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Tougher antibiotics in works to fight bacteria
New drugs arrest cell growth
November 3, 1997
Web posted at: 7:32 p.m. EST (0032 GMT)From Correspondent Al Hinman
SAN RAFAEL, California (CNN) -- One of medicine's greatest concerns is the growing number of bacteria resistant to the drugs designed to kill them off.
But researchers in California are working on a new class of bacteria-fighting drug that is similar to the one that has proven so effective against AIDS.
The recent contamination of beef with E. coli and chicken by salmonella and campylobacter has raised concerns about how healthy our food is. There are also concerns that other bacteria are proving more and more difficult to kill as they develop resistance to antibiotics.
"The biggest problem with the use of antibiotics today," says John McCue of the Gibson Medical Research Institute in Santa Rosa, California, "is the development of resistance to the antibiotics."
CNN's Al Hinman reports
World health authorities say the problem is rapidly worsening, which makes the work being done at Dominican College of San Rafael extremely promising. Dominican is located across the bay from San Francisco.
Student researchers are working on a new class of antibiotics targeted specifically against things as salmonella and E. coli. What's more, they are designed to fight bacteria in an entirely different way.
New drugs arrest cell growth
The antibiotics are protease inhibitors, similar to those proving so successful in fighting the AIDS virus. Protease is an enzyme essential to the growth of viruses and bacteria.
"One of the dramatic effects of this new class of antibiotics," says McCue, "is that it actually arrests cell replication of the bacteria."
Most antibiotics work by killing the bacteria rather than trying to halt their growth. But, as the medical world has discovered, that strategy can increase the risk that some bacteria will develop a way to resist the drugs designed to wipe them out.
McCue says that the new drugs based on the protease inhibitors "will be extremely difficult for an organism to develop resistance to for a variety of reasons."
The key, scientists say, is the use of a metal-based ion, which, for reasons having to do with chemical reactions, the bacteria would find difficult to fend off.
The research being done at Dominican College is just the beginning. If it proves effective, the next step is for a pharmaceutical firm to take over the research and turn it into a viable commercial product.
Until then, the new class of antibiotics will remain a promising technology for what many hope is a not-too-distant future.
Related stories:
- FDA approves powerful AIDS drug - March 15, 1996
- AIDS drug shows promise - February 1, 1996
- Panel recommends approval of new AIDS drug - November 8, 1995
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