4 ms·

I imagine the long term solution to antibiotic resistance are engineered bacteriophages, either to directly attack the bacteria or to insert genes that make the

by jjk166 5mo ago

I imagine the long term solution to antibiotic resistance are engineered bacteriophages, either to directly attack the bacteria or to insert genes that make the bacteria susceptible to specific agents. Beyond not having to continuously develop new antibiotics or restrict treatment, these could also be much more targeted treatments with less harmful effects on a patient's microbiome. Of course scaling up to mass production on the level of say penicillin will take some time, but the same is true for new antibiotics.

shellfishgene 5mo ago
But bacteria also become resistant against phages, you would still have to continuously develop new ones.
- Intralexical 5mo ago
  I have no idea if this is true, but I remember seeing in a Kurzgesagt video that developing phage resistance reduces antibiotic resistance, and vice versa. So you might corner bacteria by using both. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI3tsmFsrOg&t=5m18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI3tsmFsrOg&t=5m18s
- jjk166 5mo ago
  Improving phages is dramatically easier - you can just modify an existing one, either through direct engineering or by evolution, rather than having to find a brand new chemical that conveniently does what you want without serious negative drawbacks. 20 years ago the difficulty may have been comparable but the engineering tools for creating synthetic phages have advanced extremely rapidly. And particularly if you are introducing a vulnerability instead of directly attacking the bacteria with the phage, there is no evolutionary pressure to become resistant until the phage has already done its job. You can even go further and have it insert genes that confer an advantage in addition to the susceptibility, so that even if some of the bacteria are by chance naturally resistant to the phage they get outcompeted prior to the deployment of the killing agent.
RataNova 5mo ago
I agree phages are probably part of the answer

by jjk166 5mo ago

shellfishgene 5mo ago

But bacteria also become resistant against phages, you would still have to continuously develop new ones.

Intralexical 5mo ago
I have no idea if this is true, but I remember seeing in a Kurzgesagt video that developing phage resistance reduces antibiotic resistance, and vice versa. So you might corner bacteria by using both. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI3tsmFsrOg&t=5m18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI3tsmFsrOg&t=5m18s
jjk166 5mo ago
Improving phages is dramatically easier - you can just modify an existing one, either through direct engineering or by evolution, rather than having to find a brand new chemical that conveniently does what you want without serious negative drawbacks. 20 years ago the difficulty may have been comparable but the engineering tools for creating synthetic phages have advanced extremely rapidly. And particularly if you are introducing a vulnerability instead of directly attacking the bacteria with the phage, there is no evolutionary pressure to become resistant until the phage has already done its job. You can even go further and have it insert genes that confer an advantage in addition to the susceptibility, so that even if some of the bacteria are by chance naturally resistant to the phage they get outcompeted prior to the deployment of the killing agent.

RataNova 5mo ago

I agree phages are probably part of the answer