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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
 Posted - 11/15/2005 : 01:48:53
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Another interesting Article by Carl Zimmer.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold quote:
Michael Zasloff, a scientist then at NIH, was impressed by how well a frog in his lab recovered from an incision he had made in its skin during an experiment. He kept his frogs in a tank that must have been rife with bacteria that should have turned the incision into a deadly maw of infection. Zasloff wondered if something in the skin of the frog was blocking the bacteria. After months of searching, he found it. The frogs produced an antibiotic radically unlike the sort that doctors prescribed their patients.
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
 Posted - 11/15/2005 : 20:03:55 [Permalink]
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| Neat read... ya never know I suppose, but their comments in the latter part of the article seem to imply nature might adapt "awful fast" to such "mechanical-attack" antipathogenic approaches (???) I'm not a "bio-guy" so I don't really know, but it was an interesting reminder of the semi-coincidental way Man found the basic chemistry of the antibiotics we have, which are are a speck of sand in the massive mountains of the biologically active structural variants in Nature. Maybe new understanding will enable us to do better than just hoping to "stumble onto" the next generation of "miracle drugs" before the bugs grow longer fangs and get meaner (at least I hope so.) |
Ron White |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/16/2005 : 02:31:43 [Permalink]
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quote:
Maybe new understanding will enable us to do better than just hoping to "stumble onto" the next generation of "miracle drugs" before the bugs grow longer fangs and get meaner (at least I hope so.)
The bugs already have pretty long teeth. There is a resistant strain or Staff out there that makes a cytotoxin specific to human white blood cells. Fortunately it isn't something extremely virulent.
Personally I think (just pure speculation here, so take it as that) that improved understanding of molecular biology and the specific functions of genes, and how to manipulate those genes, will result in new ways to approach infectious disease. Here's to hoping, anyway.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
Posted - 11/16/2005 : 04:44:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
... improved understanding of molecular biology and the specific functions of genes, and how to manipulate those genes ...
It seems that's where the excitement's at these days, and I read they have a few other angles they're looking at. One is numerical modeling of the electromagnetic affinities at receptor sites, the idea being to enable designing molecules which will find their way there, and fit into them. That seems to be in it's infancy, though... I read that the details of all but a few receptors isn't well enough understood as of yet, and it's a monumental computational task (that's why the pharmaceutical companies aren't heavily investing in that area... yet.)
Decades ago I worked for R&D division of insecticide company- they'd procure thousands of 1-gram samples of new compounds from synthetic chemists at universities, look the structures over, and decide which might have antiherbal/antifungal/insecticidal properties and hence justify having the bio labs design/run tests was just "educated guesswork"... hit-and-miss (usually miss.) The few that made it past that were subject to human toxicology/carcenogenic considerations. Very hafhazard guessing, very expensive process. Was told pharmaceutical research operated much the same way. It was disappointing to me that a more strategic and systematic approach wasn't available.
Might be getting closer.
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Ron White |
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