Live data from Hacker News

New bacteria, and two potential antibiotics, discovered in soil

rockefeller.edu

61–67 of 67 posts

Re: New bacteria, and two potential antibiotics, discovered in soil

#61
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

antibios are rotated in and out until wild strains are vulnerable again

That isn't how it works. Bacteria don't lose resistance over time, that's not how evolution works. A selective pressure was applied to evolve bacteria with resistance, unless there's evolutionarily pressure to lose that evolution, it doesn't get lost

yeah it actually works exactly like that. they do not need to expend the energy to keep being resistant if the solution is to create an anti-antibiotic or the efficiency of the structures that are changed to be resistant usually are less performant than the wild proteins.

Re: New bacteria, and two potential antibiotics, discovered in soil

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

antibios are rotated in and out until wild strains are vulnerable again

I have never heard about this before. Good news if true. Antibiotics seem to be a bit of a Tragedy of the Commons situation though; my intuition is that people should do this but probably won't.

they are banned from being produced country wide so there is no commons

Re: New bacteria, and two potential antibiotics, discovered in soil

#63
post #59
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're missing literally every biological, most antivirals, and the statins, and that's just off the top of my head.

I wouldn't say I'm missing them, Bob. Maybe you disagree, but I don't think infliximab or even rituximab is close to the same level of importance as things like penicillin, Thorazine, misoprostol, or oral rehydration therapy. Insulin is, and it's technically a biological, but it was pre-01962. I listed the three antivirals I think were revolutionary rather than evolutionary (all of which were post-01962), and I did l…

Sorry about my eyes glazing over - I think you are badly underselling how important the biologicals have been in recent decades, and also how there are both revolutionary but won't be used for various reasons mostly around cost (e.g. cas9 therapies) or haven't seen the full impact for yet (car-t therapies, which are wiping out the liquid cancers that the other biologicals didn't get)

Re: New bacteria, and two potential antibiotics, discovered in soil

#64

Turns out the old saying, "Let the kids play and eat dirt," might’ve been right all along—who knew? All this time, they might've been giving themselves tiny doses of natural antibacterials without even realizing it.

A lot of old ideas that seem nonsensical or superstitious at first often end up making logical sense over time. For instance on infected wounds the Egyptian's used poultices that included moldy bread which intuitively seems kind of... crazy. Except that mold likely included species of penicillium which would thousands of years later be accidentally [re]discovered and isolated as penicillin, so they likely were exploi…

Ron Reagan, My Father at 100:

> Many victims rapidly developed an especially viscous pneumonia and then, as one physician put it, “died struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth.” Medical science of the day was helpless before the onslaught. There was nothing Nelle’s doctor could do for her. Jack, who ordinarily attended mass on an intermittent basis, began lighting candles daily at the altar. The boys hovered anxiously, waiting for the doctor to pronounce the end. Instead, in desperation, he advised the family to feed her as much moldy cheese as she could stomach. There is no medical reason that a virus would respond to what the doctor may have supposed was a crude form of antibiotic. But Nelle recovered nonetheless, her indomitable will refusing to submit to a mere pathogen. For the rest of his life, my father would credit the cheese.

Re: New bacteria, and two potential antibiotics, discovered in soil

#65
post #63
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say I'm missing them, Bob. Maybe you disagree, but I don't think infliximab or even rituximab is close to the same level of importance as things like penicillin, Thorazine, misoprostol, or oral rehydration therapy. Insulin is, and it's technically a biological, but it was pre-01962. I listed the three antivirals I think were revolutionary rather than evolutionary (all of which were post-01962), and I did l…

Sorry about my eyes glazing over - I think you are badly underselling how important the biologicals have been in recent decades, and also how there are both revolutionary but won't be used for various reasons mostly around cost (e.g. cas9 therapies) or haven't seen the full impact for yet (car-t therapies, which are wiping out the liquid cancers that the other biologicals didn't get)

You could be right, especially if the costs come down.

Re: New bacteria, and two potential antibiotics, discovered in soil

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never heard about this before. Good news if true. Antibiotics seem to be a bit of a Tragedy of the Commons situation though; my intuition is that people should do this but probably won't.

they are banned from being produced country wide so there is no commons

I’m not sure what country you are referring to, but the commons in this context is the earth.

Re: New bacteria, and two potential antibiotics, discovered in soil

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are banned from being produced country wide so there is no commons

I’m not sure what country you are referring to, but the commons in this context is the earth.

any country. they are rotated almost globally because they do not work anywas.
Post reply on HN