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Venom and hot peppers offer a key to killing resistant bacteria

wired.com

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Re: Venom and hot peppers offer a key to killing resistant bacteria

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too am addicted to hot peppers. But doesn't this... IDK, it seems like it would mess up my stomach or esophagus lining or something. All that acid and capsaicin on an empty stomach?

I've been doing this for like two years now and see no adverse effects, but that is just me.

I would be worried about long term damage. In 10 years you might be in a world of hurt from this. At the very least I would let your doctor know that you are doing this and see what they think of it.

Re: Venom and hot peppers offer a key to killing resistant bacteria

#52
post #47
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This story actually checks out, which is quite the condemnation of our American drug development system. Oh yeah, "corporations", "end-stage capitalism", blah blah. The reality is that 95+% of drug candidates fail the trials. And a lot of them only fail during the Phase-3 where the efficacy is tested. It's likely that large companies tried it in-house and found that it's either too toxic or is ineffective in-vivo.

I guess you are right but can you please provide a source of the failed trials for this case!

Looks like there are none, which is the typical result. If you worked in a drug-discovery-adjacent field, this is an utterly normal scenario:

1. University/startup company finds a promising drug candidate that works in-vitro. They make a press-release, researchers write their theses, and move on.

2. Drug companies pick that up and run small-scale tests. These tests are negative, usually because of unexpected toxicity.

Looking at the molecule in question, it's likely what happened here. It's a covalent inhibitor, meaning that it permanently binds with the protein. It's also allosteric, meaning that it binds to the target enzyme but not at the actual active site. This is a huge red flag for toxicity, because it's likely going to bind to other proteins that can have similar configurations.

3. But the underlying idea is sound, so companies keep working on alternative approaches. They are likely looking for non-covalent compounds now, or for things like "suicide inhibitors".

4. You'll see actual trials in 10-15 years after the initial press-release. Most likely for completely different compounds, targeting the same mechanism.

Re: Venom and hot peppers offer a key to killing resistant bacteria

#53
post #43

"The team was able to isolate two colorless molecules called benzoquinones—heterocyclic compounds that do not contain amino acids" Hats off, not only were they able to isolate just two molecules, but also established that they were colorless. I don't think this is a usual definition for benzoquinones: "heterocyclic compounds that do not contain amino acids". I can smell Sam Altman's socks reading this article.

"colorless molecules called benzoquinones"

...and then dozen of words further on:

"blue benzoquinone has the capacity to act against the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, while the red one is effective against Staphylococcus aureus."

How quaint! Blue colorless molecule is different from the red colorless molecule!

Re: Venom and hot peppers offer a key to killing resistant bacteria

#54
post #50

I am addicted to hot peppers. What I do in the morning is get one Scotch Bonnet (or two smaller ones), two oranges, lime and a piece of ginger into a cold press and then drink it in one go. Can't describe it exactly, but it's like being transported to another dimension for a few seconds, then there is pain, then there is relief and then a nice warm feeling in the belly.

The last time I bit into a nice juicy spicy pepper in the morning, I had to crouch in pain for 5 minutes as I felt stabbed right in the heart. The pepper wasn't even spicy like a bonnet, but I had an empty stomach. So yeah no more peppers without rice for me.

"If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to either you or the frog for the rest of the day."

Re: Venom and hot peppers offer a key to killing resistant bacteria

#55
post #53
post #43

"The team was able to isolate two colorless molecules called benzoquinones—heterocyclic compounds that do not contain amino acids" Hats off, not only were they able to isolate just two molecules, but also established that they were colorless. I don't think this is a usual definition for benzoquinones: "heterocyclic compounds that do not contain amino acids". I can smell Sam Altman's socks reading this article.

"colorless molecules called benzoquinones" ...and then dozen of words further on: "blue benzoquinone has the capacity to act against the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, while the red one is effective against Staphylococcus aureus." How quaint! Blue colorless molecule is different from the red colorless molecule!

Maybe you should not omit those "dozens of words" that clearly explain what you're trying to portray as a contradiction.

> These molecules have a particular property: When they come into contact with air, they oxidize and change color. One becomes blue and the other red.

Re: Venom and hot peppers offer a key to killing resistant bacteria

#56
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story actually checks out, which is quite the condemnation of our American drug development system. One thing bugs me though - why don't other countries with different research structures pick this up and run with it?

I agree... Medication Resistant bacteria is a problem everywhere. There's probably no money in a new antibiotic, but... Having something new to fight TB would be nice, and there's still prestige, even if you "just" brought it to market and didn't discover it. I would think there are pharma teams in China or India, maybe even Russia that could replicate and further develop something like this, given the initial paper…

My immediate thought - there probably are these teams overseas doing these things - just, our media/markets shun them.

I mean, the covid vaccinations - people are/were doing their nut about the Euro/US versions, but the Russians had their own, the Chinese had two, and I am aware that the Chinese were handing it out to other countries as part of their aid programs (the effectiveness of those vaccines, however, has been questioned, especially in comparison to the Euro/US ones, but I'm not sure if that's reality or politics, it's so damned hard to tell these days)

Re: Venom and hot peppers offer a key to killing resistant bacteria

#58
post #55
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"colorless molecules called benzoquinones" ...and then dozen of words further on: "blue benzoquinone has the capacity to act against the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, while the red one is effective against Staphylococcus aureus." How quaint! Blue colorless molecule is different from the red colorless molecule!

Maybe you should not omit those "dozens of words" that clearly explain what you're trying to portray as a contradiction. > These molecules have a particular property: When they come into contact with air, they oxidize and change color. One becomes blue and the other red.

You are absolutely right.

Maybe I shouldn't. But then I have to deep-dive into yet another flagrant cheap hallucination. You see, when a molecule oxidize, it becomes a different molecule.

It is impossible for a benzoquinone to oxidize, yet remain a benzoquinone. There are just two of them [1], and the two are isomers [2]. Transforming one into another would be isomerisation, not oxidation.

Not to mention — "oxidize on contact with air" is such a pile of nonsense. Just look at those things: benzene ring with a couple of oxygens sticking from it. [1] That stuff is pretty darn stable in presence of atmospheric oxygen.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzoquinone

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomer

Re: Venom and hot peppers offer a key to killing resistant bacteria

#59
post #52
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you are right but can you please provide a source of the failed trials for this case!

Looks like there are none, which is the typical result. If you worked in a drug-discovery-adjacent field, this is an utterly normal scenario: 1. University/startup company finds a promising drug candidate that works in-vitro. They make a press-release, researchers write their theses, and move on. 2. Drug companies pick that up and run small-scale tests. These tests are negative, usually because of unexpected toxicity…

There was what I thought was a breakthrough in Schizophrenia diagnosis and treatment - the University of Washington held that groups of genes acting in concert were causing the disease, and, in fact, there were multiple variants of genes producing (what had always been suspected) different diseases that were bing lumped together.

For the longest time I had been trying to figure out why nobody was taking the research seriously, why there weren't diagnostic kits available that determined which variant people were actually suffering from, and using the appropriate drug regime to manage the specific condition the patient had.

Then, last year I saw a paper being discussed (some 5 - 10 years after the initial paper), and it was building on the Washington research - it appears to me now (keeping in mind that I am a layman and an outsider) that the research /had/ been taken seriously, but it's seen as a signpost on the pathway rather than the destination.

Re: Venom and hot peppers offer a key to killing resistant bacteria

#60
I imagine the long term solution to antibiotic resistance are engineered bacteriophages, either to directly attack the bacteria or to insert genes that make the bacteria susceptible to specific agents. Beyond not having to continuously develop new antibiotics or restrict treatment, these could also be much more targeted treatments with less harmful effects on a patient's microbiome. Of course scaling up to mass production on the level of say penicillin will take some time, but the same is true for new antibiotics.
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