Slashdot Mirror
Sea Sponge Extract Conquers Resistant Bacteria
Science News has an article on research into a compound found in a particular kind of sea sponge that seems to have the ability to restore antibiotics' effectiveness against resistant bacteria. The hope is that, since the compound is not itself deadly or even harmful to bacteria, it may skew the antibiotic-bacteria arms race in our favor. "Chemical analyses of the sponge's chemical defense factory pointed to a compound called algeferin. Biofilms, communities of bacteria notoriously resistant to antibiotics, dissolved when treated with fragments of the algeferin molecule. And new biofilms did not form. So far, the algeferin offshoot has, in the lab, successfully treated bacteria that cause whooping cough, ear infections, septicemia and food poisoning. The compound also works on... [MRSA] infections, which wreak havoc in hospitals. 'We have yet to find one that doesn't work,' says [one of the researchers]."
Well I propose that we do with it what we did with penicillin in the 50's, and infuse it into livestock feed, thereby ending the battle against bacteria forever. FOREVER!
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
It's funny that phage medicine has been demostrated to be very effective to treat antibiotic resistant bacteria, yet it's never been adopted in western medicine. But something comes along that works in conjunction with anti biotics and it's hot stuff. Fucking pharmasutical companys.
It would be perfect against salmonella. Salmonella is extremely hazardous to public health, because it can reside dormant in the intestinal biofilm for practically indefinite periods (up to 25 years), and the carrier remains infectious all the time. A single bacterium can cause a potentially fatal illness, so in some jurisdictions, anyone who works with food is tested for salmonella. Unfortunately the only way to positively remove salmonella from a carrier is ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic generally considered an antibiotic of last resort. Its serious, potentially disabling side-effects include permanent damage of peripheral nerves, the intestine and spontaneous tendon rupture. A way to dissolve the bacteria from the biofilm would probably make them easier to eradicate with less dangerous antibiotics.
Now can we be a bit more careful with it this time? No attempts to coat the planet in a thin layer of the stuff, please. The loss of the best weapons against disease we've ever found is not a fair price to pay for cheaper meat. Hopefully we've learned that lesson, although every time I see a doctor prescribe antibiotics just to get someone out of their surgery, I despair a little.
Aa few years ago I sat outside the entry doors to an ICU where a relative was lying. I sat there for many days, and many hours.
I observed every single nurse stop and scrub at the scrub station which was located near the ICU entry doors. I observed maybe
one doctor out of thirty doctors scrub at the station. Most doctors walked right through the doors and did not scrub.
You can draw your own conclusions about this, but it seems obvious that things weren't being done in a consistent manner,
and I've been told by some European doctor buddies that this
sort of lax behavior in matters of sterile procedures is NOT tolerated in German hospitals.
So, magic bullets are great, but what we really need, in the US at least, is a change in the way the medical "profession" behaves. After what I saw with my own eyes, I can't say the conduct I observed was what I'd call professional, and it will be a cold day in hell before I allow myself to be admitted as a patient in the hospital at UNC-Chapel Hill.
The compound is called ageliferin.
Yeah, they probably thought the bacteria would never come up with an answer to penicillin either.
Actually it didn't. Instead what happened was antibiotics were handed out like candy and people weren't made to complete their courses.
If you stop taking antibiotics before the whole course is complete, any remaining bacteria are those which have some resistance (but in the beginning not enough to survive a completed course). Multiply this by the millions of people who didn't complete their courses over the decades, and you have trouble.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Ok, besides the mis-spelling of "ageliferin" (for those wondering why Google's not bringing up much)...
This is pretty big, but it's not coming out of nowhere. I'm not too familiar with this particular compound, but it appears to be a bio-film breaker -- most (but not all) of which work by disrupting quorum sensing. What's exciting about this particular example is both its potency and apparent non-toxicity.
If suitable for use in humans, you can expect this to dramatically improvement treatment of various types of infections involving biofilm-forming bacteria -- you find these a lot in Cystic Fibrosis patients, immunocompromised patients, and various infections of catheters and implanted items and such.