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from the little-fleas-have-lesser-fleas-upon-their-backs-to-bite-them... dept.
Researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Nottingham have found a novel way of killing harmful bacteria that cause infection — setting predator bacteria loose to eat the harmful ones.
Experiments showed a dose of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus acted like a "living antibiotic" to help clear an otherwise lethal infection.
The animal studies, published in Current Biology , suggested there would be no side effects.
[...] Dr Michael Chew, from the Wellcome Trust medical research body, said: "It may be unusual to use a bacterium to get rid of another, but in the light of the looming threat from drug-resistant infections the potential of beneficial bacteria-animal interactions should not be overlooked.
"We are increasingly relying on last-line antibiotics, and this innovative study demonstrates how predatory bacteria could be an important additional tool to drugs in the fight against resistance."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @01:29PM
My understanding is that phage treatment tends to be a non specific blend of biologically diverse phages -- ie something that is against the philosophy of the FDA (take a single well researched checmical in exact known dose etc). My knowledge is a couple of years out of date, but from what I remember a phage treatment in principle is no problem to get approval for but the standard mystery blend isnt going to pass muster.
Some thing with bacteria, given a single well known strain I cant see approval being much of a problem, bearing in mind the massive pain it is to get *anything* approved that is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @03:25PM
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 28 2016, @07:43PM
FWIW, viruses typically mutate at a much faster rate than bacteria. This is because their genetic system is essentially missing proofreaders. And that's because the replication isn't being done by their own mechanics, but rather by a subverted host. So the cost of a false replica is less, and they also didn't build the machine. There may be exceptions, I'm no microbiologist, but I haven't heard of any.
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 Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:52AM
Phage do mutate faster than bacteria, but bacteria have an adaptive response (CRISPR) that can compensate for the difference. Also, many phage can go into a dormant state and protect bacteria from being infected with similar strains of the virus