have scientists found an antibiotic using a virus that can kill bacteria?

Answer 1

Researchers from Rockefeller University, New York, have developed a new way of killing dangerous bacteria like the ones which cause anthrax and pneumonia, using products from a virus, according to new research presented today (Tuesday, 07 September 2004) at the Society for General Microbiology’s 155th Meeting at Trinity College Dublin.
“We realised that bacteria have no effective natural defences against these phages once they have been infected,” says Professor Vincent Fischetti of Rockefeller University. “After infection, the phages make an enzyme to dissolve the bacterial cell walls for release and we found that we could use the same enzyme to attack and kill the disease bacteria responsible for pneumonia, anthrax or strep throat.”

The enzymes work on contact, killing the disease bacteria instantly, but without harming other friendly types of bacteria. This offers huge advantages over conventional antibiotics, which indiscriminately kill most bacteria, including our useful ones, and which can lead to disease resistance building up if used too frequently.

“About half of us normally carry disease bacteria in our nose or throat, but without symptoms, which form the only reservoir for these organisms in the environment, allowing them to travel from person to person until they are able to cause infection in the right individual,” says Prof Fischetti. “Removing these bacteria from people in hospitals, day care centres and nursing homes could have a major impact on disease outbreaks amongst vulnerable people in these settings.”

The novel technique offers medical workers an opportunity to control disease bacteria in a completely new way. So far no resistance has been found to the enzymes, but if it were to occur it would be very rare, much rarer than antibiotic resistance. The enzymes successfully kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are causing a major problem in hospitals and nursing homes.

“We now have enzymes that kill all bacteria of a particular type, called Gram-positive bacteria, of the major disease-causing organisms, including bacteria for strep throat, pneumonia, neonatal meningitis, endocarditis and anthrax,” says Prof Fischetti. “Since we have never found any resistance to the enzymes, they can be used safely, long term, even to kill recurrent infections.”

In addition, the scientists are currently carrying out clinical trials of an enzyme which can specifically kill anthrax in the blood. This could be used during a terrorist attack or emergency to save the lives of exposed individuals.

The Society for General Microbiology is the largest microbiology society in Europe, and has over 5,500 members worldwide. The Society provides a common meeting ground for scientists working in research and in fields with applications in microbiology including medicine, veterinary medicine, pharmaceuticals, industry, agriculture, food, the environment and education.



The new bug-smashing technique uses the bacteria’s own natural enemies, tiny viruses called bacteriophages (or phages), which can infect bacterial cells. The phages make thousands of copies of themselves inside infected bacteria, but then need to dissolve the bacteria’s cell wall to get out and infect other bacterial cells.

Answer 2

Clindamycin is a semisynthetic derivative of lincomycin, a natural antibiotic produced by the actinobacterium Streptomyces lincolnensis. Cefoxitin, a semi-synthetic, broad-spectrum cepha antibiotic, is derived from cephamycinC, which is produced by Streptomyces lactamdurans. That is why some bacteria were resistant to these antibiotics before they were developed by humans. Both of these antibiotics are derived from naturally occurring antibiotics produced by certain bacteria as a defense against other bacteria. Because these particular bacteria produced antibiotics, other bacteria, through the process of evolution, developed a resistance to them. So it is not unusual to find antibiotic resistant bacteria before the antibiotic was developed by humans. The same was found concerning penicillin, which is derived from a mold that produced its own antibiotic to keep bacteria away from its nutrient source. Because of that, some bacteria developed a resistance to penicillin long before humans developed it. Therefore, the whole basis of your argument is false. Given the facts, it is not surprising that antibiotic-resistant bacteria existed before those antibiotics were developed. You also do not understand that specific mutations do not occur just because they are needed. Mutations occur all the time. A mutation that would provide resistance to an antibiotic could occur even if the antibiotic is non-existent. In that case, it would not provided any benefit and would not assist the bacteria to survive. It is only when natural selection comes into play that a specific mutation is tested for the survivability of the organism. You keep trying to disprove evolution, but in your antipathy toward it, you don't bother trying to understand how it works. You can keep trying to disprove evolution, but you will never be able to do it because your starting point is wrong.

Answer 3

There are many virii, known as [bacterio]phage, that can kill bacteria.

I know attempts are underway to develop phage as an alternative to traditional antibiotics. I have seen presentations at national meetings about the use of a phage for treatment of Streptotocci or Staphylocci infections. The phage in question was promising because they were unable to generate resistance to it in the laboratory setting (this had to do with how the phage targetted the bacteria, and the loss of viability in the bacterial cell when that aspect of the cell mutated).

So yes, scientists have devised ways of using a virus to kill bacteria. Here is a review article on the subject.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=90351&blobtype=pdf

Answer 4

In a manner of speaking. This was a very, very hot area of research in the Soviet Union as so called Phage Therapy. It has never really taken off, although it is starting to become more popular in the research community again.

The Soviet scientists were primarily working with viruses that attacked the Tuberculosis bacterium (as TB is a particularly nasty and infectious disease). The idea being that if you could finnd a bacteriophage that was specific to TB you could innoculate an infected person with the virus and it would only cause pathogenic effects in the bacteria and not in the human.

As far as I know, no western authority (such as the FDA or MHRA in the US and UK respectively) has sanctioned the use of phage therapy at this time.

Answer 5

All antibiotics kill bacteria. They do not affect viruses.

Answer 6

Found no. No major break through.

Or.

Not know to me.

On going research yes. Lots of it.

Answer 7

most antibitotics are actually small doses of dead viruses. this makes your immune system fight it when you actually get the virus