No Result
View All Result
Friday, June 27, 2025
MM News
اردو
  • Home
  • Latest News
  • National
  • Showbiz
    Images: Online

    Neeru Bajwa unfollows Hania Aamir on Instagram, deletes Sardaar Ji 3 posts

    file photo

    Hania Aamir’s Sardaar Ji 3 to hit Pakistani cinemas today

    Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

    Netflix’s The Waterfront: Stream it or skip it?

    Netflix

    Netflix gears up for July 2025 with exciting new films and series

    Rabeeca Khan and Hussain Tareen

    Rabeeca Khan and Hussain Tareen tie the knot in nikkah ceremony

    Cillian Murphy in Steve (Netflix)

    Steve: Everything to know about Cillian Murphy’s upcoming Netflix movie

  • Thought Box
  • Business
  • Opinions
  • Technology
  • The Other Side
MM News
  • Home
  • Latest News
  • National
  • Showbiz
    Images: Online

    Neeru Bajwa unfollows Hania Aamir on Instagram, deletes Sardaar Ji 3 posts

    file photo

    Hania Aamir’s Sardaar Ji 3 to hit Pakistani cinemas today

    Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

    Netflix’s The Waterfront: Stream it or skip it?

    Netflix

    Netflix gears up for July 2025 with exciting new films and series

    Rabeeca Khan and Hussain Tareen

    Rabeeca Khan and Hussain Tareen tie the knot in nikkah ceremony

    Cillian Murphy in Steve (Netflix)

    Steve: Everything to know about Cillian Murphy’s upcoming Netflix movie

  • Thought Box
  • Business
  • Opinions
  • Technology
  • The Other Side
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
MM News
اردو
  • Latest
  • Showbiz
  • Thought Box
  • Business & Stock
  • Opinions
  • Technology
  • The Other Side-Pakistan
Home Uncategorized

Treating untreatable infections: Researchers create new bacteria-killing compound

MM News Staff by MM News Staff
February 7, 2023

Princeton Engineering researchers have found a compound that can kill bacteria that cause incurable infections, with the potential to address the current drug-resistance crisis.

Also read: Australia approves MDMA and Psilocybin as Medicines

The compound, called cloacaenodin (chloa-say-nodin), is a short, slip-knotted chain of amino acids known as a lasso peptide, encoded by gut-dwelling bacteria as a defense mechanism. Peptides do all kinds of things in the body and have been used in a wide range of medical treatments. This peptide works by attacking rival bacteria, and it’s a very potent killer, according to A. James Link, professor of chemical and biological engineering. If harnessed by science, it could be redirected to fight infections that are not treatable by today’s medicines.

When released, the peptide hooks into a target cell’s RNA-producing enzymes and shuts down basic cell functions. It targets an especially fearsome group of pathogens belonging to the genus Enterobacter, which the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified as a primary driver in an accelerating global crisis: bacterial infections that increasingly do not respond to conventional antibiotics.

“Not only does [this peptide] kill off-the-shelf, historical Enterobacter strains, it also kills Enterobacter strains that actually have come from patients in the hospital and that are drug-resistant,” said Link, who published a paper on the findings in ACS Infectious Diseases.

Link’s research group has discovered several peptides in this same class — structured with a ring knotted to a tail that threads back down through the ring, like a lasso in a rodeo trick — that show promising antibacterial properties. He said cloacaenodin is unique because it can kill clinically relevant drug-resistant strains, making it a promising subject for antibiotic development. The finding also suggests his peptide-mining and synthetic biology techniques could reveal more antimicrobial compounds with strong drug-development potential, an essential step in quelling the growing superbug crisis.

“If it’s made by one Enterobacter species, it’s likely going to kill other species of Enterobacter. So it’s this sort of guilt-by-association approach,” Link said. This gives researchers a way to prioritize peptide-mining hits since peptides that are encoded in strains related to pathogens are more likely to have interesting bioactivity, he said.

An urgent need for new approaches

Ever since Anne Miller’s fever broke on March 14, 1942, making her the first person ever saved by an antibiotic, humans have been simultaneously staving off deadly bacteria in the short run and saving millions of lives but also making infections harder to treat in the long run. Call it the law of unintended consequences. Some microbes have evolved rapidly to overwhelm our best efforts to destroy them.

Also read: Ultra-Processed foods linked to increased risk of cancer, death: Study

The CDC has identified some Enterobacter species as a particularly urgent threat. Although harmless in the human gut, where they are common, when these bacteria enter the airways or urinary tract, they can cause serious infections. Many evade all known medicines, including a highly effective class of antibiotics known as carbapenems. So-called multi-drug resistance has ballooned over the past two decades. Untreatable infections now claim around a million lives each year, with that number projected to surpass cancer’s death toll and reach 10 million per year by 2050, according to a 2019 United Nations report.

Market forces exacerbate the problem, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Big pharmaceutical companies have strong financial incentives to pursue treatments for chronic conditions, where patient demand stretches over years. Because infections are treated in short finite intervals, profits from new antibiotics are relatively constrained. Adding to that, to slow drug-resistance dynamics, doctors tend to use newer drugs only after older drugs fail, leading to sluggish demand for small firms. And many new antibiotics don’t present a clear advantage over cheaper, more familiar drugs. Over the past decade, several high-profile biotech startup companies with FDA-approved antibiotic treatments have collapsed under these economic conditions.

Also read: Promising new method could replace injections with pills

All of this has slowed the antibiotic-development pipeline to a trickle. The WHO has called the outlook “bleak.” A recent report said that the “lack of diverse compounds suitable for bacterial treatment” and the “absence of new, suitable chemical matter to serve as leads for drug discovery is a major bottleneck in antibiotic discovery.”The non-profit organization CARB-X, run out of Boston University, has said developing new classes of antibiotics is the best strategy in addressing this urgent need. “You need a diversity of products,” said CARB-X research and development chief Dr. Erin Duffy. “You need antibiotics — things that kill bacteria once you have an infection — and you need different classes, multiple classes.” More than 20 classes of antibiotics were marketed in the two decades after Anne Miller’s miraculous recovery. But since 1962 only two new antibiotic classes have made it to market, and neither treats the most resistant kinds of infections.

“It’s one thing to kill bacteria,” said Drew Carson, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in chemical and biological engineering and the paper’s first author. “It’s another thing to kill bacteria that can actually make people really sick.”

A guilt-by-association approach

While cloacaenodin shows strong antibacterial properties, it’s only the first of many steps to a new treatment. Determining a compound’s safety is difficult and expensive, and moving from initial testing through the regulatory process takes a minimum of 10 years. Duffy said that, historically, some peptides have proven toxic to the kidneys, curbing their use in drugs. But peptides with bacterial-selective activity that don’t harm animal cells will likely lack this toxicity, according to Link.

But this new compound shows promising antibacterial properties and the researchers have only just begun to consider what comes next. They plan to start by testing it in animal infection models to confirm that it can clear the infection and that it is safe for animal cells. More broadly, however, this compound’s discovery suggests that Link and his team have developed a peptide-mining toolkit that will turn up many other interesting compounds in the future, and there is no telling where that will lead.

“The way that we find these peptides is by looking at the genome sequence of an organism,” Link said. “If you give us any DNA sequence, we can very rapidly and very accurately figure out if there’s a lasso peptide encoded within it. We also know about certain sequences within lasso peptides which means there’s a good chance that they’re antimicrobial. And that’s how we homed in on this one.”

Link said there are thousands of Enterobacter genome sequences that have been entered into scientific databases, and the lasso peptide his team discovered is found in only a handful. One of those organisms came from a hospital patient who had a lung infection. And because of his guilt-by-association approach to finding the peptide, they knew it would likely kill many related organisms that don’t have the exact same genes.

“We tested it against a dozen or so strains and saw activity,” Link said, referring to antibacterial activity. “But it potentially has activity against several hundred and maybe even thousands of these sequenced isolates of Enterobacter.”

 

ShareTweetSendShare
Previous Post

The Weeknd’s 2016 song ‘Die for You’ tops Radio Songs chart

Next Post

Cancer scientists develop AI Algorithm to tackle deadly Glioblastoma

Related Stories

File photo
Business & Stock

FBR, banks to share data to curb tax evasion

June 26, 2025
File photo
Uncategorized

MDCAT 2025: Expected entry test date in Pakistan announced

June 25, 2025
File photo
Uncategorized

Hunza’s Lexus hotel hit by flash flood

June 25, 2025
File photo
Uncategorized

Malala Yousafzai launches ‘Recess’ to empower women and girls through sports

June 25, 2025
Representational image
Transport

Monsoon rains: PAA issues advisory to pilots over birds

June 25, 2025
SC
Uncategorized

Supreme Court reduces LLB duration to four years

June 25, 2025
File photo.
Uncategorized

SUPARCO predicts Muharram 2005 moon sighting date in Pakistan 

June 24, 2025
(File Photo)
Uncategorized

Actor Yasir Nawaz’s brother Waqar Nawaz passes away

June 24, 2025
In this file photo, a man walks along a dried-up stretch of land in Balochistan. (Image: Asim Khan via Dawn.com)
Uncategorized

Asia warming nearly twice as fast as global average: report

June 24, 2025
File photo
Uncategorized

Pakistan’s Directorate of Passports highlights major service improvements in annual report

June 24, 2025
Next Post

Cancer scientists develop AI Algorithm to tackle deadly Glioblastoma

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Trending Stories

file photo
Transport

Fitness certificate made mandatory for motorcycles in Punjab

by MM News Staff
June 27, 2025
representative image
Business & Stock

Gold rates drop, oil prices surge in international market

by MM News Staff
June 27, 2025
Images: Online
Film & TV

Neeru Bajwa unfollows Hania Aamir on Instagram, deletes Sardaar Ji 3 posts

by MM News Staff
June 27, 2025
file photo
Film & TV

Hania Aamir’s Sardaar Ji 3 to hit Pakistani cinemas today

by MM News Staff
June 27, 2025
representative image
Business & Stock

Pakistan’s foreign reserves see  significant drop

by MM News Staff
June 27, 2025

Opinion

munir ahmed oped
“Run Lola Run” – More than a movie to cultural bridging
June 27, 2025
- Munir Ahmed
munir ahmed oped
Ceasefire or a Smokescreen? The US-Iran Next Dialogue of Disillusions
June 26, 2025
- Munir Ahmed
dr shahbaz
Israel-Iran War and Supply Chain of World Economy
June 25, 2025
- Dr. Muhammad Shahbaz
No posts found
See all

Weather Updates

file photo
Top News

Will Karachi receive more rain today?

by MM News Staff
June 27, 2025

Yes, cloudy skies currently cover most parts of Karachi, and according to the Pakistan...

File photo

Karachi receives heavy rain with thunderstorm

June 26, 2025
Maryam Nawaz

Maryam Nawaz makes surprise visit to rain-hit areas of Lahore

June 26, 2025
Rains

Heavy rains and thunderstorms forecast for Karachi from Friday to Sunday

June 26, 2025
See all

Prices

representative image
Business & Stock

Gold rates in Pakistan today- Friday, 27 June 2025

by MM News Staff
June 27, 2025

The following are the current gold rates in Pakistan on Friday, June 27, 2025....

(File)

Gold price gains Rs1,335 per tola

June 26, 2025
Gold prices

Latest gold prices in Pakistan – June 26, 2025

June 26, 2025
Foreign Currency Rates

Foreign currency exchange rates in Pakistan, 26 June 2025

June 26, 2025
See all

Transport News

file photo
Transport

Fitness certificate made mandatory for motorcycles in Punjab

by MM News Staff
June 27, 2025

The Punjab government has made it mandatory for motorcycles to obtain a fitness certificate,...

(File Photo)

Bykea introduces digital payment to promote cashless mobility

June 26, 2025
File photo

Lahore Airport closure announced from July 1 to September 15

June 26, 2025

Pillion riding banned in Sindh for Muharram 9, 10

June 25, 2025
See all

MM Digital (Pvt.) Ltd.

MM News is a subsidiary of the MM Group of Companies. It was established in 2019 with the aim of providing people of Pakistan access to unbiased information. Contact Details: 03200201537

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Advertise
  • MM News Urdu
  • The Other Side-Pakistan
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

Top Pages

  • Latest News
  • Showbiz
  • OP-ED
  • Technology
No Result
View All Result
  • Latest News
  • Showbiz
  • Thought Box
  • Business
  • Opinions
  • Technology

© Copyright 2024 MMNews - All Rights Reserved.