Posts Tagged ‘bacterial infections’
New Bacteria-Killing Light Can Destroy Superbugs With the Flip of a Switch
Light-based sterilization is nothing new – ultraviolet light can do a number on pathogens, though it also does damage to humans – but the new method uses a narrow spectrum of visible, harmless light wavelengths known as HINS (High Intensity, Narrow Spectrum) light to do the trick. HINS light excites molecules within bacteria such that they produce a chemically lethal response, in essence pushing bacteria to kill themselves. But while it drives bacteria to cell suicide, it’s harmless to humans and therefore can be incorporated into existing lighting systems in clinical environments to provide continuous sterilization of surfaces and air.
Continuous sterilization, of course, keeps infectious bacterial pathogens from spreading around places like hospital wards, where immune systems are low and the chances of infection are high.
And what of the violet hue? Some might find it a nice ambient addition to the usual bright-white aura of the average operating theater. But for the sake of consistency the team has also figured out how to integrate the HINS light with a combination of LED technologies to produce a warm white light that can be used alongside the usual hospital lighting scheme.
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Cockroach Brains Could Hold the Key to Next Generation of Antibiotics
The researchers identified nine different molecules found in the insects' nervous system tissues that are toxic to bacteria but harmless to human cells. Those tissues could be used to engineer new kinds of antibiotics that are effective in treating infections that are resistant to conventional drugs.
For strains of infectious bacteria like MRSA, that could be huge. MRSA is highly-resistant to the usual battery of antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections and is particularly troublesome in hospital environments where it can take up residence and be particularly difficult to eradicate -- kind of like an infestation of cockroaches. When conventional drugs don't work, doctors have to reach deeper into their medicine bags, and some of the treatments they are forced to fall back on have very unpleasant side effects on healthy human tissue.
Considering the pharmaceutical industry is having a hard time finding novel (or profitable) ways of combating drug-resistant bacteria like MRSA, this new method could provide a cheap source of effective antimicrobial drugs. So before you go crushing that tiny little pharma factory skittering across your living room floor, think twice. Then go ahead and do it. Cockroaches are disgusting, dude.
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A New Superbacteria, Immune To Most Antibiotics, Found Spreading Fast
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NDM-1 (or New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase) is a gene mutation that arms many common and harmful bacteria like E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae with a resistance that can even withstand carbapenems, the antibiotics used as a last resort when more common drugs have no effect. What's worse, the gene has been found on plasmids -- particularly promiscuous bits of mobile DNA that can move easily between strains of bacteria. The details of the study tracking NDM-1's transcontinental jump (most plausibly via medical tourism, in case you were curious) are described in this by Tim Walsh in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.
"In many ways, this is it," Walsh told the . "This is potentially the end. There are no antibiotics in the pipeline that have activity against NDM 1-producing Enterobacteriaceae. It is the first time it has got to this stage with these type of bacteria.""
But now that we've sufficiently participated in the fearmongering, let's put NDM-1 in some kind of perspective. There are many highly resistant bugs out there (MRSA comes to mind), and each time a new one arrives on the bacterial scene, doomsday is declared only to later be downgraded to a threatening but not critical medical situation. A different mutation ravaged NYC hospitals a decade ago, and while officials were deeply concerned about that infectious strain the city and the larger world did not suffer a public health disaster.
What is troubling is that the gene is highly mobile and there aren't really any treatments in the works to combat NDM-1 or to slow its spread. In hospital environments that's very troubling, akin to being in the trenches with plenty of rifles but no ammunition. Alternatives to antibiotics like might be effective in putting the brakes on NDM-1-reinforced bacteria, but in standard medical practice antibiotics are the way we treat bacterial infections and even if an experimental treatment is found to be effective it will take a good deal of time to get it approved for widespread use.
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