More good news on antibiotics research for you today, gentle readers. And this time it’s the subtlety of the extra thinking that has captured our attention. Up to now antibiotics-and many other therapies- have been more of a bludgeon than a rapier. Yes they do a lot of good, smashing away dangerous bacteria from your system. But they can do a lot of bad, by killing all those beneficial bacteria in your biome, which help you digest your food, as well as performing many other Good Works. But what if we could design an antibiotic which only does the good stuff, while keeping harmful side effects to a minimum? According to Nature Briefings, Smart Antibiotic spares the Microbiome, lolamicin may do just that:
An antibiotic called lolamicin targets disease-causing Gram-negative bacteria without disturbing healthy gut bacteria. Broad-spectrum antibiotics against these pathogens wreak havoc on the gut microbiome and can allow potentially deadly Clostridioides difficile to take over. Mice infected with antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria survived after being given lolamicin, whereas almost 90% of those that didn’t receive the drug died within three days. Lolamicin did not seem to disrupt the gut microbiome and spared mice from C. difficile infections.Nature | 4 min read
Reference: Nature paper
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As you know we at LSS tend to be a tad wary of huge new, all-field-encompassing, breakthroughs. What we like is when someone tweaks existing learning in a small but significant way. This seems to be one such, and good luck to the researchers concerned.
#antibiotics #microbiology #microbial resistance #research #microbiology
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