viruses from other people's sneezes.

I submitted this as well, only with more info

[guttentag]

A More Effective Method of Detecting and Killing Anthrax

Scientists at Rockefeller University in New York announced today in the journal Nature that a protein used by a bacteriophage (a virus that kills bacteria) can be used to quickly detect and kill anthrax. Last year, it took days to check a building for anthrax spores, but this method of causing the bacteria's cell wall to burst and yield an easily-detectible dye would cut the uncertainty to a period of minutes. It can also be used in a drug to kill strains of anthrax that have grown resistant to antibiotics. Rockefeller University has additional info, and the NYTimes has an article.

The Nature article also mentions an interesting tidbit about a difference between Western and Russian medicine: "Such 'phage therapy' is routine in Russia - the concept is over 80 years old - but was ousted by antibiotics in the West." A nice reminder that ignoring one approach in favor of another can have disastrous results."