Biologists Program E. Coli To Patrol For Pathogens

MTorrice writes "When hospital patients develop nasty, antibiotic-resistant infections, the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa is often the culprit. In a new approach to killing the pathogen, researchers genetically modified harmless Escherichia coli bacteria to detect and destroy P. aeruginosa. The E. coli spot a specific chemical released by the pathogen and then secrete a toxin to kill it (abstract)."

Re:What could

[Anonymous Coward]

What could go wrong? You're worried about the wrong thing, my co-cowardly friend! Just think if somebody did invented machines capable of doing thousands, millions, or even billions of calculations a second. Then connect vast numbers of them together in some sort of network where information could be sent and received. We'd be one coding mistake, just one little "0" replaced with a "1" and BAM! Sentient calculating machines hell bent on destroying humanity.

Toxin

[gd2shoe]

Bacteria can share DNA [wikipedia.org] with other bacteria. (I don't know if it applies here, but I don't know that it doesn't) If the DNA for this toxin jumps to a different strain of bacteria (say... Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and becomes an infection... We need to ask what this toxin does to human tissue. If it isn't harmless, we could be building a drug resistant, toxin spewing bacteria!

That's one thing that could go wrong.

(No, I didn't read the article. I'm just assuming it doesn't cover this eventuality.)

Re:The Time has come..

[wbr1]

Bacteria have been having their own wars since before humanities time. So have fungi, plants, animals....

Here we are (hopefully) harnessing it for our own safety.

Re:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Why would (most) of the bacteria in our bodies want to disrupt the sweet gig they've got?

We work our fool polycellular asses off trying to maintain nice, stable, internal conditions, complete with nutrients and an immune system with a vested interest in kicking out the troublemakers...

You aren't going to find a better deal clinging to a rock somewhere.

Re:

[lightknight]

And one day, for bio-warfare. Much like we do with some dolphins...

Re:

[FirephoxRising]

I was wondering about this recently, if we "borrowed" penicillin's bacterial fighting chemicals, and are now facing rising resistance, then the penicillins are being exposed to the resistant bacteria, so are they being overwhelmed or are they adapting and can we borrow another lot of new antibiotics from them?

Re:

[HiThere]

Well, penicillin is basically a kind of bread mold, so the bacterial competion it's facing isn't heavily affected by our use of it as a medicine. Less so, in fact, than the soil bacteria that make tetracycline are by our use of *its* antibiotic.

Penicillin is probably more affected by BHA and BHT and various other things that are added to bread to keep it from molding.

Re:

[FirephoxRising]

I thought it might be encountering resistant strains as bacteria will exchange genetic material. So can we artificially bring it into competition with resistant bacteria and see how it responds? I would think (IANAI) that they would be good to work with as they produce chemicals that are tolerated by most people, we should try to make use of their adaptability for our ends. Do different types of bacteria use chemicals against each other when competing? Can we use these as drugs?

Message from the Department of Irony

[Roachie]

We are going to cover the hospital with e. coli to reduce the number of pathogens.

Re:Message from the Department of Irony

[ChromeAeonium]

That's basically what normal flora [colorado.edu] is.

Re:

[ldobehardcore]

Pickling too. Gotta love that delicious bacterial brew that keeps us safe from botulism.

Was this publicly funded research?

[Anonymous Coward]

- If so, why the fuck am I prompted to pay/log in to download the full text?

- And if so, why the fuck are these parasite website like Springer and ACS still allowed to paywall publicly funded research??

Re:

[Kergan]

- If so, why the fuck am I prompted to pay/log in to download the full text?

- And if so, why the fuck are these parasite website like Springer and ACS still allowed to paywall publicly funded research??

Because you only funded the research, and they're publishing the results?

Or perhaps because they need to pay for staff, keep the website alive, and send prints to the handful of universities. You know, logistics, distribution.

Oh, and they admittedly need to make boat loads of money, too. Publishing is still a great business [falkvinge.net] to be into -- there probably wouldn't be any copyright laws without them.

Whichever it is, methinks it's less noteworthy than public research ending up as patent applications. (Especially

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The military has hospitals too ya know. Perhaps infections in patients coming from field hospitals are is big problem too?

Re:Umm, this is founded by the us military

[Bowling Moses]

The military funds far more than weapons R&D. I've worked on a project to develop insecticides against mosquitoes that was funded by the US military. There are no weapon aspects, it was to protect American troops against diseases (dengue, malaria, etc.) that some species of mosquitoes can spread. The military has funded things that seem off the wall, like marine biology research trying to figure out a why jellyfish light up in the wake of a ship. Naval aviators have found their way back to carriers by following the carrier's fluorescent wake, but the same could be used by an enemy and the Navy wanted a way to make it stop. Didn't work out, but there is some interesting basic research on jellyfish and Green Fluorescent Protein that was produced as a result. The military also funds vaccine and antibiotic research, research into new surgical techniques, prosthetics, renewable energy sources (ie biodiesel), and a lot of other non-weapons research.

Re:Umm, this is founded by the us military

[kermidge]

Thanks for listing some of those things. I hadn't heard of the of jellyfish thing - that's neat stuff. The main reason I think it's good to point out what you did is it maybe can help counter the great amount of cluelessness amongst people who don't bother to look into or think about things. We live in a mental land chock full of buzzwords and phrases - nuclear, military, intelligence, cloud, etc., and I think it helps to clarify things.

This bit with the e. coli looks interesting; one has to wonder at just how more usefully it and similar organisms and techniques might could be used.

Re:Umm, this is founded by the us military

[cold fjord]

That is a great post, very informative.

For anyone that's interested, here are a few links about medical advances linked to armed conflict.

Medical legacy forged by war [smh.com.au]
Medical Advances Save Lives in Combat [army.mil]
Medical Treatment Advances Help Injured Soldiers [npr.org]

E. Coli is not always harmless

[manu0601]

E. Coli is an usual species in our guts, but it is not always harmless [euractiv.com]

I Am Legend

[Kergan]

This will end up well. Trust us, it will...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(film) [wikipedia.org]

The MacGyver Microbe

[caspy7]

Dude, E. Coli is like the Raspberry Pi of bacteria.

Any moment

[dutchwhizzman]

Any moment it will pull out a bottle of bleach and a chewing gum paper to make explosives with your stomach acid. It will then commence to make an aeroplane out of your intestines and fly out to bomb your house so it can free it's friends.

Re:

[fibonacci8]

I take it you've experienced Taco Bell firsthand.

End of the world

[olip85]

Zombie apocalypse in 3, 2, 1......