
Nasal Bacteria Pump Out a Potential New Antibiotic That Kills MRSA - kungfudoi
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasal-bacteria-pump-out-a-potential-new-antibiotic-that-kills-mrsa/
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Benjamin_Dobell
Awesome research. But...

> The researchers then checked snot from hospitalized patients. Of 187
> samples, all but one were colonized by either S. aureus or S. lugdunensis

> S. lugdunensis, was killing S. aureus. Its weapon of choice? A small
> compound dubbed lugdunin

> The German researchers who performed the study have filed a patent for
> lugdunin

Are we really allowing people to patent naturally occurring biological
compounds these days? Shouldn't the patent be for specific treatments derived
from their findings on lugdunin, not the compound itself?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
You have to choose a system. If we don't want naturally-occurring compounds
patented, but we want them researched for potential drug use, we need more
public funding. Otherwise, we have to offer researchers and drug manufacturers
an incentive to take risks with exploring these compounds.

Barring lugdunin from being patented while providing no public funding would
incentivise this group to withhold publication until they thought they'd found
every commercially-reasonably derivation.

~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
At least if they'd kept their findings secret, researchers could independently
be researching the same thing.

Now independent researchers won't want to touch lugdunin because they'll need
to license the patent, however they won't know whether licensing the patent is
worthwhile _until_ they do their research. This will _prevent_ further
research, not encourage it.

~~~
doesnotexist
Are you sure about that? I would think that the patent wouldn't apply to non-
commercial investigations or research. That is you would be free to synthesize
or extract this chemical in a laboratory environment. However, if you wished
to manufacture the drug for commercial purposes then you would need to license
the patent.

~~~
pyre
Well, potential researchers will also have to weigh the possibility that they
spend all of the time and effort to research other possibilities for it only
to find out that after all of the licensing fees, etc they won't even be able
to break even on the fruits of their research.

It carries too high of a risk for financially-minded people (looking for a
return on investment) to throw money at it.

~~~
hueving
>It carries too high of a risk for financially-minded people (looking for a
return on investment) to throw money at it.

As opposed to the risk of searching for some completely new thing that may not
exist?

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im4w1l
Wont using this be long term harmful to our nasal health, as bacteria acquire
immunity?

~~~
heavypurity
This is the first thing I think of when I read this too. I am worried this
will train bacteria to be resistant to natural immune defense mechanism of
human... : (

~~~
rjbwork
Yeah...really, how COULDN'T that happen?

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mvanvoorden
Partly relevant: a few months ago they discovered bacteria in beards that also
kill MRSA: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/beards-good-for-
he...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/beards-good-for-health-more-
hygienic-bacteria-resistant-than-shaven-skin-study-finds-a6823461.html)

~~~
arviewer
Interesting read. What I don't understand is why other body hair is not
mentioned, and if that has the same effect. If not, what makes a beard
different?

~~~
mvanvoorden
I assume because it's around the mouth. Food passes, some of that will stay in
the beard, allowing for different cultures to grow than elsewhere.

~~~
sdkjfwiluf
or, the change in acidity from acid on the outside to alkaline on the inside
provides a niche for these bacteria

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lifeisstillgood
Now we need a globally agreed system of anti-biotic triage - you can have
anti-biotics, but only administered in hospital, signed off by two doctors and
with these life threatening conditions.

Treat them with care this time round

~~~
asuffield
Antibiotic use in humans has rarely been a problem, it's the way that
"restricted" antibiotics are used on lifestock freely and in large quantities
that keeps screwing us over.

~~~
refurb
That's absolutely untrue. It's the use in humans that results in resistance in
humans. The connection to livestock is pretty tenuous.

~~~
asuffield
Citation needed. The following sources disagree strongly with your claim:

[http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhea...](http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.29.020907.090904)

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/sep/19/scientists-a...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/sep/19/scientists-
antibiotics-animal-agriculture)

[http://www.cdc.gov/narms/animals.html](http://www.cdc.gov/narms/animals.html)

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monocle
First there was stool transplants. Now, we can have snot transplants.

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toodlebunions
Whatever works, right?

~~~
jessaustin
Just so long as the two procedures stay completely separate.

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dest
An interesting point would be that if S. aureus becomes resistant to lugdunin
(a matter of a few years maybe), S. lugdunensis might evolve naturally to find
a new antibiotic.

So a similar study in a few years might lead to a new antibiotic molecule
targetting the mutated S. aureus.

Is there hope for this or is it nonsense?

~~~
taneq
I was just thinking something similar - maybe the future for bacterium-
specific treatments isn't to try and find a new antibiotic, but rather to pit
different nasty bacteria against each other in an endless in-vitro cage match,
then analyze the winner to learn their tricks?

~~~
Practicality
The difficulty is creating a suitable environment. There are a lot specifics
about a nose that are difficult to duplicate.

Other than that, the idea is perfectly viable.

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JumpCrisscross
> _The researchers then checked snot from hospitalized patients. Of 187
> samples, all but one were colonized by either S. aureus or S. lugdunensis,
> but not both. The researchers think where one species grows, the other
> can’t._

How does S. aureus prevent S. lugdunesis from invading?

~~~
ajuc
Maybe lugdunesis is killed by some antibiotics that aureus is resistant to?

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pwilsony
This is totally misguided. If this develops into a widely used antibiotic it
will eventually provoke immunity in its MRSA targets. These same targets will
then have free rein in our noses. Not a good deal.

~~~
dpark
30% of people already have MRSA in their noses. I'm not sure there's a
realistic doom and gloom scenario here since if you've got MRSA in your nose,
you don't have the lugdunin-producing bacteria anyway.

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0n34n7
Which is why I always eat my boogers, and seldom, if ever, get sick.

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bricss
Whata great days and parents for bacteries?! <:)

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iofj
This does nothing to solve the real problem. The issue isn't (or wasn't) that
we couldn't cure MRSA at all, it was a gradual evolution. In the 1960's we had
5 working drugs that would kill essentially any bacteria.

And then we had 4. We discovered new ones, at one point I believe up to 7. But
resistance made it go down pretty much by one per decade, but each next one
ended faster. And then it hit zero, in 2012 I believe.

Now we may (maybe) be back up to one. Big whoop. Not going to last.

The problem is that evolution is out-researching us, the problem is that we're
losing the war, not any particular battle. Antibiotics used to last 3-5
decades. Now we're down to years. While we do find new antibiotics on a
regular basis, the problem is the speed of adaptation. The problem is that
science is losing/has lost the "battle with darkness" as it was called 700
years ago. We are now in the situation that there are people dying because
they entered hospitals for unrelated reasons (where they were exposed to these
bacteria).

The problem is that we need to let millions of people die of curable diseases
constantly or risk a Spanish flu like incident that can be reasonably expected
to kill somewhere between 500 million and a billion humans today.

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ss248
"The problem is that we need to let millions of people die of curable diseases
constantly"

Not the case at all. Biggest use of antibiotics today is in food
production(agriculture etc.), not in hospitals. And it's also completely
unregulated.

"The problem is that evolution is out-researching us"

Evolution also has a simple rule: "Use it or lose it". So don't be afraid.
There are ways around acquired immunity.

~~~
djrogers
>Biggest use of antibiotics today is in food production(agriculture etc.), not
in hospitals. And it's also completely unregulated.

Completely false - antibiotic (and all drug) use in animals is absolutely
regulated in nearly all countries, including the US [1,2,3]. Said regulations
may not be what you'd like, but to claim they don't exist is silly.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#Re...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#Regulatory_context)

[2][http://modernfarmer.com/2015/10/california-antibiotic-
livest...](http://modernfarmer.com/2015/10/california-antibiotic-livestock-
regulations/)

[3][https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/06/03/2015-133...](https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/06/03/2015-13393/veterinary-
feed-directive)

 _edit formatting_

~~~
kpil
True, but it must go down or we will never have functional antibiotics.

It seems to be possible, in Italy they use 50 times more antibiotics per pig
than here in Sweden, due to the stricter regulation. Denmark is doing good but
still uses twice as much as in Sweden.

This is due to our regulations, and it costs more to keep the pigs healthy,
but due to EU:s strict trade rules, there are no way we can protect our
farmers from the cheaper meat.

And somehow Italian ham is considered to be of higher quality...

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encoderer
Life finds a way?

