09. R&D

Here are a few new, potential future remedies currently being studied now:

Native Herbs:

the Confederacy commissioned botanist Francis Porcher to compile a book on medicinal plants that could be used by battlefield physicians to treat sick or wounded soldiers. The plants featured in Mr. Porcher’s book were native to the southern United States, and some were used in traditional Native American medicine.
researchers prepared extracts from three plants described as antiseptics in Mr. Porcher’s book—the bark and galls of white oak (Quercus alba); leaves, root inner bark, and branch bark of tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera); and leaves of devil’s walking stick (Aralia spinosa).
Extracts from white oak inhibited the growth of all three bacteria. Extracts from all three plants inhibited biofilm formation—a process in which bacteria secrete substances that protect them against antibiotics and the immune system—in S. aureus. Extracts from devil’s walking stick also inhibited a signaling process in S. aureus called quorum sensing, which causes the bacteria to start secreting toxins.
These results suggest that the historical use of these three plants to treat wounds may actually have been helpful.

Nisin:

A new generation of natural antibiotics that target harmful micro-organisms such as MRSA

Tin Chlorin e6:

Researchers attached a light-sensitive antimicrobial drug to a protein fragment, or peptide, which latches onto a molecule on the surface of the superbug bacteria.

In this way methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bugs are targeted while human cells are left alone.

The antimicrobial agent, tin chlorin e6, releases destructive molecules that kill the bacteria when exposed to light of the right wavelength.

In tests, the therapy killed 99.97 per cent of 10 million MRSA cells and proved 1,000 times more effective than tin chlorin e6 without the targeting peptide.

The killing mechanism used makes it very unlikely that bacteria will develop resistance against the treatment

BU-005:

BU-005 -- blocks pumps that a bacterium employs to expel an antibacterial agent called chloramphenicol. The team used a new and highly efficient method for the synthesis of BU-005 and other C-capped dipetptides.

a new compound of C-capped dipeptides, called BU-005, to circumvent a family of drug-efflux pumps associated with Gram-positive bacteria, which include the dangerous MRSA and tuberculosis strains. Until that discovery, C-capped dipeptides were known to work only against an efflux pump family associated with Gram-negative bacteria.

"If drug efflux pumps are inhibited, then bacteria will be susceptible to drugs again,"

False Quorum-Sensing Molecules:

Bacteria are incredibly multi-drug-resistant right now, and that's because all of the antibiotics that we use kill bacteria.
We thought, well what if we could sort of do behavior modifications, just make these bacteria so they can't talk, they can't count, and they don't know how to launch violence.

And so that's exactly what we've done, and we've sort of taken 2 strategies. The first one is we've targeted the intraspecies communication system. So we made molecules that look kind of like the real molecules - which you saw - but they're a little bit different. And so they lock into those receptors, and they jam recognition of the real thing.

We've also don the same thing with the pink system. We've taken that universal molecule and turned it around a little bit so that we've made antagonists of the interspecies communication system. The hope is that these will be used as broad-spectrum antibiotics that work against all bacteria.

AQ+

An aqueous preparation containing 0.5% 8-hydroxyquinoline that disrupts the cell wall of S. aureus leading to cell lysis.

Cannabinoids:

All five major cannabinoids (cannabidiol (1b), cannabichromene (2), cannabigerol (3b), Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (4b), and cannabinol (5)) showed potent activity against a variety of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains of current clinical relevance.

Nanotechnology:

In an April 3, 2011 online article in Nature Chemistry, researchers from the IBM Almaden Research Center, Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore and Zhejiang University in China publish groundbreaking data on how biodegradable nanoparticles could be used to treat infectious diseases such as methillicin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

The research shows how nanoparticles can selectively disrupt microbial cell membranes, walls and inhibit the growth of gram-positive bacteria, MRSA and fungi.

What makes this research exciting, is that the nanoparticles did not cause haemolysis or break-up of red blood cells. The authors note that nanoparticles for the treatment of infectious diseases could be “synthesized in large quantities and at low cost” and are therefore “promising as anti-microbial drugs.”

Researchers at International Business Machines Corp. said they developed a tiny drug, called a nanoparticle, that in test-tube experiments showed promise as a weapon against dangerous superbugs that have become resistant to antibiotics.

The company's researchers, in collaboration with scientists at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Singapore, said their nanoparticle can target and destroy antibiotic-resistant bacteria—such as the potentially lethal Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA—without affecting healthy cells.

The nanoparticle, 50,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair, is designed with a specific electrical charge that is attracted by an opposite charge on the surface of the membrane of MRSA and other bacteria

"It's like the north pole and the south pole," Dr. Hedrick said, referring to the magnetic-like attraction of poles with opposite electrical charges. "The particles disrupt the membrane, generate holes in it and empty out" the bacteria. The researchers believe the resulting destruction of the bacteria renders them unable to develop resistance to the nanoparticles.

The IBM drug "goes well beyond the normal method of action of standard antibiotics," said Mario Raviglione, an infectious-disease expert at the Geneva-based World Health Organization, who was informed of the technology by IBM. "It's like a missile against the cell."

"It turns out that we've discovered a lot of ways to control materials at the molecular level as we went through building microelectronic devices," Dr. Hedrick said.

In addition to its electrical charge, the new particle is biodegradable. "The materials are designed to go in there, do their business and go away," Dr. Hedrick said.

textiles which will kill the MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) superbug. The BioElectricSurface Research Team has used nanomaterials on textiles used in hospital drapes, bed linens and upholstery. Nanomaterials, which are a thousand times smaller than a human hair, are known to possess extra-ordinary properties that the team has harnessed to develop this technology to fight MRSA.
They have embedded both commercial and custom-made nanoparticles into textiles through a patent-pending process that is effective against MRSA and other superbugs. The patent pending process ensures the nanoparticles adhere tightly to the textile which is an essential feature in commercialisation as it minimises "free" or "loose" nanoparticles.

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