The BBC reports that the world is on the cusp of a 'post-antibiotic era'. A new mutation of bacteria in China has something "dubbed the MCR-1 gene", that prevented colistin - the antibiotic of last resort - from killing bacteria.
Chinese scientists identified a new mutation, dubbed the MCR-1 gene, that prevented colistin from killing bacteria.
The report in the Lancet Infectious Diseases showed resistance in a fifth of animals tested, 15% of raw meat samples and in 16 patients.
[...] Resistance to colistin has emerged before. However, the crucial difference this time is the mutation has arisen in a way that is very easily shared between bacteria.
There's plenty to blame - pumping livestock full of them for "preventative measures", doctors prescribing them for colds and flus, and people not finishing a course when they are prescribed them - but the future currently looks bleak.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @08:43AM
Remind me what the name of that process whereby they create custom antigen for a specific dna sequence?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage#Phage_therapy [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday November 20 2015, @07:01PM
Phage therapy isn't it. It's a reasonable choice to antibiotics not working, but it's not a targeted antigen to a particular gene. CRISPR is closeer, but that's not a treatment, but rather a technique. Monoclonal antibodies are a related approach, but still not the same thing. And I can't think of the name either...I've only heard of it existing a couple of times, so it's probably only used in labs.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @08:30PM
I think the grandparent was just talking about DNA vaccination, but you might be thinking of DNA or RNA aptamers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptamer#Nucleic_Acid_aptamers [wikipedia.org]