5 ms·

The most understated portion of the article is that there is a method discovered that can kill biofilms. The discovery of new antibiotics and delivery technique

The most understated portion of the article is that there is a method discovered that can kill biofilms. The discovery of new antibiotics and delivery techniques leaves me less optimistic for long-term change in the availability of life-saving antibiotics. I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. Yet I'm optimistic, because tools that crack biofilms are a new are of development and promise hope for exploring new attacks on bacteria. Current methods of biofilm dispersal are application of strong acids and bases or an autoclave. You can't treat a hospital room with an autoclave, and comprehensive treatment of a room with very strongly ionizing agents has its own risks. There are other, experimental methods, but all are worth examining. I hope research like this continues.

_Adam 13y ago
>I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. That's a baseless suspicion. Bacteria are ultimately bound by physical laws, and while they've proven resilient, there's no reason to suggest we will be unable to develop the means to annihilate them at will. Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast. I agree about the importance of the biofilm claim, but what they don't explain is how they actually achieve this. Their method of disabling that particular protein doesn't directly address the problem of the biofilms having a less-permeable extracellular matrix.
- gnaffle 13y ago
  What I'm more concerned about is that new, creative innovations (nanobots etc) can have more sinister uses and might ultimately prove a bigger risk than our current bacteria.
  - sard420 13y ago
    My guess nano-bots that save, will come after we've made them kill.
- AaronFriel 13y ago
  The problem of killing bacteria, as I see it, will increasingly become something akin to the demarcation problem of philosophy. Why would it not be? It is natural that the optimal situation for pathogenic bacteria to be in is one in which they are indistinguishable from necessary cells. It may take an extraordinarily long time, but until we are able to completely eradicate a pathogenic bacteria from the earth, we will remain in that arms race. Humans are creative at killing bacteria, though it's already not difficult to "annihilate them at will". It's much harder to annihilate only the ones we don't like, only the ones that harm us, and only the ones that pose the greatest risk.
  - HelloMcFly 13y ago
    I feel a more likely future scenario is one in which we create cell-sized robotics that we can use for very narrowly targeted operations in the human body, like treating bacteria. As the bacteria mutates, so does the targeting mechanism in the software that programs the tiny robots.
  - _Adam 13y ago
    But as I said, they are ultimately bound by the laws of nature. Evolution can only happen so quickly; they can only evolve their genome so much in a given period of time. What you're suggesting is they'll evolve to look like human cells. But that doesn't make sense. They would need to evolve that way in a single generation. Something that's "almost like" a human cell would just be wiped out. Just consider how long it took for the last common ancestor (of humans and bacteria) to evolve into a single celled organism.
- crusso 13y ago
  Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast Yeah, but once we get good enough to annihilate them at will we will also have a similar power to improve them through tinkering. Just like computer viruses continue to be developed by people, biological agents will be developed as well. Some human tinkering will be for the heck of it. Some will be government level projects that get out of control. Eventually, organized crime will be in on the action. Imagine Cryptolocker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker) but with a biological agent.
  - _Adam 13y ago
    It's certainly possible that one day we'll have desktop genome-printers. Any technology can (and often is) abused, and that would be no exception. Hopefully, there will be a Kaspserky for this era. A "Gene Kaspersky", if you will.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  I agree that we humans don't have to expect bacteria to always evolve methods to resist our medical interventions. However, I think the most effective thing, maybe the only, we can do is actually look at the process of bacterial evolution. That is, unless antibiotics are wildly over-used and human pathogens are concentrated in one place facing constant medical intervention, human medical intervention is going to be a very small, unimportant part of bacterial evolution. Unfortunately, antibiotics are widely over used and pathogens are concentrated in poor administered hospitals. If we stop these practices and we could stop these practices, then antibiotic-resistant bacteria would have little evolutionary incentive to exist.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > Unfortunately, antibiotics are widely over used and pathogens are concentrated in poor administered hospitals. Some countries have people who sell incomplete courses of anti biotics, without a prescription.[1] Someone can buy a few days worth of pills - enough to get them over the illness, but also enough to promote anti biotic resistance. For example, people in India die from pnumonia (largest killer of children in India) and these people need to use antibiotics. They often can't afford a complete course. And then other people misuse antibiotics for simple diarrhoea, which isn't helped with antibiotics. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3193708/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3193708/ > The bacterial disease burden in India is among the highest in the world1; consequently, antibiotics will play a critical role in limiting morbidity and mortality in the country. As a marker of disease burden, pneumonia causes an estimated 410,000 deaths in India each year2, and it is the number-one killer of children3. Many of these deaths occur because patients do not have access to life-saving antibiotics when and where these are needed. At the other extreme, antibiotics are used in situations where these cannot be expected to improve the patient's condition, particularly as treatment for the common cold and uncomplicated cases of diarrhoea (which are appropriately treated with oral rehydration therapy). [1] http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/policy-and-issues/antibiotic-resistance-in-india-high-survey/article2512475.ece http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/policy-and-issues/an... > The rise is substantial in the retail sector where antibiotics are mostly sold without a prescription,
- ImprovedSilence 13y ago
  killing bacteria alone isnt a problem. Killing bacteria while keeping a human alive starts to complicate the problem. Killing certain bacteria while keeping a human and the rest of said humans helpful bacteria alive but not resistant to anti-bodies, is a whole different ballgame...
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >killing bacteria alone isnt a problem. Killing bacteria while keeping a human alive starts to complicate the problem. Thank you Captain Obvious.
    - Fomite 13y ago
      You'd think this was "Captain Obvious", but this is genuinely a challenge for some bacterial infections. Its even worse for fungal infections, as fungi are eukaryotic and thus share a alarming number of potential drug targets with human cells.
rsync 13y ago
"You can't treat a hospital room with an autoclave" Hmmm... that sounds like an awfully good idea, actually... Build the hospital room with the ability to be airtight, make sure all materials can withstand 134 C (or remove things that can't for their own cleaning) ... and autoclave the room ...
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  There are simpler things. Like not having mega-hospitals that are impossible to keep entirely clean. Growing up near the UCLA Medical Center, a vast, vast complex, I heard tales that there were diseases that existed there and nowhere else in the world. Most patients derive little benefit from the scale of the hospital and the fact that in a huge hospital getting all rooms clean at once is logistically very difficult means that scale can be very dangerous.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    I'm honestly surprised we don't take a quarantine approach in hospitals. i.e The first sign of an infection gets you shipped out to a specialized hospital building (air gap) designed specifically to be able to keep patients in "solitary confinement" and able to be completely disinfected afterwards.
    - Fomite 13y ago
      ...this is what many infectious disease and isolation wards effectively do.
    - joe_the_user 13y ago
      Most infectious diseases are not so dangerous that this is necessary. The ones that are, they do something like that as the other poster mentioned. The fact of the matter though, is that a hospital for those with whatever condition is a somewhat ideal breeding ground for germs, not all of which will be deadly of course. That's not something is likely to be completely eliminated but it's something we can mitigate in a variety of ways.
  - 13y ago
Fomite 13y ago
There's also some research into surfaces that combat the formation of biofilms.

_Adam 13y ago

>I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. That's a baseless suspicion. Bacteria are ultimately bound by physical laws, and while they've proven resilient, there's no reason to suggest we will be unable to develop the means to annihilate them at will. Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast. I agree about the importance of the biofilm claim, but what they don't explain is how they actually achieve this. Their method of disabling that particular protein doesn't directly address the problem of the biofilms having a less-permeable extracellular matrix.

gnaffle 13y ago
What I'm more concerned about is that new, creative innovations (nanobots etc) can have more sinister uses and might ultimately prove a bigger risk than our current bacteria.
- sard420 13y ago
  My guess nano-bots that save, will come after we've made them kill.
AaronFriel 13y ago
The problem of killing bacteria, as I see it, will increasingly become something akin to the demarcation problem of philosophy. Why would it not be? It is natural that the optimal situation for pathogenic bacteria to be in is one in which they are indistinguishable from necessary cells. It may take an extraordinarily long time, but until we are able to completely eradicate a pathogenic bacteria from the earth, we will remain in that arms race. Humans are creative at killing bacteria, though it's already not difficult to "annihilate them at will". It's much harder to annihilate only the ones we don't like, only the ones that harm us, and only the ones that pose the greatest risk.
- HelloMcFly 13y ago
  I feel a more likely future scenario is one in which we create cell-sized robotics that we can use for very narrowly targeted operations in the human body, like treating bacteria. As the bacteria mutates, so does the targeting mechanism in the software that programs the tiny robots.
- _Adam 13y ago
  But as I said, they are ultimately bound by the laws of nature. Evolution can only happen so quickly; they can only evolve their genome so much in a given period of time. What you're suggesting is they'll evolve to look like human cells. But that doesn't make sense. They would need to evolve that way in a single generation. Something that's "almost like" a human cell would just be wiped out. Just consider how long it took for the last common ancestor (of humans and bacteria) to evolve into a single celled organism.
crusso 13y ago
Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast Yeah, but once we get good enough to annihilate them at will we will also have a similar power to improve them through tinkering. Just like computer viruses continue to be developed by people, biological agents will be developed as well. Some human tinkering will be for the heck of it. Some will be government level projects that get out of control. Eventually, organized crime will be in on the action. Imagine Cryptolocker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker) but with a biological agent.
- _Adam 13y ago
  It's certainly possible that one day we'll have desktop genome-printers. Any technology can (and often is) abused, and that would be no exception. Hopefully, there will be a Kaspserky for this era. A "Gene Kaspersky", if you will.
joe_the_user 13y ago
I agree that we humans don't have to expect bacteria to always evolve methods to resist our medical interventions. However, I think the most effective thing, maybe the only, we can do is actually look at the process of bacterial evolution. That is, unless antibiotics are wildly over-used and human pathogens are concentrated in one place facing constant medical intervention, human medical intervention is going to be a very small, unimportant part of bacterial evolution. Unfortunately, antibiotics are widely over used and pathogens are concentrated in poor administered hospitals. If we stop these practices and we could stop these practices, then antibiotic-resistant bacteria would have little evolutionary incentive to exist.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > Unfortunately, antibiotics are widely over used and pathogens are concentrated in poor administered hospitals. Some countries have people who sell incomplete courses of anti biotics, without a prescription.[1] Someone can buy a few days worth of pills - enough to get them over the illness, but also enough to promote anti biotic resistance. For example, people in India die from pnumonia (largest killer of children in India) and these people need to use antibiotics. They often can't afford a complete course. And then other people misuse antibiotics for simple diarrhoea, which isn't helped with antibiotics. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3193708/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3193708/ > The bacterial disease burden in India is among the highest in the world1; consequently, antibiotics will play a critical role in limiting morbidity and mortality in the country. As a marker of disease burden, pneumonia causes an estimated 410,000 deaths in India each year2, and it is the number-one killer of children3. Many of these deaths occur because patients do not have access to life-saving antibiotics when and where these are needed. At the other extreme, antibiotics are used in situations where these cannot be expected to improve the patient's condition, particularly as treatment for the common cold and uncomplicated cases of diarrhoea (which are appropriately treated with oral rehydration therapy). [1] http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/policy-and-issues/antibiotic-resistance-in-india-high-survey/article2512475.ece http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/policy-and-issues/an... > The rise is substantial in the retail sector where antibiotics are mostly sold without a prescription,
ImprovedSilence 13y ago
killing bacteria alone isnt a problem. Killing bacteria while keeping a human alive starts to complicate the problem. Killing certain bacteria while keeping a human and the rest of said humans helpful bacteria alive but not resistant to anti-bodies, is a whole different ballgame...
- coldtea 13y ago
  >killing bacteria alone isnt a problem. Killing bacteria while keeping a human alive starts to complicate the problem. Thank you Captain Obvious.
  - Fomite 13y ago
    You'd think this was "Captain Obvious", but this is genuinely a challenge for some bacterial infections. Its even worse for fungal infections, as fungi are eukaryotic and thus share a alarming number of potential drug targets with human cells.

rsync 13y ago

"You can't treat a hospital room with an autoclave" Hmmm... that sounds like an awfully good idea, actually... Build the hospital room with the ability to be airtight, make sure all materials can withstand 134 C (or remove things that can't for their own cleaning) ... and autoclave the room ...

joe_the_user 13y ago
There are simpler things. Like not having mega-hospitals that are impossible to keep entirely clean. Growing up near the UCLA Medical Center, a vast, vast complex, I heard tales that there were diseases that existed there and nowhere else in the world. Most patients derive little benefit from the scale of the hospital and the fact that in a huge hospital getting all rooms clean at once is logistically very difficult means that scale can be very dangerous.
- malandrew 13y ago
  I'm honestly surprised we don't take a quarantine approach in hospitals. i.e The first sign of an infection gets you shipped out to a specialized hospital building (air gap) designed specifically to be able to keep patients in "solitary confinement" and able to be completely disinfected afterwards.
  - Fomite 13y ago
    ...this is what many infectious disease and isolation wards effectively do.
  - joe_the_user 13y ago
    Most infectious diseases are not so dangerous that this is necessary. The ones that are, they do something like that as the other poster mentioned. The fact of the matter though, is that a hospital for those with whatever condition is a somewhat ideal breeding ground for germs, not all of which will be deadly of course. That's not something is likely to be completely eliminated but it's something we can mitigate in a variety of ways.
- 13y ago

Fomite 13y ago

There's also some research into surfaces that combat the formation of biofilms.