Scientists map genetic codes of 3,000 bacteria in desperate search for ways to fight drug-resistant superbugs
- Around 70% of bacteria are already resistant to at least one antibiotic that is commonly used to treat them
- Tuberculosis and gonorrhea are among the most feared superbugs to come
- British scientists have now mapped 3,000 bacteria strains and made them publicly available for researchers globally
Scientists seeking new ways to fight drug-resistant superbugs have mapped the genomes of more than 3,000 bacteria.
The samples include on of a bug taken from Alexander Fleming’s nose, and a dysentery-causing strain from a World War One soldier.
The DNA of deadly strains of plague, dysentery and cholera were also decoded in what the researchers said was an effort to better understand some of the world’s most dangerous diseases and develop new ways to fight them.
Specialists estimate that around 70 percent of bacteria are already resistant to at least one antibiotic that is commonly used to treat them, and the world may be facing an antibiotic shortage.
This has made the evolution of ‘superbugs’ that can evade one or multiple drugs one of the biggest threats facing medicine today.
The evolution of ‘superbugs’ that can evade one or multiple drugs is one of the biggest threats facing medicine today
Among the most serious risks are tuberculosis – which infects more than 10.4 million people a year and killed 1.7 million in 2016 alone – and gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease that infects 78 million people a year and which the World Health Organization says is becoming almost untreatable.
Supply of key ingredients to develop the medicine is also short.
Already, one form of penicillin is unavailable in 30 countries, including the US, Australia, Germany and Canada – and it has been since 2015.
RELATED ARTICLES
- Previous
- 1
- Next
-
New iPhone app can spot AUTISM by tracking kids’ faces as…
Fish oil supplements may soothe the pain of some gruelling…
Share this article
Shortages and supply chain breakdowns could quickly spiral into outbreaks of disease that were once easily treatable and antibiotic resistance, a new Access to Medicine Foundation report warns.
The genomic maps of the 3,000 strains are to be published on the NCTC’s website and made freely available to researchers worldwide to help them in the development of potential new diagnostic tests, vaccines or treatments.
The samples from Fleming – the British scientist credited with discovering the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928 – were among more than 5,500 bugs at Britain’s National Collection of Type Cultures (NCTC), one of the world’s largest collections of clinically relevant bacteria.
The first bacteria to be deposited in the NCTC was a strain of dysentery-causing Shigella flexneri that was isolated in 1915 from a soldier in the trenches of World War One.
‘Knowing very accurately what bacteria looked like before and during the introduction of antibiotics and vaccines, and comparing them to current strains, … shows us how they have responded to these treatments,’ said Julian Parkhill of Britain’s Wellcome Sanger Institute, who co-led the research.
‘This in turn helps us develop new antibiotics and vaccines.’
Source: Read Full Article