Superbugs Require Super Drugs

In the fifty or so years since Alexander Fleming developed Penicillin, bacterial infections have become a mere nuisance. Almost everyone, at one time or another, has been prescribed some sort of antibiotic. Diseases and infections that used to be fatal are now very treatable, all thanks to the single mistake of a biologist. Antibiotics are the miracle drug.

Imagine, though, that one day you get a bacterial infection, and the antibiotics don’t work. You take more, and different, and combinations, and there is absolutely nothing your doctor can give you to combat this infection. Say hello to superbugs.

These sorts of infections are out there; MRSA, C. difficile, even certain strains of TB. Over time, bacteria have grown resistant to the antibiotics we used to treat them, rendering the miracle drug null and void. And the problem is only growing. The CDC recently announced that deaths from MRSA, a resistant strain of a fairly common staph infection, have officially reached 19,000+ per year, killing more people than AIDS. And C. difficile, a less known infection of the colon, kills three times as many people per year as MRSA.

Youtube Video: CNN report. MRSA - the New AIDS.

But scientists are fighting back. According to an article in Science Daily early this year, a group of scientists at the University of Paris Descartes have discovered a new enzyme, Acetyltransferase, which allows bacteria to gain resistance to multiple antibiotics by changing the shape of the active site. The active site is the place on the enzyme that allows it to bind to the antibiotic and break it down; each antibiotic requires a differently shaped active site to connect. Nearly all the strains of bacteria currently defined as superbugs have this enzyme, which accounts for their ability to break down multiple antibiotics.

Now that they’ve found it, what to do with it? Antibiotics are, from the perspective of a pharmaceutical company, a waste of money – they’re expensive to make, and have a much lower profit margin than most drugs. Needless to say, these companies aren’t working to replace the antibiotics that are no longer effective against infection. However, enzyme inhibitors – chemicals that would disrupt the bacteria’s ability to produce Acetyltransferase, would be much less expensive to manufacture and distribute. In it’s ideal form, the enzyme would be delivered as a supplement pill or syrup with the antibiotic, letting drugs that have become ineffective once again battle infection. Scientists are currently working on creating this inhibitor. Keep a look out!

For more information, see the Science Daily Article, and How Stuff Works.