Nanomedicine offers new hope in antibiotic resistance

Once the antibiotics run out, modern medicine disappears with them. We need to develop new antibiotics, but we need other approaches as well. thinking outside the current box, if you will. One approach has been the revival of our old friends bacteriophages (LSS passim). But a rather exciting new line comes from the new world of nanomedicine.

Yanping Long and his colleagues have developed artificial macrophages, which will assist the capture and kill process of the body’s natural defences. By mimicking the irregular “hedgehog” like properties of natural macrophages, the researchers have structured their artificial ones to attain similar efficiencies in capturing the pathogens and delivering the “killer” molecules. Results with MRSA infections on rabbit skin look promising.  Alongside new conventional antibiotics other approaches, such as bacteriophages, we may yet be able to wriggle out of this particular threat.

Our link is a rather heavy real scientific paper from Nature Communications,[1]But do not be dismayed, gentle reader! The trick with scientific papers is to read the abstract. Plus this one has some really good diagrams, which by definition are easier to follow.

[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26456-9

#antibiotic resistance #macrophages #nanomedicine