Rachael Pine
Antibiotic ‘smart
bomb’ can target specific strains of bacteria
This
article mentions how they have developed an antibiotic that can identify
certain strains of bacteria and dissolve their DNA abolishing the infection.
This system approach helps treat infections with a multi-drug resistant
bacterium. Typically conventional antibiotic treatments tend to kill both good
and bad bacteria that can harm the patient causing even more illness, causing
the patient to go back to the doctor to get more antibiotics that will cause
other illnesses. According to this new approach takes advantage of a part of
the immune system present in many bacteria called CRISPR-Cas system. This
protects bacteria from invaders like viruses and making small strands of RNA called
CRISPR RNA’s.
This
advancement will help many people from getting ill and causing patients to not
get yeast infections or other possible illnesses that can harm the patient(s).
Hopefully this will help future patients, and who knows maybe this technique
will be utilized and tuned to kill other bacteria strains.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140130110953.htm
Knowing that recent actions that take place to treat an ill patient are to give antibiotics to kill the illness. What many do not know is when such act is taken place it causes many helping microbes to get impacted, as you mentioned. It will be a good thing to find ways to kill illnesses without using antibiotics. That system approach from your article will eventually lead to being the future of antibiotics for many doctors and nurses. It will be interesting to see where this research will lead to in the near future.
ReplyDeleteHi, I am a PhD student in Dr. Northup's lab. I did not realize the progress that scientists have been making with target specific antibiotics. This type of treatment has the potential revolutionize the way we treat infections. One of the professors here at UNM told a story about how when her toddler daughter got an infection, she was treated with a heavy dose of antibiotics. The professor indicated that this type of treatment not only treated the infection, but also wiped out a lot of her natural gut flora. It took some time before her gut bacteria returned to normal and she felt better.
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