3 ms·
The ability to culture organisms is the single most important roadblock to understanding. Even if a new culturing technique only enables you to grow .00001 % of
by hyperion2010 11y ago
The ability to culture organisms is the single most important roadblock to understanding. Even if a new culturing technique only enables you to grow .00001 % of the bacterial species out there that is still a 100 fold increase in the number that we can now study at scale. DNA sequencing has made it possible to identify new species by looking at their 16s ribosomal RNA, but if you are looking for small molecules and proteins you have to be able to amplify the whole organism, not just its nucleic acids.
Huge deal, expect much more to come from microbiologists using this culturing technique.
- refurb 11y agoWhy does being able to culture bacterial species matter? We can currently culture anything that infects humans.
- csours 11y agoWe need to culture the things that infect the things that infect us.
- hyperion2010 11y agoPretty much. We are completely blind to the other members of the micro ecosystem that are probably living happily on and around us under non-pathological conditions. There are theories out there that suggest that many infections are caused not by too many bad bacteria but too few or unstable populations of good bacteria (vast over simplification). In addition, we actually have quite a bit of trouble culturing bacteria that might be pathological (our inability to culture them is quite related to our inability to determine their pathological status).
- refurb 11y agoBacteria that infect other bacteria? Or do you mean bacteria that produce antibacterial compounds that could be used as antibiotics? Didn't most antibiotics come from fungi? All of the -mycins came from fungi.
- _0ffh 11y agoWe need molecular-level biochemical Models! If we could simulate what's happening in just a single bacterium, we could pre-screen drugs in a virtual petri dish. Promising compounds could then be put to real-life tests.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]