Medical

Newly discovered fungus holds clues to stopping superbugs

Newly discovered fungus holds clues to stopping superbugs
McMaster University chemical biology graduate student Andrew King examines a chemical used in drug discovery research (Photo: JD Howell)
McMaster University chemical biology graduate student Andrew King examines a chemical used in drug discovery research (Photo: JD Howell)
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McMaster University chemical biology graduate student Andrew King examines a chemical used in drug discovery research (Photo: JD Howell)
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McMaster University chemical biology graduate student Andrew King examines a chemical used in drug discovery research (Photo: JD Howell)

A research team from McMaster University, the University of British Columbia and Cardiff University has discovered a fungus in the soil of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia that may offer hope in an increasingly fraught battle against drug-resistant bacteria.

Drug resistant bacteria is an increasing problem across much of the world. “Antibiotic resistance ... is now a major threat to public health,” according to the World Health Organisation (WHO)

“The world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill,” Dr Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Health Security.

In early July British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that the world may be "cast back into the dark ages of medicine" thanks to a market failure that has not seen new antibiotics produced in a generation.

Drug resistant strains of disease affect more than just the developing world, reportedly killing more than 25,000 people a year in Europe. Some of the factors driving drug resistance are overuse, misuse and bacterial evolution in response to antibiotics.

Whilst there are more basic ways to limit resistance to antibiotics – especially in developing nations – such as better hygiene measures and improved access to clean water, or patients finishing courses of antibiotics and not swapping them or giving them to others, it is far more important to tackle the underlying problems of resistant bacteria. Recent approaches to tackling the problem have included “smart bombs”, cold plasma technology and attacking the cell membrane rather than the cell itself.

Now Canadian and Welsh researchers may have found an alternative in a naturally occurring fungus. The fungus-derived molecule, AMA, may be able to disarm one of the most dangerous of the purported drug-resistant genes for superbugs – New Delhi Metallo-beta-Lactamase-1 (NDM-1).

NDM-1 is an enzyme that can make bacteria resistant to many types of antibiotics. First discovered in 2008 in India, the NDM-1 “superbug” has also been found in water in South Asia and is carried by many drug resistant organisms that already cause many diseases.

The fungal molecule is elegant in its simplicity and efficacy: it harmlessly removes the zinc NDM-1 needs for survival without causing ill effects in humans. The research showed that mice dosed with AMA and a carbapenem antibiotic survived exposure to NDM-1.

“Simply put, the molecule knocks out NDM-1 so the antibiotics can do their job,” said Gerry Wright, director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster University.

Wright provides an overview of the findings in the McMaster video below.

Source: McMaster University

What would the world be like without antibiotics?

4 comments
4 comments
Stradric
I'm pretty confident that humanity will overcome antibiotic resistance. I've seen a number of promising projects including the one detailed here. Here's another one involving silver: http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/06/silver-bullets-that-kill-bacteria-not-werewolves/
StWils
Have they time to try this specific molecule or at least to look for a parallel line of attack regarding Ebola Zaire? The spiroviruses typed as Ebola Z. or Marburg, and variants are apparently not inconvenienced by our immune systems. Can this molecular tool approach be used at an affordable price and on a time scale that is useful? The ongoing ebola epidemic in west Africa is still expanding and currently shows approximately a 61+% kill rate. Since the incubation period ranges from several days to about three weeks what happens when someone gets off an aircraft at Heathrow, JFK, DeGaulle, etc, and does not even know yet that they are ill. More specifically, what happens when medical personnel in any country not in North or West Africa encounters symptoms that look like like flu but is actually a bug that wipe out 60+% of victims? By the time haemorhagic symptoms present many more people including the very medical personnel needed for treatment will themselves be infected and on a short glide path down.
glorybe2
Apparently we quake in fear of a terrorist attack and spend billions trying to prevent such an attack. But the idea that we need to deeply restrict all international travel in order to prevent a mega plague is not open to discussion. The humble tourist is probably a greater threat to our survival than any group of lunatics with bombs and AK-47s.
Slowburn
@ glorybe2 The humble tourist is probably the best tool for creating peace as well.