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posted by mrpg on Saturday January 06 2018, @03:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the infections-ain't-no-fun dept.

Researchers have found a way to modify vancomycin — a last-ditch antibacterial — and "supercharge" it to create vancapticins which are far more effective against antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections:

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria – superbugs – cause 700,000 deaths worldwide each year, and a UK government review has predicted this could rise to 10 million by 2050.

[University of Queensland's] Dr Blaskovich said the old drug, vancomycin, was still widely used to treat extremely dangerous bacterial infections, but bacteria were becoming increasingly resistant to it.

“The rise of vancomycin-resistant bacteria, and the number of patients dying from resistant infections that cannot be successfully treated, stimulated our team to look at ways to revitalise old antibiotics,” Dr Blaskovich said.

“We did this by modifying vancomycin’s membrane-binding properties to selectively bind to bacterial membranes rather than those of human cells, creating a series of supercharged vancomycin derivatives called vancapticins.”

The rebooted vancomycin has the potential to treat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE).

[...] “Drug development is normally focused on improving binding to a biological target, and rarely focuses on assessing membrane-binding properties.

“This approach worked with the vancapticins, and the question now is whether it can be used to revitalise other antibiotics that have lost effectiveness against resistant bacteria.

“Given the alarming rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria and the length of time it takes to develop a new antibiotic, we need to look at any solution that could fix the antibiotic drug discovery pipeline now,” Professor Cooper said.

Having been treated for an infection with vancomycin, I can attest it's a scary feeling when, after three days' treatment, the infection commences to spread! Fortunately, an increased dose turned the tide, but it was touch-and-go for a while. Sadly, is this just another step in the cat-and-mouse battle of increasing bacterial resistance?

Journal Reference:

  1. Mark A. T. Blaskovich, et. al. Protein-inspired antibiotics active against vancomycin- and daptomycin-resistant bacteria. Nature Communications, 2018; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02123-w

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:23PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:23PM (#618906)

    so now when the bacteria ups the anti a patient will be dead no matter what. good job...

    When bacteria up the ante it costs them. It's not magic. The resources it uses to resist drugs mean that it can't perform its normal functions quite as well.

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:43PM (1 child)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:43PM (#618916) Journal

    But what if the bacteria evolve magic? :-)

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:06PM (#619226)

      That would be bad. Or awesome.