#afcae

Well. Uh. No?

What’s alarming is that any bacteria can turn into a superbug (a resistant strain of bacteria). The video below supplies some examples of resistant strains. Antibiotics, while pivotal to health care, does have some downsides. While they do kill the “bad” bacteria, antibiotics do also kill the good stuff too. 

Antibiotics are becoming less effective, and this is because of the bacteria and natural selection. Mutations in the bacterial’s DNA allows them to have an edge in survival. Not only do mutations assist in making a better bacteria, but some bacteria release their DNA when they die and surrounding bacteria can pick that up. (How kind, bacteria are sharing even beyond the grave). And even more sharing, through conjugation, bacteria can share their genes (luckily for them, while they’re still alive). Thus, these resistant genes spread, and resistant bacteria grow.

So I guess, the good news is... I had pizza for lunch?

Si vous aimez les surprises, dans ce cas, rendez-vous ce lundi 15 mai 2023, à 18 h30 dans la salle Georges Méliès du cinéma le Casino. En collaboration avec l’association française des cinémas d’art et essai (AFCAE), l’équipe projettera un film surpris lors de cet événement.

"The striking thing about bacteria is that they can multiply as often as every 20 minutes. Antibiotic Resistance develops when bacteria develop mutations, which allow them to resist the effects of a particular medicine. In a large population of bacteria that are mutating all the time, a few will be resistant to an individual antibiotic. So, while the antibiotic kills off a large number of those bacteria, you can't kill that small percent that are resistant." 

The main cause behind antibiotic resistance is mutation. Through a mutation, the bacteria can develop a resistance to a particular antibiotic. And bacteria can "reproduce" a lot faster than people. Some every 20 minutes! In this way, when a resistant strain pops up, in can quickly proliferate and when we get sick again, the same antibiotics won't work. What's interesting about this is thinking of ways to avoid this. As seen earlier, Shu Lam is working on an alternate to antibiotics: a star shaped peptide which can lyse (break) the cell wall in Gram Negative bacteria. 

Food for thought: can bacteria even adapt to this? And could another classification of bacteria beyond Gram, appear? And what would that mean for us

Cette année, l'AFCAE (l'Association Française des Cinémas d'Art et d'Essai) a choisi de venir remettre le Prix Jean Lescure des cinémas d'art et d’essai 2016 au Festival International du Film de La Rochelle !

Les deux films lauréats sont:

“ Les Délices de Tokyo ” de Noami Kawase

et

“ La Tortue Rouge ” de Michaël Dudok de Wit