Comments on: There's More Than One Way To Skin A Bacterium

By: Karl Hallowell

Karl Hallowell — Tue, 17 May 2005 20:22:01 +0000

It is hard to imagine a genetic mutation that would allow bacteria to survive a punctured cell membrane.

Hmmm, how about double walls and/or better self-repair mechanisms coupled with some sort of tear control system. Eg, have ribs or some sort of fibre embedded in the cell wall that doesn’t patch the hole, but helps resist expansion of a tear in the cell wall. Ie, if the cell doesn’t tear apart but only developes a small hole that can be plugged and repaired, then that would be effective.

My take is that this might require some serious changes in the internal chemistry of the cell since a big part of the problem appears to be that the cell is under a substantial amount of pressure (due to the salinity difference between the cell and its external environment).

By: Brent Michael Krupp

Brent Michael Krupp — Tue, 17 May 2005 10:44:37 +0000

This sounds like another great topical antimicrobial, which we already have plenty of (and topical includes stuff you can swallow to clean the gut). It’s easy to kill bugs if you can rely on skin and/or intestinal lining to protect delicate human parts.

It doesn’t sound like it would be safe if given IV, as Jim suggests. What we need is new IV antimicrobials.

By: chengjih

chengjih — Tue, 17 May 2005 09:22:21 +0000

From the Wired article, it looks like it’s used for external applications, i.e., it’s used on surface wounds and so on. There shouldn’t be a problem killing immune cells in this case: it’d be similar to using alcohol prep pads to disinfect a patch of skin, but apparently in a far more effective (and deeply penetrating) manner.

This doesn’t appear to be an antibiotic you’d ingest and expect to see results. There was something in the Wired article about it being harmless when ingested, beyond really cleaning the teeth.

By: Stephen Gordon

Stephen Gordon — Tue, 17 May 2005 08:25:58 +0000

Jim:

You said:

“I wonder if this has any relationship to the article elsewhere in the Speculist about finding factors which all engineered pathogens have in common with each other (and not with us) and engineering things to kill them.”

Absolutely…in a Sun Tsu kinda way:

“If you know yourself as well as your enemy, you will come out of one hundred battles with one hundred victories.”

You said, “Won’t it be interesting if a doomsday weapon system becomes obsolete before it’s even fully developed?”

It would be awesome. But no defense has ever been perfect.

I imagine this would kill off your intestinal flora. Antibiotics do that today. You’ll have to replenish it by consuming active cultures.

By: Jim Strickland

Jim Strickland — Mon, 16 May 2005 16:27:02 +0000

I wonder if this has any relationship to the article elsewhere in the Speculist about finding factors which all engineered pathogens have in common with each other (and not with us) and engineering things to kill them. It seems to me that if this works in vitro (and the announcement by the company suggests that it may) not only would it be a massively effective antibiotic for naturally occurring diseases, but an excellent trump card against genetically engineered plagues. Won’t it be interesting if a doomsday weapon system becomes obsolete before it’s even fully developed?

Of course, I’m having a hard time understanding how this stuff would fail to kill, for example, immune system cells, which function as single celled organisms inside your body. And what it would do to your intestinal flora balance (likewise for mucous membranes) doesn’t sound like much fun, but still.

I wonder also if it mightn’t make a good spermacide?

Interesting technology here. Welcome to the age of molecular engineering.

-HH