THIS IS HUGE! Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new antibiotic that reduced or eliminated drug-resistant bacterial infections (MORE THAN 130 multidrug-resistant bacterial strains, in fact) while sparing the gut microbiome!
Let’s talk about that! 🧪🧵⬇️
The findings were recently published in Nature.
• www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The study looked at the development of an antibiotic that targets gram-negative bacteria without disturbing the gut microbiome.
Researchers identified the antibiotic lolamicin, which disrupts a particular system called the Lol lipoprotein transport system.
• www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...
Next, researchers evaluated how well lolamicin worked against the multi-drug-resistant clinical isolates. They found that “Lolamicin has activity against a panel of more than 130 multidrug-resistant clinical isolates,” so the drug showed great promise as an effective antibiotic.
Researchers then tested lolamicin in mice. Overall, mice tolerated doses of the drug well. To test the efficacy of lolamicin, researchers infected mice with acute pneumonia and septicemia (blood poisoning) and found the drug effective at treating the infections.
When given orally, 70% of the mice with a septic infection lived. The septicemia models were used to test overall survival.
Next, researchers examined mouse stool samples to determine how much lolamicin affected the gut microbiome compared to broad-spectrum
and gram-positive-only antibiotics. Lolamicin outperformed these antibiotics in leaving the microbiome alone.
Mice treated with lolamicin were also much less likely to experience C. difficile infections than those treated with other antibiotic types after exposure to C.difficle.
Indeed, long overdue.
Now let's just hope that once it (hopefully) becomes available to use in humans, docs won't go crazy with it like they did with azithromycin
It was never meant to be(come) the first line antibiotic, but one that would be used after one or even two of the good old lineup failed, and even then an antibiogram was recommended first.
I shudder every time I hear a pediatrician writing it for an uncomplicated ear infection
so many of my friends won Nobels (a half dozen), it's such an amazing process to watch labs trudge forward to crack hard problems. And then there's the ones for lone wolfesses with intense flashes of insight that go unexpected directions out of seemingly nowhere. I so love ALL of it. Science rocks!
Because people have been prescribed antibiotics willy nilly for every damn thing including viral infections. Bacteria are very good and quick at adapting. My mom caught C. diff at a large local hospital. It took 3 different prescriptions to finally get rid of it. She was never the same.
Pretty sure they're still a problem and it's going to get worse. Bacteria are amazing at evolving against drugs.
When my mom got C.diff she was put on hospice for the first time. We opted to try one more drug and it worked. I sometimes regret it because she lived another 12 years in steep decline.
This sounds really cool! Many I know have been prescribed anti-biotic treatments in the past and suffered from weakened immune systems thereafter along with difficult gut health. Could this potentially reduce secondary infections going forward?
