Way to stop antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” is found
Ryan Martin / 12 years ago
A medical breakthrough has been achieved that is well worth a mention on any technology related site like ourselves. Superbugs plague health services worldwide by rendering antibiotics useless. Yet a new method of killing superbugs has been found which could spell the end for them.
The Department of Biochemistry at the University of Montreal, led by Dr. Christian Baron came up with an approach called “naked Darth Vader”. In essence it is a play on the idea that Darth Vader is useless without his shielding. By removing the food source of these lethal superbugs, they will slowly starve and die – like having their shielding removed. By targeting the VRB8 protein which they live off the bacteria can be rendered harmless.
The benefit of this approach is that it is unlikely the bacteria will learn how to adapt, as they will essentially starve to death. Even if adaptation occurs, the researchers believe it would be very slow. This approach would also be significantly less damaging to the patient than antibiotics which often attack “friendly” bacteria further deteriorating the illness.
However, this approach will takes years before it ever comes into practice because of the testing, modifying and certification processes required to make sure it has no severe long/medium/short term effects.
