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New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

phenomena.nationalgeographic.com

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Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#51

Post by Fomite »

jes5199 wrote: post #39

Reading about new treatments gives me a kind of anxiety: drug trials are so slow and the funding models are so removed from the actual human life-saving potential, that I just am filled with fear that this stuff will get mired in bureaucracy or otherwise defunded rather than getting FDA approved. I dread the idea that someone I know to get sick and die because we're so ploddingly slow at doing these trials. For examp…

The funding models actually aren't removed from the actual human life-saving potential. The NIH has been pushing translational research pretty heavily, and if anything there's been a fair amount of pressure on the basic science types to tie their research to something, anything that will manifest in Saving Lives.

Beyond that, it absolutely should take drugs many years to come to market. Research is hard. Research on human beings is very hard. You can't just take shots in the dark and hope something sticks - you have to understand how, and how well, something works. Even for the established antivirals we do have for HIV, we're still trying to figure out who to give them to and when.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#52

Post by Fomite »

larrys wrote: post #37
giarc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This won't completely replace traditional antibiotics. As the article states this acts on Gram positive persister cells (a very specific group). The coming storm is from Gram negative bacteria such as Klebsiella, Actinetobacter and Pseudomonas. There is actually very little activity occurring in the field of antibiotic drug discovery and you identified the issue; no money in drugs that someone takes for 14 days and s…

"no money in drugs that someone takes for 14 days and stops. Pharmaceutical companies are driven by stockholders" You wonder of course why, if that is the case (and I do agree), that the government doesn't get involved with more funding or subsidies for these types of less profitable drugs. The same way they spend countless dollars on other things for the public good (and company profit obviously).

They have gotten involved in lightening the regulatory burden for certain drugs that are orphaned or for rare diseases, which is essentially a subsidy.

Also, the number of drug company booths at a recent infectious disease conference I went to suggests this whole "No interest in drugs that cure in three weeks" thing is...well...not actually true. These are incredibly common infections, there's plenty of market for them. Hell, the compound was initially discovered by Bayer.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#53

Post by rsync »

AaronFriel wrote: post #11

The most understated portion of the article is that there is a method discovered that can kill biofilms. The discovery of new antibiotics and delivery techniques leaves me less optimistic for long-term change in the availability of life-saving antibiotics. I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. Yet I'm optimistic, because tools that crack biofilms are a new are of…

"You can't treat a hospital room with an autoclave"

Hmmm... that sounds like an awfully good idea, actually...

Build the hospital room with the ability to be airtight, make sure all materials can withstand 134 C (or remove things that can't for their own cleaning) ... and autoclave the room ...

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#54

Post by giarc »

larrys wrote: post #37
giarc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This won't completely replace traditional antibiotics. As the article states this acts on Gram positive persister cells (a very specific group). The coming storm is from Gram negative bacteria such as Klebsiella, Actinetobacter and Pseudomonas. There is actually very little activity occurring in the field of antibiotic drug discovery and you identified the issue; no money in drugs that someone takes for 14 days and s…

"no money in drugs that someone takes for 14 days and stops. Pharmaceutical companies are driven by stockholders" You wonder of course why, if that is the case (and I do agree), that the government doesn't get involved with more funding or subsidies for these types of less profitable drugs. The same way they spend countless dollars on other things for the public good (and company profit obviously).

The government is involved, but through academia. For example in Canada we have the CIHR (Canadian Institutes of Health Research) which would fund develop of drug develop (among many other health research).

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#55

Post by giarc »

Fomite wrote: post #34
giarc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccines are a bit of a different class as some are exempt from adverse reaction lawsuits and therefore risk is reduced for the companies manufacturing the vaccine. I think your assessment that my argument is "wrong" is inappropriate. You'll see that my argument is supported by the WHO (Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2011;89:88–89). >Another reason is commercial. Antibiotics, in particular, have a poor ret…

And yet in a recent survey of drug development costs, "Difficid", by Optimer Pharmaceuticals, was one of the most inexpensive to develop. I also really don't buy the "return on investment" argument, as curing a bacterial disease rarely provides immunity. It's also not my experience as a researcher in the area - several drug companies are actively funding research.

Fidaxo also may not be that great or cost effective[1]. Optimer, I believe has been bought by Cubist and delisted from Nasdaq. 1. Clin Infect Dis. 2013 Aug;57(4):555-61

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#57

Post by shawn-furyan »

This is an awful headline change. National Geographic's title (Killing Sleeper Cells and Superbugs with Assassin Janitors) wasn't very descriptive, but at least it didn't leave room for a headline browser to take away the false conclusion that the CDC declared public health crisis of antibiotic resistance is near resolution.

According to the article, this new antibiotic has only been tested on mice and rats. These sort of preliminary results go bust all the time, and so I think that in this case, it's irresponsible to fail to indicate that these are preliminary studies and that the effect hasn't been demonstrated in humans. This could have been achieved by leaving the title the same, or by changing it to "New antibiotic kills off persistent infections in rats".

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#58

Post by Fomite »

giarc wrote: post #55
Fomite wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet in a recent survey of drug development costs, "Difficid", by Optimer Pharmaceuticals, was one of the most inexpensive to develop. I also really don't buy the "return on investment" argument, as curing a bacterial disease rarely provides immunity. It's also not my experience as a researcher in the area - several drug companies are actively funding research.

Fidaxo also may not be that great or cost effective[1]. Optimer, I believe has been bought by Cubist and delisted from Nasdaq. 1. Clin Infect Dis. 2013 Aug;57(4):555-61

I do know their most promising findings don't get reflected in clinical trials well. But "The Drug Companies aren't there" isn't addressed by a small drug company specializing in ID getting bought about by another drug company that has tons of ID products for half a billion dollars.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#59

Post by crusso »

_Adam wrote: post #29
AaronFriel wrote: post #11

The most understated portion of the article is that there is a method discovered that can kill biofilms. The discovery of new antibiotics and delivery techniques leaves me less optimistic for long-term change in the availability of life-saving antibiotics. I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. Yet I'm optimistic, because tools that crack biofilms are a new are of…

>I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. That's a baseless suspicion. Bacteria are ultimately bound by physical laws, and while they've proven resilient, there's no reason to suggest we will be unable to develop the means to annihilate them at will. Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast. I agree about the importance of the biofilm claim, but what they don'…

Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast

Yeah, but once we get good enough to annihilate them at will we will also have a similar power to improve them through tinkering.

Just like computer viruses continue to be developed by people, biological agents will be developed as well.

Some human tinkering will be for the heck of it. Some will be government level projects that get out of control. Eventually, organized crime will be in on the action.

Imagine Cryptolocker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker) but with a biological agent.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#60

Post by evacuationdrill »

Fomite wrote: post #30
davidjnelson wrote: post #28

I wonder if this approach will eventually be useful in eliminating Chronic Lyme Disease.

Doubtful, as there's little to no scientific evidence that Chronic Lyme Disease is actually a bacterial infection.

Hm, that's interesting.

"Approximately 10 to 20% of patients treated for Lyme disease with a recommended 2–4 week course of antibiotics will have lingering symptoms of fatigue, pain, or joint and muscle aches. In some cases, these can last for more than 6 months. Although often called 'chronic Lyme disease,' this condition is properly known as 'Post-treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome' (PTLDS).

The exact cause of PTLDS is not yet known. Most medical experts believe that the lingering symptoms are the result of residual damage to tissues and the immune system that occurred during the infection. Similar complications and 'auto–immune' responses are known to occur following other infections . . .

Regardless of the cause of PTLDS, studies have not shown that patients who received prolonged courses of antibiotics do better in the long run than patients treated with placebo."

http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/postLDS/index.html

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