
With chemical tweaks, an old antibiotic is now more potent and resistant - kposehn
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/killer-antibiotic-now-25000x-more-potent-and-resistant-to-drug-resistance/
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btilly
I think I get the underlying idea, and it is clever.

A traditional antibiotic does one nasty thing to the bacteria. So if bacteria
find a single point mutation that helps, there is an evolutionary advantage.
This allows resistance to evolve fairly easily once the mutation comes along.

But this is doing several nasty things to bacteria at once, in parallel. So a
point mutation that helps with any one attack confers only a minor selection
benefit because the others still kill the bacteria. Ideally it would want to
evolve a combination of resistances to different attacks in parallel, but that
isn't how evolution works.

Resistance can still evolve, but it will be much slower. Improved resistance
to whatever is currently the deadliest attack does have a selection benefit,
and will spread. But it will be a smaller benefit, and the evolutionary path
to full resistance is much longer. So the process is slowed.

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evilduck
I'm a complete layperson to the topic, but wouldn't having more attack avenues
that must be evolved against also result in more resources dedicated to
survival and eventually compromise the dangerous impact bacteria could have in
the first place? i.e. if it's spending energy building anti-anti-bacterial
mechanisms, it's not spending as much energy replicating or producing a toxin
or whatever.

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Declanomous
You have part of the idea right. However you have to consider that
evolutionary pressure works with regards to competition for resources.

So yes a drug-resistant bacteria might be outcompeted for limited resources in
a normal environment by bacteria without that adaptation. However, if there is
an antibiotic introduced into the environment, the drug-resistant bacteria
will probably have proportionally _more_ resources than the non-adapted
bacteria did before the drug was introduced, due to a complete elimination of
their competition.

This is assuming that the adaptations bacteria have that enables them to be
drug resistant harm their fitness in a drug-free environment in the first
place. It is entirely possible that the drug was targeting a trait that
actually required more resources to produce, but that wasn't selected against
because it was basically vestigial.

I think it's a pretty big misconception that the force of natural selection is
directed towards absolute efficiency. I'd classify the process of natural
selection as a 'good enough' mechanism.

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ComputerGuru
I get that it's supposed to be "resistant" to drug resistance and all, but
nevertheless, it's probably a good idea if we keep this one out of the reach
of livestock farmers.

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bluGill
livestock farmers have to get a vet to prescribe their antibiotics. Even a few
years ago when they didn't they were not allowed to use antibiotics that were
useful in humans.

Antibiotic resistance is a real thing, but livestock farmers were not a major
concern. Those farmers were consistent and controlled in their use (and
couldn't sell anything with detectable levels of antibiotics in it). The real
problem was humans who got an antibiotic take it a couple times, felt better
and stopped, allowed the bacteria that had a little resistance to survive.

~~~
mikeash
According to this, medically important drugs can still be used for disease
prevention in livestock, albeit with the approval of a veterinarian:

[https://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/GuidanceComplianceEnfor...](https://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/GuidanceComplianceEnforcement/GuidanceforIndustry/ucm216939.htm#question6)

This seems completely insane to me. I'm not concerned about antibiotics in my
food, but rather frequent antibiotic use in animals resulting in resistant
diseases which then make the jump to humans.

~~~
bluGill
So what should we do when a cow gets sick of something that an antibiotic can
cure? Incinerate it is the only other option I can think of, otherwise you
just get more and more cows sick of something easy to treat.

~~~
mikeash
The question of what to do with sick animals is entirely different from the
question of _preventive_ antibiotic use. We don't even do that to humans
except certain extreme cases like surgery.

Using antibiotics on animals that are actually sick seems OK, as long as it's
medically warranted and they take the full regimen (just like humans). Proper
antibiotic use shouldn't carry much risk of creating resistance.

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zrth
First time i recall seeing a link to an article, supposedly about some
positive news related to the state of antibiotics. Will we in the closer
future start seeing masses of these articles?

kind of like: s/new battery breakthrough/killer antibiotic/g

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Madmallard
This is going to kill people

Maybe less than would die from resistant infections initially- but i'm betting
the genetic consequences from the side effects will probably kill more people
in the long run and weaken the species overall

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mrfusion
Does it only work on gram positive? I thought most bad bacteria were gram
negative?

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hprotagonist
gram positive only, but it's still a great idea.

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ericcholis
For reference; MRSA, which seems to be typically associated with "superbugs",
is gram positive.

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Declanomous
Just to clarify, in case anyone isn't aware, MRSA refers to a any number of
bacteria in the genus _Staphylocaccus_ which is resistant to methicillin.
(Methicillin-resistant _Staphylococcus aureus_ )

It is generally also resistant to another of other common antibiotics such as
amoxicillin, penicillin and oxacillin.

The big deal about MRSA is that bacteria can transfer parts of their genome to
other bacteria, so if one strain of staph becomes resistant to antibiotics, it
can transfer that trait to other strains of staph.

The good news is that all _Staphylocaccus_ bacteria are gram-positive, so you
not only gain the ability to treat MRSA, you gain the ability to treat
bacteria that might become MRSA.

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ryanmarsh
Vanc is often given to immunodeficient cancer patients. Hopefully this will
allow more patients to finish their protocols with shorter/fewer delays due to
infection.

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StreamBright
Can't wait to see the first nanotechnology based antibiotic.

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Ductapemaster
Fascinating development, but Ars's writing is just plain awful. Is there a
more academic article on the subject?

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scarhill
Not an academic article, but Derek Lowe at In the Pipeline has a more
technical write-up:
[http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/05/30/ant...](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/05/30/antibiotic-
progress-and-not-a-moment-too-soon)

~~~
Ductapemaster
Love Derek Lowe! Thank you!

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Mz
Okay, cool. But when do we get genuinely clever and learn to support the
body's own defenses instead?

