Incurable MRSA and beyond.

[Phanerothyme 12]

So Colistin resistant bacteria, with the readily transferable gene that confers resistance, have arrived in the UK.

 

No known antibiotics can deal with it. It's only a matter of time before we have completely antibiotic resistant bacteria, and we're back at the dawn of a neo-pre-Fleming era.

 

Anyone have an optimistic best case scenario to cheer me up?

[tinfoilhat 11]

So Colistin resistant bacteria, with the readily transferable gene that confers resistance, have arrived in the UK.

 

No known antibiotics can deal with it. It's only a matter of time before we have completely antibiotic resistant bacteria, and we're back at the dawn of a neo-pre-Fleming era.

 

Anyone have an optimistic best case scenario to cheer me up?

 

It is the best case really. In my best Dave angel voice, Mother Earth cannot support 9.6 billion people which is what the UN think it will in 2050. I hope I'm dead by then.

[whiteowl 54]

So Colistin resistant bacteria, with the readily transferable gene that confers resistance, have arrived in the UK.

 

No known antibiotics can deal with it. It's only a matter of time before we have completely antibiotic resistant bacteria, and we're back at the dawn of a neo-pre-Fleming era.

 

Anyone have an optimistic best case scenario to cheer me up?

 

Sorry, the only thing I have is that "necessity is the mother of invention". We're quite a creative species so fingers crossed !

[Phanerothyme 12]

Well,thanks for trying all the same.

[lottiecass 17]

Thing is not many people realise how close we are to this happening.The last time I was hospitalised,I said to the surgeon hope I don't get mrsa and he said there was worse,scary thing to come out with.So hope you're right whiteowl.

[Manlinose 10]

It is profit driven, the drug companies will develop new anti biotic when the demand is worth it

 

Or Governments will fund the research and development out of necessity

 

The Chinese are probably already working on it

[RootsBooster 24]

So Colistin resistant bacteria, with the readily transferable gene that confers resistance, have arrived in the UK.

 

No known antibiotics can deal with it. It's only a matter of time before we have completely antibiotic resistant bacteria, and we're back at the dawn of a neo-pre-Fleming era.

 

Anyone have an optimistic best case scenario to cheer me up?

 

Dennis Quaid

.

Or nanobots maybe.

[tzijlstra 11]

Decades of pumping people and animals full of antibiotics whilst knowing that this increased resistance. We are not as smart as we think after all when the people who study longest are the ones prescribing the stuff like candy despite all the warning signs.

 

At least Bayer and co made a good profit.

 

 

 

Edit: Forgot the cheering up - gene therapy.

[unbeliever 10]

There's a lot of work being done on studying how antibiotics work which was not previously possible. Using stochastic imaging techniques such as STORM it is becoming possible to get visual images of (amongst other things) antibiotics attacking MRSA and the like. This was previously deemed impossible because of the diffraction limit which is basically a law saying essential that you can't use light to look at things less than a few hundred nanometers in size. Using stochastic imaging gets you around that law because it lights up one molecule at a time and therefore evades the problem of one molecule getting blurred with the next one.

A little more advancement in this field and it will be possible basically look at superbugs under a super-microscope, find their weaknesses, and craft pharmaceuticals to kill them.

 

Those developing antibiotics will no longer have to stumble across them in nature or try stab in the dark.

There's a fair amount of work being done in the Physics and Molecular Biology and Biotechnology departments at Shef Uni.

 

Nanobots are a long way off being a practical technology. Our chemists, biologists and their friends in physics have better ideas for the near future.

 

The bugs have been making a comeback in the last 20 years no doubt, but we're not beaten yet by a long shot and my money is on the humans.

[Annina 11]

I'm with Tinfoilhat, germs are natures way of thinning out the population, time we had another Plague, there are far too many of us bu^^%$£"g this planet up