Antibiotic resistance is a major, and still increasing, issue in society today as strains of bacteria evolve too quickly for scientists to keep up. Although seemingly effective when a new antibiotic appears on the market, bacteria have the ability to rapidly evolve into ‘superbugs’ through gene mutation, making the new antibiotic soon become useless. This is especially common in hospitals where antibiotics are used heavily for patients with vulnerable immune systems. This problem can be due to a number of reasons:
· Overuse of antibiotics
· Patients not taking their full course of prescribed antibiotics
· Short life cycles of bacteria leading to more opportunities for gene mutations, and thus a faster evolutionary change
· Prescription of antibiotics when not required. This can occur when physicians make an inadequate diagnosis based on incomplete information, or an ill patient with a viral infection insisting on antibiotics
Recently, the issue of antibiotic resistance has heightened as it becomes more difficult to develop effective new drugs, but researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University may have found a solution. Instead of aiming to discover a new type of antibiotics, the researchers have been undertaking a different approach by altering already existing bacteriophages by genetic engineering to specifically attack a DNA repair system and other gene networks of pathogenic bacteria. They engineered several genes into bacteriophages to make the engineered phages attack gene networks of bacteria. Prevention of antibacterial resistance can be achieved if this new bacteriophage is used in combination with traditional antibiotics. In their experiments in mice infected with bacteria, they achieved better survival rates in mice treated with the engineered bacteriophages and antibiotics than those treated with antibiotics only. The engineered bacteriophages also inhibited the development of antibiotic resistance.
Sources:
'Antibiotic Resistance(Drug Resistance, Antimicrobial Resistance)', 29 May 2008, <http://www.medicinenet.com/antibiotic_resistance/page6.htm> (Accessed 18 March 2009)
Trafton, Anne., 'Engineered Viruses Combat Antibiotic Resistance', 9 March 2009, Science Daily, <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090302182948.htm> (Accessed 17 March 2009)
