There is no doubt that the discovery of antibiotics nearly 100 years ago had a major impact on the world. However, the rise of drug-resistant bacteria now paints a more grim picture, with some studies predicting that as many as 10 million lives could be claimed by 2050.
New research from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in New York suggests that adapting and changing in real time to defeat pathogen defenses, beating bacteria at their own game may be key doing.
Using breakthrough click chemistry, the molecular process for which scientists Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldall, and Barry Sharpless won the Nobel Prize in 2022, researchers can build more than a million constituents into their chemical structures. created an antibiotic with Taking astonishing inspiration from military tanks and their rotating turrets, capable of responding quickly to threats, scientists believe that this class of antibiotics can outmaneuver a class of bacteria that is increasingly weakened by existing drugs. I hope you can.
“Click chemistry is amazing,” says CSHL Professor John Moses. “It gives you certainty and gives you the best chance of making something complicated.”
The key to this discovery was a molecule called bluvalene, a fractional molecule. This means that the atoms can switch positions. With this molecule at its core, and using the powerful antibiotic vancomycin as an outer “warhead”, the drug has the ability to “shapeshift” its structure, allowing it to sneak past the defenses of resistant strains of bacteria.
Importantly, when this new class of drug was tested on wax moth larvae infected with bacteria, it was more effective than vancomycin alone, and the pathogen failed to develop resistance to it.
And with about 3 million Americans contracting drug-resistant bacterial or fungal infections each year and 35,000 dying from these conditions, finding new antibiotics that can defeat ever-evolving pathogens is critical. is important.
“If we could invent a molecule that could mean the difference between life and death, it would be the greatest achievement of all time,” said Moses.
The study was published in a journal PNAS.
Source: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
