Could this be the end of superbugs?
A 25-year-old student has just come up with a way to fight drug-resistant superbugs without antibiotics.
The new approach has so far only been tested in the lab and on mice, but it could offer a potential solution to antibiotic resistance, which is now getting so bad that the United Nations recently declared it a āfundamental threatā to global health.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria already kill around 700,000 people each year, but a recent study suggests that number could rise to around 10 million by 2050.
In addition to common hospital superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), scientists are now also concerned that gonorrhoea is about tobecome resistant to all remaining drugs.
But Shu Lam, a 25-year-old PhD student at the University of Melbourne in Australia, has developed a star-shaped polymer that can kill six different superbug strains without antibiotics, simply by ripping apart their cell walls.
āWeāve discovered that [the polymers] actually target the bacteria and kill it in multiple ways,ā Lam told Nicola Smith from The Telegraph. āOne method is by physically disrupting or breaking apart the cell wall of the bacteria. This creates a lot of stress on the bacteria and causes it to start killing itself.ā
The research has been published in Nature Microbiology, and according to Smith, itās already being hailed by scientists in the field as āa breakthrough that could change the face of modern medicineā.
Before we get too carried away, itās still very early days. So far, Lam has only tested her star-shaped polymers on six strains of drug-resistant bacteria in the lab, and on one superbug in live mice.
But in all experiments, theyāve been able to kill their targeted bacteria - and generation after generation donāt seem to develop resistance to the polymers.
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Yes. All the yes. Women in STEM deserve ALLLLLLLL the applause. All of it. And cake. All the cake, too.Ā
THIS IS HUGE THIS IS FUCKING HUGE
