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Bacteria Discovered In Irish Soil Kills Four Drug-Resistant Superbugs (msn.com)
NBC News reports on how microbiologist Gerry Quinn "followed up on some folklore his family had passed on to him."
Old timers insisted that the dirt in the vicinity of a nearly 1,500-year-old church in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, an area once occupied by the Druids, had almost miraculous curative powers.... "Here in the western fringes of Ireland there is still a tradition of having this folk cure," Quinn told NBC News. "We can look at it and see maybe it's just superstition -- or we can actually investigate and ask, 'is there anything in the soil that produces antibiotics...?'"
Once Quinn and his team decided to focus on the Irish soil, they narrowed their search to a specific type of bacteria, called Streptomyces, because other strains of this bacteria have led to the development of 75 percent of existing antibiotics, Quinn said. The bacteria was discovered by a team based at Swansea University Medical School, made up of researchers from Wales, Brazil, Iraq and Northern Ireland. The researchers first tried the newly discovered strain of Streptomyces on some garden variety bacteria. In their petri dish experiment, "it knocked them out," Quinn said. "Then we thought we'd take it one step further and find some multi-resistant organisms."
The bacteria in the experiment killed four out of the top six organisms that are resistant to antibiotics, including MRSA. "It's quite surprising," said Quinn... "The lesson is, some of the cures are right underneath your feet."
Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary geneticist/microbiologist at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine, tells NBC that more research is needed before this yields a super-antibiotic -- but "it's a cool discovery."
The World Health Organization has named antibiotic resistance as one of 2019's ten top public health threats.
Once Quinn and his team decided to focus on the Irish soil, they narrowed their search to a specific type of bacteria, called Streptomyces, because other strains of this bacteria have led to the development of 75 percent of existing antibiotics, Quinn said. The bacteria was discovered by a team based at Swansea University Medical School, made up of researchers from Wales, Brazil, Iraq and Northern Ireland. The researchers first tried the newly discovered strain of Streptomyces on some garden variety bacteria. In their petri dish experiment, "it knocked them out," Quinn said. "Then we thought we'd take it one step further and find some multi-resistant organisms."
The bacteria in the experiment killed four out of the top six organisms that are resistant to antibiotics, including MRSA. "It's quite surprising," said Quinn... "The lesson is, some of the cures are right underneath your feet."
Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary geneticist/microbiologist at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine, tells NBC that more research is needed before this yields a super-antibiotic -- but "it's a cool discovery."
The World Health Organization has named antibiotic resistance as one of 2019's ten top public health threats.
Drunken Irish bacteria are good fighters
A gift from the Irish. WE need all the good news we can get today... CC
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I can see where this is going.
The profit-driven pharmaceutical industry is going to capture this bacteria, culture it, and formulate some new medication that will "save thousands of lives."
Everyone happy, right?
Maybe. That's not the end. Right now that magical cure is "right underneath your feet" (TFA). What they will ignore are those bacteria are part of a complex ecosystem where the parts are interconnected and dependent on each other. But they can't package and make a profit on an ecosystem just some molecule or gene sequence that they can isolate and mass produce to have some immediate effect.
Then they will proceed to hype the threat, scaring hundreds of millions into thinking they must have their product or die a horrible death.
Result: it will be way over-prescribed and recklessly used (because hey, insurance covers it, right?) so that the harmful pathogens circulating will evolve into something resistant to it. Any side effects of the new wonder drug will be downplayed and anyone pointing any of this out will be ridiculed as anti-science.
You read it here first, folks.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
'But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.'
-- Lord of the Rings
How long until there is resistant to the new super antibiotic?
this is over used and MRSA et al become resistant to it?
So, the macho 'rub some dirt on it' thing actually works if you have special dirt... #themoreyouknow
They need to run a proper trial, and then another one.
Why? To be sure, to be sure!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I can't remember where or when I first heard this - it was a long time ago - but it's a toss up between congenital laziness and 'belief' in the 'wisdom of wives' that accounts for my casual attitude towards cleaning / a little bit of dirt.
"A child that hasn't eaten their weight in dirt by the time they're two won't make it past five"
Thinking about it, this would be like deliberately exposing oneself to various pathogens, fungi, bacteria, virii that are endemic to different parts of the country. And this is a sort of primitive immunization protocol, isn't it. If it so happens some temple pond is always infested with cow-pox virus, these pilgrims will get immunity from small pox. Edward Jenner's casual observation "milkmaids who get cow-pox never get small pox" was how the entire vaccination (vacca = cow in Latin) science started.
Looks like they stumbled on to an useful practice by trial and error.
[*] Many variations and pronounciations in various Indian languages.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Nonesense. This is nothing but evidence that the druids worked with aliens who engineered this bacteria for them.
Seriously, though--good on the researchers if they've found yet another antibiotic, but...
Everyone here knows this just buys us a (little) time and doesn't address the fundamental issue, right?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Bacteria Discovered In Irish Soil Kills Four Drug-Resistant Superbugs
Although missing from the summary, it also kills potatoes.
You watch the video? dont...
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I don't know about that. But I'm willing to concede that there's precious little evidence to the contrary.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."