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posted by n1 on Wednesday August 10 2016, @03:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the cash-only dept.

Three young scientists thing they have a way to defeat antibiotic resistance:

Three college-age scientists think they know how to solve a huge problem facing medicine. They think they've found a way to overcome antibiotic resistance. Many of the most powerful antibiotics have lost their efficacy against dangerous bacteria, so finding new antibiotics is a priority. It's too soon to say for sure if the young researchers are right, but if gumption and enthusiasm count for anything, they stand a fighting chance.

[...] Last October, Stanford launched a competition for students interested in developing solutions for big problems in health care. Not just theoretical solutions, but practical, patentable solutions that could lead to real products. The three young scientists thought they had figured out a way to make a set of proteins that would kill antibiotic resistant bacteria. They convinced a jury of Stanford faculty, biotech types and investors that they were onto something, and got $10,000 to develop their idea.

[...] "The way that our proteins operate, that if the bacteria evolve resistance to them, actually the bacteria can no longer live anymore," says Rosenthal. "We target something that's essential to bacterial survival." Bacteria have managed to evolve a way around even the most sophisticated attempts to kill them, so I was curious to know more about how the proteins these young inventors say they've found worked. "We're not able to disclose, unfortunately," says Filsinger Interrante. It's their intellectual property, she explains, that they hope will attract investors. "We think that our protein has the potential to target very dangerous, multidrug-resistant bacteria."

Peer review, meet news review.


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  • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 10 2016, @06:09PM

    by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Wednesday August 10 2016, @06:09PM (#386337)

    as far as I can tell, anything labeled "intelectual property" needs the whole society to agree it is property, since the "beat the crap out of offenders" won't work if the whole society decides to offend the restriction.

    And if all of society decided you were hogging the good food and decided to take it from you, you wouldn't be able to defend it either. I suppose I'm bristling at the dual standards. In one case (physical goods) you are assuming a single person on person conflict, with you present, alert equally armed. In second case (intellectual goods) you are assuming the entire society decides to gang up on you. I would contend the difference has far more to do with the strength of opposition than the nature of the property.

    Now, you may think that society will gang up on you in one case, but not the other, as a rule. But that seems like it would need evidence.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:28PM (#386434)

    I'm sorry, poor word choice on my part.
    what I wanted to say is that violent enforcement won't work if every individual who has minor contacts with Bob decides to "steal", since it's hard for Bob to run around after all of these first-hand offenders, and they can immediately propell the information to other people that Bob has never met.
    case in point: Bob invents a melody, sings a song while picking berries. someone hears this song, and then repeats it out of earshot, etc. Bob can certainly beat the crap out of the people he hears singing the song, but he will never find all of them. so he needs everyone to agree that whenever they hear a song, they ask who invented the melody, and then search out the author and reward them in some way.

    • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Saturday August 13 2016, @04:31AM

      by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Saturday August 13 2016, @04:31AM (#387376)

      Sure it's easier to detect someone taking the food from your table. But what happens when you are out getting more food, and your stockpile is just sitting there? Or having a car, parking it, and going into a building?