Thread: 'Invincible' bacteria threatens global epidemic: study

All is not lost-

I believed we would face an antibiotics apocalypse - until now

Richard James

For decades my research showed the dangers of new strains of resistance, and this week we heard of another threat. But there’s been a breakthrough

In 2007 I was accused of being a “sensationalist and scaremonger” by the UK Department of Health’s chief nursing officer after I’d said the problem of antibiotic resistance affected thousands of hospital patients – and would get much worse if something wasn’t done.

Two years ago I felt vindicated when England’s chief medical officer stated that “the rise in antibiotic resistance is comparable to the threat of global warming”. And this week we’ve had further evidence of the gravity of this issue with a warning that the world is on the verge of a “post-antibiotic era”. Scientists have discovered bacteria in patients and livestock in China resistant to the antibiotic that is used when all other treatments have failed.

Official recognition of the scale of the problem at least increases the prospects of developing workable solutions that may prevent our current direction of travel. To illustrate what a world without antibiotics would look like, I have a photograph from the pre-antibiotic era in London, in 1932 – it shows children being treated for tuberculosis in three rows of beds outside a building. In those days whether you lived or died was sheer luck – the only treatment was fresh air.

The huge importance of antibiotics within healthcare globally cannot be overstated. A US study in 1999 calculated that the introduction of antibiotics in 1936 caused deaths in the US to fall by 220 per 100,000 within 15 years. All other medical technologies combined over the next 45 years reduced deaths by only 20 per 100,000 people. The euphoria over the healthcare benefits of antibiotics was encapsulated in 1960, when the US surgeon general announced that “infectious disease is conquered”.

So why has this optimism given way to the apocalyptic scenarios that are now commonly expressed? About 25,000 patients a year die in the European Union from an infection caused by a bacteria that is resistant to more than one antibiotic – and on current trends this is predicted to grow to 390,000 a year by 2050.

...... Until last month I was still pessimistic about our chances of avoiding the antibiotics nightmare. But that changed when I attended a workshop in Beijing on a new approach to antibiotic development based on bacteriocins – protein antibiotics produced by bacteria to kill closely related species, and exquisitely narrow-spectrum.

My research over 37 years involved the study of a number of bacteriocins that can kill a range of clinically important bacteria. I – and many other researchers – did not believe they could be useful clinically because injecting a “foreign” bacterial protein into a patient is likely to induce a severe immune response that would make the antibiotic inactive. There were therefore gasps of amazement in Beijing at data presented from several animal studies showing this was not the case.

If you consider a killing domain as a red Lego brick and a targeting domain as a yellow Lego brick, you can make hundreds of different hybrid proteins consisting of one red and one yellow brick to make what I refer to as a series of novel bacteriocin-derived antibiotics (BDAs). In fact, several BDAs have already been designed to kill target bacteria, fungi and even tumour cells.

The ability to use the BDA system to continually make novel antibiotics significantly de-risks the development of antibiotics process and in my opinion offers a significant ray of hope in the present gloom. It is now for governments and health organisations to make sure they make the most of this unexpected breakthrough.

I believed we would face an antibiotics apocalypse - until now | Richard James | Comment is free | The Guardian

^ But is it being used today? Will it be perfected before an antibiotic apocolypse? It is nice to read such optimism, but I will believe it when I see it.

We still need to dramatically reduce current antibiotic use and that is no small task.

Anyone can buy antibiotics over the counter here in China.
They use them like asprin.

To my comment above. It will not be easy reducing antibiotic use.

I too agree that antibiotics have been dished out irresponsibly by doctors, glorified pill pushers that they are. Also amphetamines (betty ford clinic anyone?), and that heroin substitute (I forget it's name), and whatever else. But we can hardly deny the impressive nett results of medical research on human longevity. Antibiotics foremost.

But the end of the world is not nigh, in fact human life expectancy is at it's highest ever. If you want a ravaging pandemic in not so distant history, look at the Spanish influenza in the aftermath of WW1. But we survived. AID's did not wipe us out, either. Nor the Black Plague. Or MAD scenarios. Neither Y2K, or the Mayan calendar. So the latest 'extinction threat' is just another yawn to this cynic.

Sabang, I guess you have never worked in the medical field. If you had, you may be singing a different tune.

Either way, it seems our more serious threat, at the moment, is radical extemism.

My sister is a Doc, quite senior. I have dealt with many Docs, quite quite senior. That's enough for me- glorified pill pushers that they are, but i did well from investing their money. No rick, the end of the world is not nigh- and that is no different to what i said the other dozen or so times i've heard this nonsense. I trust you had a nice NBCD shelter under your house in the 50's and 60's for the apocalypse that never came.

Ha, no bomb shelters for me. I have just been around antibiotics a long time and understand their limitations and capabilities. Either new antibiotics will be found to fight the superbugs, or not. I would say we are much closer to a pandemic now than we were 35 years ago. In another 35 years, I will have been dust for awhile and it wont matter for me, but I do think about future generations.

If you actually do some research on the subject, you will find that it is much more possible than you think. But then again, earth could be struck by an asteroid and it would all be a moot point. In the mean time, I will live life to its fullest.

Originally Posted by sabang

the end of the world is not nigh-

Informed sources say only Europe.

Originally Posted by Norton

Originally Posted by sabang

the end of the world is not nigh-

Informed sources say only Europe.

Indeed.
The last region to develop and the first to decay.

Oh, I've just thought of another existential threat- the CERN accelerator. Mebbe that will do us in before the germs &/or muzzies. But if you survive that, invest in some floaties- 'cus you're gonna need to float real good with those rising sea levels. Actually, the population shifts thus entailed may see a billion or two seen off- not such bad news for Gaia, really.

Terrorists, invincible bacteria, dengue, coups, killer refugees, states of emergency (should that be state of emergencies?), mother rapers, father rapers, child molesters, muggers, murderers, and republicans.

And now this CERN thingy.

If I had a gun I'd blow my head off rather than die a hideous death.

Wait. Lemme check outside.

Nevermind. Looks safe.

Hmm...maybe not. The rooster is facing mecca crowing in Arabic.

Originally Posted by sabang

Oh, I've just thought of another existential threat- the CERN accelerator.

You are no longer up to date. China is building a much larger accelerator.

^ East Europeans/Russians have been playing around with that technology for several decades.

It is elegant, and I like the concept, but as an "existing technology" it is not that exciting to big pharma.

its an old field of research that was killed off in the west by the cheapness and easy of use of antibiotics. in the ussr it remained active as they where incapable of manufacturing and distributing anything that could not be used to kill... phaugs are something where a hospital would have the skills and equipment to develop, make and use. hence their interest in them.

But as you have pointed out not of interest to pharma as its not patentable, not of interest for human medicine in th west because our governments have left that to the pharm.'s. However the uk governments was funding some research in to veterinary research..... which if you think about it may well be the right place to do it.... after all its anti biotic use in farming thats one of the major issues.

On that vein, one bit of research was looking into a phase they accidentally discovered that just killed pathogenic e.coli, leaving non pathogenic e.coli alone.... phauges do target very percific bits of dna... so it might be possible to manufacture phages that target genes that rather than causing e.coli to become pathogenic.... target genes associated with antibiotic resistance.

I do believe that this issue with antibiotics an be adiqutly felt with by simply realising we cannot simply leave it to phase to develop new treatments and the throw money in the phase research.

Originally Posted by hazz

On that vein, one bit of research was looking into a phase they accidentally discovered that just killed pathogenic e.coli, leaving non pathogenic e.coli alone.... phauges do target very percific bits of dna... so it might be possible to manufacture phages that target genes that rather than causing e.coli to become pathogenic.... target genes associated with antibiotic resistance.

.

Don't think it was accidently discovered. Think you are referring to the Phage/CRISPR work of Timothy Lu, which they are using to target bacteria harbouring antibiotic resistance genes.....

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

A pandemic is a certainty. The only uncertainty is how much of the population will be wiped out.

If humans are so smart, how did we manage to get into this situation at all? I believe I explained how in my previous post. Pure stupidity.

Greed.

Originally Posted by Latindancer

Human beings are clever monkeys, but I fear this may be the beginning of our undoing.

Oh, we'll find new classes of antibiotic for a while, but one day a pandemic will come along, and then it will be like the flu epidemics of 1890 and 1918......only worse.

Let's hope it starts in China.

Like early April in Guangzhou ? Just when buyers from every corner of the world congregate for the bi-annual Canton Fair ? By June we are all dead !

Originally Posted by Perota

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

A pandemic is a certainty. The only uncertainty is how much of the population will be wiped out.

If humans are so smart, how did we manage to get into this situation at all? I believe I explained how in my previous post. Pure stupidity.

Greed.

Maybe a part of it Perota, but what I was referring to was the stupidity of physicians prescribing broad spectrum antibiotics rather than doing cultures and sensitivities on the infection then prescribing narrow spectrum antibiotics that target the discovered bugs.

I guess you could put LAZY along with the reasons we are facing this issue.

Originally Posted by Perota

Originally Posted by Latindancer

Human beings are clever monkeys, but I fear this may be the beginning of our undoing.

Oh, we'll find new classes of antibiotic for a while, but one day a pandemic will come along, and then it will be like the flu epidemics of 1890 and 1918......only worse.

Let's hope it starts in China.

Like early April in Guangzhou ? Just when buyers from every corner of the world congregate for the bi-annual Canton Fair ? By June we are all dead !

It would be good news for the planet. As long as people remember to turn off their nuclear power plants and oil wells and drain and dock their oil tankers before we all cark it.

Originally Posted by nidhogg

Originally Posted by hazz

On that vein, one bit of research was looking into a phase they accidentally discovered that just killed pathogenic e.coli, leaving non pathogenic e.coli alone.... phauges do target very percific bits of dna... so it might be possible to manufacture phages that target genes that rather than causing e.coli to become pathogenic.... target genes associated with antibiotic resistance.

.

Don't think it was accidently discovered. Think you are referring to the Phage/CRISPR work of Timothy Lu, which they are using to target bacteria harbouring antibiotic resistance genes.....

its this bit od research reported in the bbc, i use the phrase accidental as the research was in to e.coli not phages... they discovered the phauges when they got curious about their lack of success in infecting the animals. research at its best

as for targeting antibiotic resistance with phages, i have no knowledge of what being done. given the genetic nature of material resistance and how phages work... its a compelling area of research for any budding phase researcher to investigate.

All biological systems (except termites maybe, ) have a mechanism to limit over population so it would not be surprising to see something appear to reduce human population at some point. It is a pretty amazing system we are living in.

Originally Posted by thailazer

All biological systems (except termites maybe, ) have a mechanism to limit over population so it would not be surprising to see something appear to reduce human population at some point. It is a pretty amazing system we are living in.

Indeed - systems that we [as a species] think we have a decent harness on, yet haven't a fucking clue.

About a half of the human population exiting would suffice, especially of the variety that are the most destructive.

and the worst of it is jeff... that these antibiotics and phages will never help with problems you have