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Superbug killer.
Before you shit your knickers about Anti-biotic resistant Superbugs wiping man from the earth like a Southern California wildfire; First a message from our sponsor:
Drug & Device Development
Staphylococcus aureus-specific phage therapy effective in mice
Last Updated: 2007-09-20 15:46:12 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A team of scientists from Italy has isolated a bacteriophage that is highly active in mice against local, systemic and intracellular Staphylococcus aureus infection, including methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA).
“Treatment of staphylococcal infections with antibiotics is becoming increasingly difficult in view of the widespread presence of S. aureus strains resistant to multiple antibiotics,” Dr. Rosanna Capparelli and colleagues from the University of Naples Federico II explain in the August issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. “The present study highlights phage therapy as a possible solution.”
When given simultaneously with a lethal dose of S. aureus, the phage rescued 97% of mice and completely eradicated bacteria in vivo within 4 days of treatment.
Do you know why you haven’t heared much about bacteriophage treatment untill recently? Because a Frenchman discovered it almost a century ago, and, “antibiotics were discovered some years later and marketed widely, popular because of their broad spectrum; also easier to manufacture in bulk, store and prescribe. Hence development of phage therapy was largely abandoned in the West, but phage therapy continued throughout 1940s in the former Soviet Union for successfully treating bacterial infections.” Anything those Commies were up to had to be bad.
The phage also fully cleared established nonlethal S. aureus infection in the mice. As these infections more closely mirror human staphylococcal infection, this finding “is perhaps the most significant contribution of this article to the application of phage therapy in a clinical context,” the investigators write.
The phage also prevents abscess formation and reduces the bacterial load and weight of abscesses.
Dr. Capparelli and colleagues note in their report that “rapid clearance in the spleen, an inability to kill intracellular bacteria, and stimulation of neutralizing antibodies are the recurrent objections to the use of phages against bacteria.” The phage tested in the current studies is “free of these shortcomings” and, in addition, lyses methicillin-resistant staphylococci.
They conclude that “given the cost in terms of mortality and morbidity imposed by the widespread presence of multidrug-resistant S. aureus strains and the present lack of an effective solution to the problem, investigating the potential of (this phage) in the management of human diseases associated with S. aureus infections seems a reasonable suggestion.”
-Once again, don’t ever tell me you don’t hear any good news around here.
See also:
In the Age of the Superbugs: What is the Remedy?
MicroPhage, Inc. Raises Additional Funding to Respond to ‘Superbug Crisis’
7 Responses to “Superbug killer.”
Heh.
I didn’t say it…Bill did. (and I didn’t know)
It’s funny because a few years ago I’d mentioned to a rather intelligent female friend of mine that if the current trend of EVERYTHING being anti-bac they would get wise and mutate. She laughed, but now I wonder if she’s got itchy nuts. heh
Oh, that’s a pretty picture!
Absolutely Rosie.
The sad thing is that this is really old news. I knew about this back in 2001. Of course, back then I was majoring in microbiology. It was a regular topic in my classes. Every one in the science community has seen this coming for quite a while.
On another note, we also talked about how there have been instances of men growing breasts and lactating because they ate so much chicken that had been force fed estrogen to enlarge the breast meat. Ewww! Since then, I have gotten the meat that says no added hormones.
Oh, I’m sure the FDA will get right on approving this. If drugs from Canada could’ve wiped us out, woo boy. But keep the good news rare, lest my entire world view becomes shattered.