DailyDirt: Fighting Off Teeny Tiny Threats...
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The population of superbugs that are resistant to antibiotic drugs is a growing concern. If we run out of effective medicines to fight off bacterial infections, it won't be pretty. Fortunately, we might have a few more tricks up our sleeves, and hopefully, these new tactics will be tested and ready by the time our current line of antibiotics stop working. Here are just a few links on how we might save ourselves.- Bacteriophages are viruses that can infect bacteria, and phage therapy could use these viruses to combat all kinds of disease-causing microbes. Using viruses to fight bacterial infections has been widely used in Russia and other parts of eastern Europe, but engineering viruses is not quite a mature field (yet). [url]
- Attacking the cell membranes of bacteria could be an effective approach to killing off antibiotic-resistant bacteria. If new drugs can selectively break down bacterial membranes, then they won't even need to enter the cells.. and no resistance can be developed. [url]
- Plastics that prevent the attachment of biofilms on their surfaces could be useful in eliminating bacterial infections from common medical devices. These materials prevent bacterial growth by resisting bacterial attachment at the earliest stages, so catheters and other medical tools coated in these polymers could put an end to a large number of hospital infections. [url]
Filed Under: antibiotics, bacteria, bacteriophages, biofilm, drug-resistant, health, infection, microbes, phage therapy, plastic
