Posted on 10/09/2021 3:58:43 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Scientists have developed a “living medicine” that has the capability to kill the hospital superbug MRSA. Experiments on mice found it destroyed biofilms of bacteria resistant to antibiotics. The revolutionary treatment could make its way to patients within two years.
“Our technology, based on synthetic biology and live biotherapeutics, has been designed to meet all safety and efficacy standards for application in the lung, with respiratory diseases being one of the first targets. Our next challenge is to address high-scale production and manufacturing, and we expect to start clinical trials in 2023,” says study leader Dr. María Lluch of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in a media release.
Remodeling bacteria to go after germs
The novel medicine uses common bacterial cells scientists have genetically-engineered to possess therapeutic properties. The Spanish team removed the bacteria’s ability to cause disease and repurposed it to attack harmful microbes instead. This genetically altered bacteria successfully removed antibiotic-resistant bacteria growing on medical implants.
Injecting the therapy under the skin of mice cured infections in 82 percent of the treated animals. It specifically targets biofilms — colonies of bacterial cells that stick together on a surface. These colonies enable ideal growing conditions for forming impenetrable structures that prevent antibiotics or the human immune system from destroying the bacteria embedded within.
Biofilm-associated bacteria can be a thousand times more resistant to antibiotics than their free-floating cousins. MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is one of the most common types of biofilm-associated bacteria. Infections do not respond to conventional antibiotics, requiring patients to surgically remove any infected medical implants.
Alternative therapies include the use of antibodies or enzymes that are highly toxic for normal tissues and cells, causing undesired side effects. Introducing living organisms that directly produce enzymes in the local vicinity is a safer and cheaper way of treating infections.
Why use bacteria in the first place?
Researchers say bacteria is an ideal vector, as they have small genomes that can be modified using simple genetic manipulation. The team chose to engineer Mycoplasma pneumonia, a common species that lack a cell wall. It made it easier to release the beneficial molecules that fight infection while also assisting it in evading detection from the human immune system.
Other advantages include M. pneumonia’s low risk of developing disease-causing mutations. It also cannot transfer any of its modified genes to other microbes living nearby. M. pneumonia was first modified so it would not cause illness. Further tweaks made it produce two different enzymes. They dissolved biofilms and attacked the cell walls of the bacteria embedded within.
The researchers also changed the bacteria so it secretes antimicrobial enzymes more efficiently. In particular, it treated biofilms building around breathing tubes, as M. pneumonia is naturally adapted to the lung. The modified bacteria may also have long-term applications for other diseases.
“Bacteria are ideal vehicles for ‘living medicine’ because they can carry any given therapeutic protein to treat the source of a disease. One of the great benefits of the technology is that once they reach their destination, bacterial vectors offer continuous and localized production of the therapeutic molecule. Like any vehicle, our bacteria can be modified with different payloads that target different diseases, with potentially more applications in the future,” says study co-author Professor Luis Serrano of CRG.
Living medicines date back centuries to when leeches were first used for bloodletting. Scientists believe they could hold the key to treating a host of diseases, including cancer.
The findings appear in the journal Molecular Systems Biology.
WCGW?
(What could go wrong?)
Gee! What could go wrong? We have heard this before and are now experiencing the ramifications of what has gone wrong. And, there is no end in sight for a logical solution for what is coming from the vaccines, next.
If Staff Infections are killing patients, perhaps find staff that aren’t infected.
Will it improve Hospital Food?
“ It also cannot transfer any of its modified genes to other microbes living nearby. “
Life finds a way… Did we learn nothing from Jurassic Park?
;-)
Why is this necessary since the only cause of pneumonia related death in hospitals is SARS?
I will admit that because I rarely if ever use antibiotics I still am responsible for methicillin resistant staph because all the rest of you are using antibiotics.....make sense?....I didn’t think so....
They used bacteriophages (virus that kill bacteria) before penicillin was discovered..... This is interesting...but bacteria are WELL known to tranfer genes to other bacteria...this idea needs lots of work.
I interviewed three hospitals before a surgery ...through pre admissions
Their protocols widely varied....from eating/drinking..cleaning body...drinks before surgery...and the use of something to prevent MRSA in the nose.
I combined the best ideas from each. I really advocate the drinks..depending on situation of course.
No one tells you to not eat potatoes but I saw the research on why you shouldn’t. When I could not have them.. I suddenly craved them
can’t remember if you are the one with the ear ringing but it looks like being autoimmune and not knowing might be the cause of my ear ringing after a live vax
It’s an interesting idea introducing an organism that secretes enzymes that attack the cell wall of MRSA. It is similar in concept to the use of penicillin which is secreted by a fungus and was highly effective against bacterial infections. In that case they didn’t infect the patient with the fungus but instead isolated the compound and used that as a treatment. It worked until bacteria acquired enzymes that broke down the penicillin. Unfortunately this will probably end the same way, with bacteria finding a way to inactivate the cell wall destroying enzymes or selecting for bacteria whose cell walls are not effected by those enzymes.
I want them to kill mRNA.
But we must be terribly aware of how horribly dangerous this can be. Our understanding at this point is still far from complete, and interfering with or altering these processes is something that still has a thousand ways it can go wrong instead of the one way it will go correctly. The results of mistakes in this endeavor can range from inconsequential to nightmarish, and we must tread very, very slowly and ver, very carefully. Ideas like this can just as readily result in new maladies that will dwarf the problems they seek to resolve, as we have seen currently in how many problems, some fatal, that these Covid-19 'vaccines' have caused in so many otherwise perfectly healthy people.
This dilemma is similar in ways to how many other technologies have arisen, shown great promise, yet still took decades to render relatively safe -- the use of electricity and the automobile are two examples. Lots of people were killed and maimed before enough knowledge was gained to make them relatively safe. And even now, despite how long these technologies have existed and the large number of safety measures now in place, they still claim many lives.
So extreme caution must be exercised, lest these new treatments reduce patients to a grey goo instead of a healthy human being. As every, we must always measure costs versus benefits. And in today's world, not all the people who are involved in these efforts have mankind's best interests in mind. Fauci and his 'gain of function' egotism is but one example.
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