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New antibiotics would silence bugs, not kill them http://apocadocs.com/s.pl?1234388161
In future, the most effective antibiotics might be those that don't kill any bacteria. Instead the drugs will simply prevent the bacteria from talking with one another.
Drug-resistant bugs are winning the war against standard antibiotics as they evolve resistance to even the most lethal drugs. It happens because a dose of antibiotics strongly selects for resistance by killing the most susceptible bacteria first.
If, however, researchers can identify antibiotics that neutralise dangerous bacteria without killing them, the pressure to evolve resistance can be reduced. One way to do that is to target the constant stream of chatter that passes between bacteria as molecular signals.... Individual bacteria monitor the concentration of signalling molecules, and when it reaches a certain level, change their behaviour. That concentration provides a rough indication of when the number of cells in a particular population has reached a certain critical mass - known as a quorum.
When a quorum is reached, pathogenic bacteria shift from a benign state and begin attacking the host by secreting toxins.
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[Read more stories about:
antibiotic resistance, pandemic, technical cleverness]
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