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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."
It'll like one of those, howtcha call it... Oh: "solutions in search of a problem".
Where do the deadliest viruses appear? Hospitals. Why? Because hospitals keep killing them and they mutate to survive (rather, weirder mutations manage to survive, and deadlier).
I've not noticed the majority of the population having a big problem with the bacteria and viruses on their skin, mouse, keyboard, banknotes, whatever. So why work so hard on selling us snake-oil for it?
We exist in a symbiotic relationship with a heck of a lot of bacteria. Attacking biofilms indiscriminately may have serious negative consequences. Hopefully there will be a lot of study before these are released into the environment.
The fact that the people at MIT aren't idiots and can design a virus that targets bacteria, and not the massively different mammalian cells?
I understand your point but you cant' help but think this thing could be one mutation away from attacking say good bacteria cultures. Thats still my biggest fear with respect to genetic modification is that we still don't understand the ecology of micro organisms in its entirety.