In war, Intelligence is just about the most vital thing you can have. You know, predicting the enemy’s next move before he makes it. How useful it would be to know which bacteria will show resistance to our next antibiotic, where, how , and when! That’s why some new work from Dr Kalen Hall and team of Tulane University, reported on Phys.org is so exciting [1]
They have identified a genetic signature in the bacteria Pseudomona aeruginosa which predicts the likelihood of developing genetic changes which facilitate resistance to antibiotics. Ingeniously, they studied the DNA mismatch repair pathway, which spurs rapid mutations in the genome. As every schoolchild knows, the more mutations you throw up, the more likely it is that one will give you resistance to antibiotics.
But for LSS homies there’s a deeper learning point. The team took their cue from similar research being carried out in the field of cancer treatment. The idea was to use it to predict carcinogenic mutations-but look what these antibiotic folk have done with it! Science breeds science. Knowledge and learning breeds more knowledge and learning. To our readers in the United States we would observe that this is a lesson you used to know well. Why have you started to forget?
[1]https://phys.org/news/2025-01-genetic-fingerprint-bacteria-drug-resistance.html
#microbiology #dna #antibiotic resistance #cancer #bacteria
Learning, Science and Society 