

Antibiotics: Precision Strike - gz5
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/09/antibiotics

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bill_from_tampa
This is certainly interesting research, but killing bacteria on agar is a long
way from treating humans. I'm still waiting for bacteriophage vials to be
available in my local CVS.

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robbiep
You and me both. I'm thinking of doing my masters in wound healing and skin
infections using bacteriophages. I WANT this technology.

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sp332
Cool! This reminds me of a new potential cancer treatment that uses infrared
light to heat gold nanoparticles inside a tumor to kill it. The crappy,
winding blood vessels inside tumors tend to trap more of the nanoparticles,
effectively targeting delivery right into the tumor.
[http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/gold-
cancer-0504.html](http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/gold-cancer-0504.html)

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refurb
It seems like this technique would be limited to treating infection where: (1)
you can reach the infection with a light source and (2) the infection is
limited to the surface of an organ.

I wonder how deep the UV light can penetrate as well, since even skin
infections (at least the serious ones) tend to invade deep layers of tissue
where the light won't reach.

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gz5
Agree, this is just scratching the surface, no pun intended.

The article is a good reminder of the sledgehammer approach that we still have
in much of modern medicine (not just in the case of antibiotics), even as
great and advanced as modern medicine is.

