Team Builds Viruses To Combat Harmful "Biofilms" 108
Scientists from MIT and Boston University are creating viruses that will wipe out "biofilms" that contain harmful bacteria on surfaces of the human body and industrial or medical devices. "Bacterial biofilms can form almost anywhere, even on your teeth if you don't brush for a day or two. When they accumulate in hard to reach places such as the insides of food processing machines or medical catheters, however, they become persistent sources of infection. These bacteria excrete a variety of proteins, polysaccharides, and nucleic acids that together with other accumulating materials form an extracellular matrix, or in Lu's words, a "slimy layer," that encases the bacteria. Traditional remedies such as antibiotics are not as effective on these bacterial biofilms as they are on free-floating bacteria. In some cases, antibiotics even encourage bacterial biofilms to form."
A Remedy Worse Than the Illness (Score:2)
What's to control these critters not to accumulate in hard to reach places instead of the original bacteria, while mutating into dangerous things?
Re:A Remedy Worse Than the Illness (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably pretty safe. (Score:5, Informative)
The FDA has already approved bacteriophages [wikipedia.org] to be used in a variety of settings, so there's probably a pretty good safety record.
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But that isn't taking into account that humans have a symbiotic relationship [wired.com] with some bacteria.
"The microbes that live in the human body are quite ancient," says NYU Medical Center microbiologist Dr. Martin Blaser, a pioneer in gut microbe research. "They've been selected (through evolution) beca
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As to preventing the spread of a virus
Not that I'm picking sides (Score:2)
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I understand your point but you cant' help but think this thing could be one mutation away from attacking say good bacteria cultures. Thats still my biggest fear with respect to genetic modification is that we still don't understand the ecology of micro organisms in its entirety.
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Re:A Remedy Worse Than the Illness (Score:4, Informative)
Latin Grammar snobbery. (Score:2)
The correct plural is actually Viruses [wikipedia.org]; originally "Virus" was plural without a singular form, and as it was a neuter word to begin with, it's plural would have been "vira" should it have been pluralized.
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Seems that i have picked up way too much computer-related slang, as virii is the plural of comuter-virus.
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No, it isn't. That was the whole fucking point of the grandparent post.
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funny when I read this I couldnt' help but remember Jeff Goldblum's characters famous words in jurassic park ' nature always finds a way'
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There are a lot of bacteria in our bodies that we need. There is a lot of bacteria in the world that we need. Creating a virus, a demi-organism that is indisputably capable of mutation, for the purpose of killing bacteria is scary at best.
Saying, "MIT guys wouldn't be that stupid" is way way too much faith to be putting in someone who is creating something that has serious potential for
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Saying, "MIT guys wouldn't be that stupid" is way way too much faith to be putting in someone.......
How about saying "Scientists aren't that reckless or irresponsible"? In most disciplines, especially health-related, researchers and academic professionals adhere to a strict code of ethics that has the intent of protecting the public for whom they serve. I think it would be rash to believe that these MIT guys would stake their reputations and professional credibility by doing shoddy science and being lazy with their work by carelessly releasing something that will indiscriminately wipe out everything u
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Adhere to a strict code of ethics. Jesus. You know, lawyers adhere to a strict code of ethics as well, they are judged by a council of their peers on their ethical conduct, and if they are found wanting they are forbidden to practice. Why does no one hold them
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What is not a huge assumption is that they aren't stupid enough to design a virus that can exploit a common vector in both bacterial and mammalian cells. The point of my original post is that there are huge, massive, and easily exploitable differences between bacterial and mammalian cells. Worrying that a virus that targets a plasmid will mutate to be able to target h
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My argument (which I've expressed repeatedly through the thread) is that it may affect bacteria other than the bacteria intended, bacteria that we need. Engineer something that eats e coli and you get the good stuff as well as the bad stuff, and if it picks up a decent infection vector, then we could end up with a real problem.
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When considering scientists as individuals, I can see your point about no one person being flawless. But it seems to me you've actually argued against yourself with your additional comments.
You know, lawyers adhere to a strict code of ethics as well, they are judged by a council of their peers on their ethical conduct, and if they are found wanting they are forbidden to practice. Why does no one hold them up as shining paragons of virtue?
and yet we make do with the critical services lawyers provide day in and day out. The institution of Jurisprudence via our legal system somehow manages make this imperfect and often despised profession work as an integral part of our society. I think it is a mistake to expect either science or law to be "shining pa
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But if they did it would be like a war of the viruses going on in your body?
and you could like use your blood to kill the viruses on your computer
muahahah.
Re:A Remedy Worse Than the Illness (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, this strain of wheat may grow too fast to be manageable, but that's really no problem. We'll just release hordes of pigeons to eat the excess grain. When the pigeons get too numerous, we'll release lizards that will eat the pigeons' eggs, thus controlling the population. To control the lizards, we'll release waves and waves of Chinese needle snakes to wipe them out. Of course, the snakes are even worse than the lizards, so we'll line up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat. Then, when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas will simply freeze to death.
As you can see, it's quite an elegant solution.
Re:A Remedy Worse Than the Illness (Score:4, Informative)
As for the danger part, the only way they could ever cause a problem to humans is if they were to somehow kill off helpful bacteria, doing so in such an efficient manner that there were none left at all. And that won't happen, even when scientists want to kill an entire colony of bacteria down to the last one, it doesn't happen.
Bacteriophages are completely unable to infect a human as they are unable to cope with any form of DNA which isn't ring shaped. If human DNA were to become ring shaped we would have much larger problems on our hands.
The technique is safe, the bigger issue is getting approval of this sort of thing for use in the US. Currently, the only use that is near is the use of phages to keep down ecoli in beef down to a minimum.
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My question would be, how long do they last after they run out of food? If they are only viable for minutes or hours, maybe not such a big deal. Are they resistant to stomach acid? If not, again, no big deal...If you happened to eat some that were still viable, they wouldn't make it past the
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The don't really eat, so food isn't the issue. They have as much energy as they ever will wh
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I'm not worried about it infecting people, I'm worried about it colonizing our intestines, and keeping us bacteria free for the rest of our lives (which would be a bad thing). This sort of thing is a possibility, and it's not unlikely that our immune systems wouldn't really care, since the phage isn't capable of harming us directly...In all likelihood, it'd wipe out all the bac
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Oh please (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oh please (Score:5, Informative)
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Since ethanol can dissolve many lipids, heavy drinking can also help you remove extra cholesterol buildup.
The best time to sterilize your heart and combat cholesterol is right before driving to work. If you drink right before you get into the car and your commute is less than 30 minutes, the breathalyzer will
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It's scientifically proven that a small amount of alcohol (1 dose) every day reduces the possibilities of trombosis.
Besides of that, red wine has anti-aging, anti-cholesterol and anti-carcinogen effects. Beer is not so beneficial, but it's proven to prevent osteoporosis.
Of course, I'm talking about 1 or 2 doses a day, drink one litre a day and the highly damaging effects of alcohol will overcome any possible benefit.
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Oh come now. Any poshibul bemefuh?
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Hehe, the parent post made me almost burst out laughing in the office.
On the contrary. (Score:2)
I hope they are not serious about selling this (Score:2, Insightful)
Where do the deadliest viruses appear? Hospitals. Why? Because hospitals keep killing them and they mutate to survive (rather, weirder mutations manage to survive, and deadlier).
I've not noticed the majority of the population having a big problem with the bacteria and viruses on their skin, mouse, keyboard, banknotes, whatever. So why work so hard on selling us snake-oil for it?
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Uh... hello, weren't hospitals made to CURE diseases? What's your solution then? Oh, right. Instead of making viruses surviving by killing them, we'll just let them survive and kill us instead! Welcome back to the 12th century. Congratulations!
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I didn't say hospitals should stop doing what they're doing.
But I don't have casual surgery while watching TV or browsing Google, so why disinfect myself that entire time? Disinfection DOES bring risks, and this is why it's applied only where it makes sense.
There are
Re:I hope they are not serious about selling this (Score:5, Informative)
It would be silly to suggest that they add this anti-biofilm virus to, say, bath soap or dish detergeant, but in places like catheters and dialysis equipment where biofilm acts as a nigh-indestructible reservoir of infection it could be really useful.
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A lot of people in the U.S.A. are too poor buy healthcare (or afford their premiums if they have it.) After all, the tests would just cost more money for the insurance companies, and who wants to hurt the stockholders checkbook with all this extra expense?! How is that fair?! Resistant bacteria is just the price we have to pay for a thriving
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B-lactam antibiotics derive from soil fungi -- soil is a nutrient rich but very competitive environment for saprophages (things that gain energy by decomposing dead organic matter) like fungi like Penicillin and Cephalosporin, and also bacteria similar to S. aureus (notably many which are gram positive, using a peptidoglycan pathway with a penicillin-binding-protein in t
Sadly, its not as simple as that (Score:4, Informative)
As a physician VRE scares the snot out of me more than MRSA. I treat patients with community acquired MRSA infections all the time - with oral antibiotics as outpatients. VRE is often a ticket to the ICU if not the ECU (Eternal Care Unit.)
Moreover, while 'search and destroy' does definitely save some patients from serious illness or even death, it also likely causes serious illness or even death in those pariahs who are isolated. There is pretty good evidence that patients who are on contact or respiratory isolation get poorer quality care when hospitalized. You get less face time with the staff, are less likely to get needed procedures and tests, and are more likely to be discharged earlier from the hospital when corrected for level of severity of illness. In addition those 'profiled' for possible infection are often the sickest in the hospital anyway (dialysis patients, AIDS patients, transplant recipients, cancer patients.) So the cure in this case may be worse than the disease.
That's not to say that both the US and Europe could do better than we are. I think a modified version of 'search and destroy' would benefit the US. However its not as simple as simply adopting one particular technique to decrease the prevalence of one particular bug. We need a comprehensive plan of attack against antibiotic resistance that is the Infectious Disease version of the Kyoto Protocol. It needs to involve comprehensive surveillance, R&D into best practices for infection control (lets start with a head to head of 'search and destroy' that doesn't just measure success by lower rates of MRSA infection, but in overall morbidity and mortality), monetary support for the implementation of such practices, immediate cessation of all antibiotics in agriculture, and R&D into the development of new classes of antibiotics (and cool stuff like TFA talked about.)
Nick
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Your answer sounds to me very much like knee-jerk reaction derived from watching too much environmentalist propaganda ("ZOMG antibiotics are killing us!!!1"). Sarcasm aside, I assume you didn't RTFA or even TFSummary:
When they accumulate in hard to reach places such as the insides of food processing machines
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And just because it's developed at MIT doesn't me
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how do you figure that? if a bacteria species is making a biofilm which if left untreated will kill the patient, how exactly is this a solution without a problem? how many people would die if we didn't try to find a solution?
first, most of the antib
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Thoroughly washing one's hands after handling any meat that isn't piping hot will prevent almost any transfer.
Not eating meat that isn't fully cooked to at least 60 degrees celsius all the way through will prevent any ingestion.
These procedures would completely eliminate meat as a vector for resistant pathogens.
Most bacterial contamination in meat in OECD countries comes from poor maintenance and cleani
E. coli biofilms on food, like lettuce (Score:2)
May I suggest that, in focusing on medical applications, you are being too narrow?
E. coli Found Recently On Spinach: Foodborne Pathogens Hard To Remove From Produce [medicalnewstoday.com]
Toothpaste or mouthwash (Score:2)
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May not be a great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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Antibiotics (Score:2)
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How many slashdoters are aware of the fact that aggressive antibiotic treatments are often followed by the consumption of "pro-biotics" to restore the natural fauna in our bodies? We kill the good bugs as well as the bad bugs then we colonize ourselves with the good bugs again. Doctors and health professionals don't like to admit it, but much of modern medicine is the blind brandishing of a blunt weapon that all too often accumulates significant collateral damage.
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One of the best examples I know if is infestations of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis. Due to a genetically inherited defective protein pump in the cells of CF sufferers, the bac
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The issue is, will they, upon being introduced to an area with diverse "food sources" (this is a horrible metaphor for viruses, because they don't eat, per se, and aren't even really alive, but I'm still going to use it, blah blah) will they stick with the plan, and only "eat" what they are supposed to, or will they branch out and "eat" whatever is available?
In other biological systems, the answer is often no; the introduced organism eats whatever it wants to. It's tempting to
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Hot tubs (Score:2)
Jaccuzzi makes some models without tubes that you can pull the jet heads right out of their wall sockets and plop them into a bucket with a suitable bleach concentration.
I used to do some maintenance on hot tubs - I'm not likely to ever get into a pub
Management (Score:2, Funny)
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More interested in the biofilms, myself (Score:3, Interesting)
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Phage therapy (Score:2)
Law of unintended consequences (Score:1, Redundant)
I used to wonder (Score:1)
Ghosts... (Score:1, Funny)
I don't know why she swallowed a fly (Score:2)
I don't know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a horse,
She's dead--of course!
Who added the "greygoo" tag? (Score:1)
Why did I think... (Score:1)
Hmm... (Score:1)
At first I thought that the article was about computers. That gave the headline an entirely different meaning.
kind of related: bacteriocide strength (Score:2, Offtopic)
Actually, there's a good reason for it, which is similar to what the article discusses: the material on the outside, that can protect the bacteria underneath. Pure or near-pure alcohol is so strong it coagulates the bacteria and material on the outside, forming a mostly-impermeable protective layer
How much? (Score:2)
Domestication (Score:2)
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I disagree. I have no doubt there will be a point in the future where you will tell a nano machine 'this is a virus' and it will go kill/remove it.
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Of course, couldn't a virus almost be considered a nano machine by itself?
As a home brewer (Score:3, Interesting)
Biofilms are the bane of my brew. However, this is really not needed because the current sanitizing agents work well enough to eliminate bacteria.
My concern is that using a virus to disrupt biofilms will have much more undesirable side effects than the simple chemicals being used already. For example, I want to kill bacteria, but allow yeast to grow afterward. If I treat a fermenter with this virus, can I be sure that it won't affect the yeast in some way? I can be sure that rinsing will dilute the sanitizer enough so that it isn't a problem, but could one say the same thing of a virus? Probably not.
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I don't homebrew (yet -- I'd like to try it some time), so there may be a reason why you wouldn't want to sterilize with the virus then boil the equipment before brewing, but it was just a thought.
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Finally! (Score:1)
Heat (Score:2)
Good for RO systems (Score:3, Interesting)
This should also be very useful for seawater RO units. At least there is a potential for a better method of slime control.
Hope it works!
Mandatory Fururama quote: (Score:1)