Team Builds Viruses To Combat Harmful "Biofilms"

Scientists from MIT and Boston University are creating viruses that will wipe out "biofilms" that contain harmful bacteria on surfaces of the human body and industrial or medical devices. "Bacterial biofilms can form almost anywhere, even on your teeth if you don't brush for a day or two. When they accumulate in hard to reach places such as the insides of food processing machines or medical catheters, however, they become persistent sources of infection. These bacteria excrete a variety of proteins, polysaccharides, and nucleic acids that together with other accumulating materials form an extracellular matrix, or in Lu's words, a "slimy layer," that encases the bacteria. Traditional remedies such as antibiotics are not as effective on these bacterial biofilms as they are on free-floating bacteria. In some cases, antibiotics even encourage bacterial biofilms to form."

Comments

Re:I hope they are not serious about selling this

[Spy der Mann]

Where do the deadliest viruses appear? Hospitals. Why? Because hospitals keep killing them and they mutate to survive

Uh... hello, weren't hospitals made to CURE diseases? What's your solution then? Oh, right. Instead of making viruses surviving by killing them, we'll just let them survive and kill us instead! Welcome back to the 12th century. Congratulations!