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Killing Superbugs With Star-Shaped Polymers, Not Antibiotics

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the like-throwing-stars-but-smaller dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Tiny, star-shaped molecules are effective at killing bacteria that can no longer be killed by current antibiotics, new research shows.

The study, published today in Nature Microbiology, holds promise for a new treatment method against antibiotic-resistant bacteria (commonly known as superbugs).

The star-shaped structures, are short chains of proteins called 'peptide polymers', and were created by a team from the Melbourne School of Engineering.
...
tests undertaken on red blood cells showed that the star-shaped polymer dosage rate would need to be increased by a factor of greater than 100 to become toxic. The star-shaped peptide polymer is also effective in killing superbugs when tested in animal models.

Furthermore, superbugs showed no signs of resistance against these peptide polymers. The team discovered that their star-shaped peptide polymers can kill bacteria with multiple pathways, unlike most antibiotics which kill with a single pathway.

Let's hope any such molecules are thoroughly vetted with long-term studies before being introduced to medical therapies.

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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:32AM

    by Immerman (3985) on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:32AM (#402120)

    No argument that it can happen that way, but it doesn't exactly take a long time for it to happen through more traditional mutation-based evolution either.

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:45PM

    by HiThere (866) on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:45PM (#402411) Journal

    No argument that it can happen that way, but it doesn't exactly take a long time for it to happen through more traditional mutation-based evolution either.

    That's probably true, but given how pervasive the genetic exchange is, it's not clear how to estimate time to adapt to a feature that nothing has previously encountered. My guess would be the same as yours (not long), but my certainty would be a lot lower.

    That said, it didn't take long before SOME bug figured out how to eat polystyrene. But nothing yet has figured out how to make a living doing it (probably because of the lack of water). So it's not clear how long it will be before something evolves to eat these things. It's possible that there's no easy way from here to there. Basalt has proven relatively immune to bacteriological degradation for millennia.

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