As Digital Journal has extensively covered, the world is facing a shortfall in antibiotics. This is due to the accelerating rate of antibiotic resistance among certain pathogenic bacteria. Many of these pathogens pose a particular risk to people who have undergone surgery and to those who have a weak or suppressed immune system (‘immunocompromised.’) Many infections from antibiotic resistant bacteria can emerge in hospital (hence the term ‘hospital acquired infection’; although there are also other community-based concerns.)
The proposal to use math to help find the answer to new antibiotics has been put forwards by Miriam Barlow and colleagues, from University of California. Essentially the new work involves the use of a special algorithm to decoded how bacterial genes create resistance. By deploying a ‘Correlated Probability Model’, researchers have focused on 15 β-lactam antibiotics.
The idea is to find ways to roll-time back, in a sense, and to find ways to make bacteria no longer resistant to antibiotics. This centers on findings ways to undo the mutations that have caused the resistance in the first place.
Talking with Scientific American, Barlow explains “We were pushing evolution forward, trying to predict how antibiotic resistance would evolve, and we saw a lot of trade-offs.”
The new research has been reported to the journal PLOS One, in a paper titled “Rational Design of Antibiotic Treatment Plans: A Treatment Strategy for Managing Evolution and Reversing Resistance.”
In related news, an economist has called upon on the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies to set up a $2 billion slush-fund to provide resources to universities so that microbiology departments can undertake research into new antibiotics.
