Gene Editing Makes Bacteria-killing Viruses Even More Deadly (arstechnica.com) 20
An anonymous reader shares a report: Broad-spectrum antibiotics are akin to nuclear bombs, obliterating every prokaryote they meet. They're effective at eliminating pathogens, sure, but they're not so great for maintaining a healthy microbiome. Ideally, we need precision antimicrobials that can target only the harmful bacteria while ignoring the other species we need in our bodies, leaving them to thrive. Enter SNIPR BIOME, a Danish company founded to do just that. Its first drug -- SNIPR001 -- is currently in clinical trials. The drug is designed for people with cancers involving blood cells. The chemotherapy these patients need can cause immunosuppression along with increased intestinal permeability, so they can't fight off any infections they may get from bacteria that escape from their guts into their bloodstream.
The mortality rate from such infections in these patients is around 15-20 percent. Many of the infections are caused by E. coli, and much of this E. coli is already resistant to fluoroquinolones, the antibiotics commonly used to treat these types of infections. The team at SNIPR BIOME engineers bacteriophages, viruses that target bacteria, to make them hyper-selective. They started by screening 162 phages to find those that would infect a broad range of E. coli strains taken from people with bloodstream or urinary tract infections, as well as from the guts of healthy people. They settled on a set of eight different phages. They then engineered these phages to carry the genes that encode the CRISPR DNA-editing system, along with the RNAs needed to target editing to a number of essential genes in the E. coli genome. This approach has been shown to prevent the evolution of resistance. After testing the ability of these eight engineered phages to kill the E. coli panel alone and in combination, they decided that a group of four of them was the most effective, naming the mixture SNIPR001. But four engineered phages do not make a drug; the team confirmed that SNIPR001 remains stable for five months in storage and that it does not affect any other gut bacteria.
The mortality rate from such infections in these patients is around 15-20 percent. Many of the infections are caused by E. coli, and much of this E. coli is already resistant to fluoroquinolones, the antibiotics commonly used to treat these types of infections. The team at SNIPR BIOME engineers bacteriophages, viruses that target bacteria, to make them hyper-selective. They started by screening 162 phages to find those that would infect a broad range of E. coli strains taken from people with bloodstream or urinary tract infections, as well as from the guts of healthy people. They settled on a set of eight different phages. They then engineered these phages to carry the genes that encode the CRISPR DNA-editing system, along with the RNAs needed to target editing to a number of essential genes in the E. coli genome. This approach has been shown to prevent the evolution of resistance. After testing the ability of these eight engineered phages to kill the E. coli panel alone and in combination, they decided that a group of four of them was the most effective, naming the mixture SNIPR001. But four engineered phages do not make a drug; the team confirmed that SNIPR001 remains stable for five months in storage and that it does not affect any other gut bacteria.
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Re: Umbrella Corp? (Score:2)
Viruses evolve damn fast anyway. Look at covid.
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*some* viruses, but not all. Look at measles - extremely similar to COVID-19 in risk, transmissibiliy, morbidity. But it has barely changes since the 60's when they came up with a vaccine.
Measles is a good example - it killed as many people as COVID-19 for many decades before there was a vaccine. every few years you would get a COVID-19 level death toll. But no one became hysterical over it.
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Actually: [cdc.gov]
In the decade before 1963 when a vaccine became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years of age. It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year. Also each year, among reported cases, an estimated 400 to 500 people died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 1,000 suffered encephalitis (swelling of the brain) from measles.
That's an infection fatality rate rate of only 0.01% to 0.02%, at least an order of magnitude lower than Covid.
Note that Covid was a novel coronavirus, emphasis on novel. Nobody had immunity to it, good practices for treatment were unknown, and early case death rates were reason to be very concerned about it. Before the measles vaccine, almost everyone got measles, and almost ever survi
Re:Umbrella Corp? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Gene exchange (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re: Gene exchange (Score:4, Insightful)
Prokaryotes and eukaryotes are very different. Youre more likely to get sick from a modified plant virus. Also nature has a head start on human lethal viruses, I'd worry more about them.
Phage therapy (Score:4, Informative)
Is as old as antibiotics. Problem is it's rather slow to work and phages might not pass into the blood to attack any bacteria there and even if they do the immune system will attack them stressing sick patients even more. In the meantime the patient could die.
Re:Phage therapy (Score:4, Insightful)
In this case, the bacteria are already in the bloodstream and the patient's immune system is suppressed.
Anyhow, phages will not replace antibiotics, but having a targeted way to treat bacteremia in chemo patients seems like a nice tool for the toolbox.
Here's hoping the trials work out!
"Even more deadly" ... to viruses. (Score:2)
About time (Score:2)
Re:About time (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile it IS, however, legal to mix them at low concentrations into farm feed.
Both of which are basically the answer to "how can I make bacteria evolve resistance to this ASAP?"
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Overprescription for people isn't a big issue. Giving someone who doesn't have a bacterial based illness is not likely to cause that non-existent bacteria to mutate into a super bug.
Not finishing your prescription is a much bigger issue.
Feeding antibiotics en-masse to animals is also an issue, though again not likely to result in superbugs for humans.
How often do you read about antibiotic-resistant baceria. They are usually found in medical facilities, often coming from chronically ill immuno compromised p
These conspiracy theories are unbelieveable! (Score:2)
>The team at SNIPR BIOME engineers bacteriophages, viruses that target bacteria, to make them hyper-selective.
Like, seriously, can we cut it out with the "engineered" viruses already! As reported by NPR, the NY Times, Washington Post, etc, these viruses came from a natural spillover in a wet market in Copenhagen. Luckily Twitter and Facebook have banned this obvious conspiracy theory and misinformation! Maybe Slashdot should follow suit.