Cracking the Code of Bacterial Communication 58
TEDChris writes "Microbiologist Bonnie Bassler explains her discovery of 'quorum sensing' — the amazing ability of bacteria to communicate with each other and coordinate attack strategies (video). By cracking the communication code, she has opened up potential for a new class of drugs tackling microbial diseases. The talk got a massive standing ovation at this year's TED and has just been posted. To quote one commenter: 'This is by far the most inspiring, amazing, and far-reaching talk I've seen in a very long time.'"
Re:I love TED. (Score:3, Informative)
The method of anti-bacterial action you say she presents is precisely how bacteriostatic antibiotics work, by inhibiting growth of bacterial populations; the point is to give your immune system a chance to catch up with the bugs, making them more manageable. In that sense, it's not a stretch that drugs that imitate quorum sensing signals could replace antibiotics. At the very least, more drug options would be provided. This would be important when the bugs become resistant to our existing drugs.
Re:Killing household mold (Score:5, Informative)
I think the best large-scale analogy to a biofilm would be a rainforest, where there are many levels of depth with complexity that varies depending on where you're looking.
Chemical penetration through that multi-layered structure is extremely complex, and usually substantially slowed. In many cases even potent chemicals such as bleach won't reach the base layers, despite multiple washings with long incubations.
It's not really a problem of being restricted only to "nice" chemicals: we haven't found -any- chemicals that act as a magic bullet. Back when I started research in the field it was thought that quorum sensing might be the cure we were looking for, but it turned out to be much less useful than hoped.
As for the previous comments on Dr. Bassler and her "discoveries", I think people react negatively to exaggerated claims of novelty. If the fault for that those exaggerations lay with TED, then they are being a bit sloppy, but if Bassler herself suggests that she is intellectually dishonest. Her work ~1994 seems to be very highly regarded in establishing the study of quorum sensing, but there are several papers from the years just previous to that which actually discovered it.
Re:I love TED. (Score:1, Informative)
Why are you so quick to criticize? Ever researcher wants more money, otherwise they can't continue doing research. duh.
There's a difference between applying for money and spamming for it. Poor researchers can and do cross the line, substituting new results with repetitive marketing.
Re:I love TED. (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, I'm checking notes from my Bacterial Pathogenesis lectures, and they say that YOU'RE wrong. The University of Southern Carolina med school site also has a page of notes on this matter that agrees with what I've learned; this isn't based soley on the TED talk, this is based on what I've learned from prior experience in bacterial pathology.
http://pathmicro.med.sc.edu/mayer/antibiot.htm [sc.edu]
"Antibiotics are categorized as bactericidal if they kill the susceptible bacteria or bacteriostatic if they reversibly inhibit the growth of bacteria. In general the use of bactericidal antibiotics is preferred but many factors may dictate the use of a bacteriostatic antibiotic. When a bacteriostatic antibiotic is used the duration of therapy must be sufficient to allow cellular and humoral defense mechanisms to eradicate the bacteria."
Or am I misunderstanding something? Are you a biologist of some sort with experience in the field?