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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

Related Stories

New Compounds Found Which Illuminate and Kill Drug Resistant Gram Negative Bacteria 10 comments

University of Sheffield and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) scientists have discovered several new related (dinuclear RuII) compounds which visualize and kill gram-negative bacteria, such as E. coli (note - no word on whether it works on synthetic E.coli)

Bacteria are classified generally by what type of staining works on them using a method developed in the 1800's by Hans Christian Gram. 'Gram-negative' bacteria retain a stain color that shows them as a pinkish red coloring, these bacteria have cell walls that make it difficult to get drugs into them and many gram-negative bacteria have become significantly or even completely resistant to available drug treatments.

A new drug in the difficult gram-negative space is particularly important. Drug resistant bacteria already cause the deaths of over 50 thousand people a year in the US and EU alone, and as many as 10 million people a year could die worldwide every year by 2050 due to antibiotic resistant infections.

Doctors have not had a new treatment for gram-negative bacteria in the last 50 years, and no potential drugs have entered clinical trials since 2010.

The new drug compound has a range of exciting opportunities. As Professor Jim Thomas explains: "As the compound is luminescent it glows when exposed to light. This means the uptake and effect on bacteria can be followed by the advanced microscope techniques available at RAL.

"This breakthrough could lead to vital new treatments to life-threatening superbugs and the growing risk posed by antimicrobial resistance."

The studies at Sheffield and RAL have shown the compound seems to have several modes of action, making it more difficult for resistance to emerge in the bacteria.

Better yet

Mammalian cell culture and animal model studies indicate that the complex is not toxic to eukaryotes, even at concentrations that are several orders of magnitude higher than its minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC).

The researchers plan to test the compounds against additional multi drug resistant bacteria next.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 06 2018, @03:43PM (16 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday January 06 2018, @03:43PM (#618781) Homepage Journal

    How about we just stop treating infections that aren't life-threatening or at least debilitating with antibiotics at all? I've seen doctors prescribe antibiotics for infections they knew damned good and well were viral even just to assuage worried parents.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by fadrian on Saturday January 06 2018, @04:15PM (3 children)

      by fadrian (3194) on Saturday January 06 2018, @04:15PM (#618801) Homepage

      How about idiot farmers who keep feeding this stuff in the bushels to their animals, too? That's a even bigger problem.

      --
      That is all.
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by stretch611 on Saturday January 06 2018, @07:22PM (2 children)

        by stretch611 (6199) on Saturday January 06 2018, @07:22PM (#618848)

        This actually is a bigger problem then misuse in humans.

        The sad thing is that the reason they do it has nothing to do with the health of the animal... it is used to fatten them up and grow faster.

        --
        Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
        • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 06 2018, @09:29PM

          by Gaaark (41) on Saturday January 06 2018, @09:29PM (#618883) Journal

          Profits before anything else. An American idea. An American problem.

          when profits become more important than people, you know you got a problem.

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:32PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:32PM (#620137)

          What is the mechanism behind that fattening and spurred growth?
          Does it have anything to do with anti-microbial effect of antibiotics?
          Would it be more cost effective to just properly sterilize the food and water given to pen-grown cattle?
          It seems like antibiotics are there to compensate for lack of hygiene.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 06 2018, @05:06PM (9 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday January 06 2018, @05:06PM (#618822) Journal

      I've got an idea: When it is only to assuage worried patients, doctors should prescribe homoeopathic antibiotics.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Saturday January 06 2018, @05:26PM (4 children)

        by zocalo (302) on Saturday January 06 2018, @05:26PM (#618827)
        How about not? Having more doctors prescribe homeopathic remedies is only going to bolster the delusion that there is something credible behind homeopathy and cause people who actually need proper medication to waste their time on glorified placebos instead. What's needed when it's just a worried patient that just needs their concerns assuaging is education that it's really NOT something they need to worry about, or for the doctor to prescribe something that isn't going to further the biotics-antibiotics arms race - Doctor's call depending on the patient. In the latter case, there are plenty of things that the human body will automatically flush any moderate excess quite harmlessly while still providing the placebo effect; pretty much any vitamin supplement for instance.
        --
        UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday January 06 2018, @09:36PM (2 children)

          by Gaaark (41) on Saturday January 06 2018, @09:36PM (#618890) Journal

          Don't know about the REAL definition of homeopathy, but i know there are a lot of non-drug remedies that work.

          Instead of a puffer, i use Buckleys mixture: it keeps my breathing clear.

          Tonic water instead of drugs keeps my restless leg syndrome away: the quinine is a musle relaxant (since i've gone gluten free, it is much better as well: only if i eat gluten do i need tonic water). I asked my doctor if there was something that could cure it that would be better than a pill where the side-effects were worse than the symptoms and she told me about it. Works wonders.

          There are lots of non-drug cures. But homeopathy.... i have heard weird things about THAT definition.

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:16PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:16PM (#618904)

            I'm not doubting you, but just out of curiosity, what other things do you believe? For instance, which of the following do you think are at least reasonably likely? JFK conspiracy, moon landing faked, vaccination causes autism, 911 was an inside job, there's a pill that can turn water into gasoline but the oil companies have suppressed it, free energy, aroma therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic therapy, Area 51 contains aliens, astrology, it's possible to communicate with the dead.

            I'm sure it's not the majority, but perhaps several, or one or two?

          • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Sunday January 07 2018, @11:17AM

            by zocalo (302) on Sunday January 07 2018, @11:17AM (#619091)
            Yeah, there are definitely non-pharma cures/remedies for some ailments. Usually they have some form of active ingredient though - e.g. the quinine in the case of your tonic water, or just the placebo effect at work - not forgetting that the psychological effect of *believing* you are helping is somewhat beneficial in its own right. If it actually works for you, go for it (I have a few of these myself for various minor ailments); even it there may be some pharmaceuticals that will do the job a little quicker it's probably going to cost more, so you pays your money...

            The problem with homeopathy in it's dictionary sense (dilute, dilute, dilute...) is that some people truly believe it will do something akin to an active ingredient and take it for things that *need* actual pharmaceuticals and/or medical treatment. For things that the body will sort out on their own without medical help, or can't be treated with anything except time, then homeopathy is harmless - and actually arguably better than taking antibiotics when they are not required; it's essentially just the placebo effect. By prescribing it for those minor ailments where it appears to do something, then it just establishes the idea that homeopathy works and increases the risk of people relying on it when it absolutely can't fix the problem. By using something one step up from a placebo with some kind of active ingredient - like vitamins - you avoid that situation, and potentially do some good by topping up things that the body may have depleted in the process of fighting the ailment.
            --
            UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:06AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:06AM (#618953)

          there are plenty of things that the human body will automatically flush any moderate excess quite harmlessly while still providing the placebo effect

          This gives me an idea. Why can't doctors prescribe organic, all natural, non-GMO echinacea? Dunno if that herb actually works, but there's enough belief around that it does for it to be a very good placebo.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @09:55PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @09:55PM (#618898)

        For viral ailments, more MDs need to hand out samples of Obecalp [google.com]
        (Spell it backwards.)

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 4, Funny) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:41PM (2 children)

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:41PM (#618914) Journal

          Wouldn't the effect be better if it ends in "-cillin"? "Placillin" sounds like a good name.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:53AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:53AM (#618967)

            ...or -tine
            ...or -dine
            ...or -imil
            ...or -vir

            The naming of things has come up before WRT the non-unique titles given to software.
            Big Pharma has absolutely no problem coming up with new combinations of letters.
            So, why are the "creative types" in the computer field so bad at this?

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:31AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:31AM (#619066)

              Obecalpicine

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @06:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @06:27PM (#618838)

      a lot of times they don't know whether it's viral or bacterial. have you seen the low standards of their diagnostics tests? go read the wikipedia page for pneumonia, it's freaking hilarious/terrifying.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @08:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @08:31PM (#618865)

      And I've had a Doctor not prescribe an antibiotic for a serious infection because he was so concerned about antibiotic resistance. I have yet to see data proving that antibiotic resistance germs are more widespread now than they used to be. Yes, they are seen with increasing frequency, but doctors are also looking for them more than they used to.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 06 2018, @03:57PM (2 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday January 06 2018, @03:57PM (#618790) Journal

    It should be:

    "we need to look at any solution that could fix the antibiotic drug discovery pipeline [for] now"

    Super Super! bugs are on the way.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Weasley on Saturday January 06 2018, @05:52PM

    by Weasley (6421) on Saturday January 06 2018, @05:52PM (#618832)

    Excellent. This should improve beef yields by 0.3%. Begin feeding it to the cattle immediately.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @06:32PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @06:32PM (#618839)

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

    • (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.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @06:34PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @06:34PM (#618840)
    Vancomycin was first isolated in 1953... [wikipedia.org]
    Daptomycin... was discovered by researchers at Eli Lilly and Company in the late 1980s. [wikipedia.org]
    What else need be said, now in 2018?

    Some time in the last century, there was research.
    Since then, there was marketing, marketing, and more marketing, amid bitter complaints that bacteria have the gall to build resistance to Big Pharma's cash cows.

    Any new research is quite welcome as it is looooooooooooooong overdue.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @08:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @08:34PM (#618866)

      I hope you posted this from the lab while slaving over your PhD.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:26PM

    by pdfernhout (5984) on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:26PM (#618907) Homepage

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL9910/S00096.htm [scoop.co.nz]
    "I watched BBC's Horizon programme The Virus the Cures on Prime TV on 11 October. The programme revealed that we - ie humankind - had discovered a superior cure (to antibiotics) for bacterial infections around the same time that penicillin was being discovered. The research programme on bacteriophages (phages for short) began in Stalin's Georgia in the 1930s. To this day, our knowledge of each of the many thousands of phage viruses remains concentrated in a now rundown laboratory in Tbilisi, Georgia. The arrival of capitalism in the Caucuses threatens a repository of knowledge, built up over 50 years, that could prevent the superbug pandemic that threatens us all next century.
        Phages are viruses that live in sewage. Each bacterium has a phage that represents its antidote. As new bacteria strains evolve, new phages evolve in tandem. If there is one thing faster than bacterial evolution, it is virus evolution. Phage therapy is a bit like homeopathy. A person with a bacterial infection must have it accurately diagnosed. Once diagnosed, the physician goes to a phial containing the correct phage, prepares a medicine (phages multiply quickly when allowed to) and administers it. The patient is soon cured, without side effects. If there is a new bacterium, its phage antidote is found eventually. The phage research programme involved a lot of patience: searching, identifying, classifying. Nothing was costly in the capitalist sense. Rather, it was very labour intensive work, performed in Georgia by a dedicated group of publicly-minded scientists. ...
        While there are some genuine reasons why phage treatments of bacterial diseases were overlooked in the 1930s and 1940s, the failure to develop a western research program into bacteriophage treatment in the 1980s and 1990s represents an inexcusable failure of western capitalism. By the 1980s, there could be no denial that antibiotic resistance was going to be a major problem in (if not before) the twenty-first century. Yet, we just didn't want to know about what will probably turn out to be the most important medical breakthrough in the twentieth century; a breakthrough made in communist Georgia, in Stalin's Soviet Union.
        It is embarrassing when western science is out-trumped, especially by the "communists". Usually, when out-trumped, we don't tell anyone. That's what happened here. Not only did we not have the nous to start a western programme in bacteriophage research; we looked the other way when the files of phials threatened to be destroyed following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and during the little reported civil war that engulfed Georgia a few years ago. So much for the knowledge economies of the west. How can such valuable knowledge be so cheap?
        It's not too late for western medicine to enter the post-antibiotic bacteriophage era. Our grandchildren will hardly thank us if we persevere with our corporate-profit-motivated conservatism.
        The Soviets were able, eventually, to admit that they were wrong to follow Lysenko. Will we in the west be equally able to admit that we were wrong to put all our medical eggs into the one antibiotic basket, in the process ignoring the most basic tenets of the theory of evolution?"

    --
    The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
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