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Nanomedicine Could Hold the Key to Treating Drug-Resistant Diseases
- Publisher：
- Publication：2011/4/11
IBM Research and the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology have developed a revolutionary drug-delivery technique that could provide an answer to treating notoriously drug-resistant superbugs.
The breakthrough in medical research, which involves new polymers designed to attack bacteria membranes directly, could successfully treat drug-resistant infectious diseases, including MRSA.
These nanostructures are physically attracted to infected cells, allowing them to selectively eradicate bacteria by actually breaking through the bacterial cell wall and membrane (unlike other antibiotics) without destroying the healthy cells around them.
The announcement by the two companies comes at the same time as dire warnings from the World Health Organization (WHO) over the threat of drug-resistance.
In a release issued on Wednesday, the WHO called for urgent action to safeguard drug treatments as "drug resistance is becoming more severe and many infections are no longer easily cured".
WHO director-general Dr Margaret Chan said: "In the absence of urgent corrective and protective actions, the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, kill unabated."
But chemists at IBM and the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology have custom-tailored nanoparticles to combat the issue of drug resistance.
Bob Allen, senior manager of the advanced materials chemistry department at IBM Research, explains the technology behind polymers: "When you put them in water they self-organise into nanoparticles that have an electrical shell around them and are highly attractive towards the membrane outer-coating of some of the superbugs that have become really problematic."
MRSA, which kills tens of thousands of people a year, is just one of the illnesses that the researchers at IBM believe this new technique to administer drugs will be treated with.
“We’re generally interested in taking our polymer technology and working on very important problems in healthcare," Allen said. "So we’re talking about materials for the high-speed diagnosis of things like cancer and being able to find and kill bad things such as tuberculosis and other very difficult medical problems.”
The chemistry department manager said clinical trials for the injectable form of the drug are unlikely to start within the next five years.
But he said that there have been preliminary talks with consumer product companies and pharmaceutical companies to use the technology for wound care and coatings for medical equipment, as well as coatings for soaps, detergents and toothpastes, which could be commercially available in the very near future.
Source:By Rebecca Edghill