Have you been prescribed antibiotics by your doctor and failed to follow the protocol?  Oh, yes, I know, you felt better after a week, so why keep taking the antibiotic? It’s because the bacteria are still in your system, dying off.  If you stop the treatment, those microbes can then survive and develop resistance to that antibiotic.  After a while, we have created a generation of “superbugs” that are immune to our arsenal of antibacterials.  And, that is a real problem.

Couple that with the fact that our original antibiotics were developed because they targeted a metabolic pathway in the cell.  That’s one of the easier impediments against which microbes can mutate and become resistant.  It’s why more of our research studies are now targeting the cell membrane or wall- that means it is not so easy for the microbe to develop resistance to the drug.  This is so promising an avenue, that besides Big Pharma, IBM is looking into the concept.  Drs. Hedrick (senior author), Nederberg, and Fukushima worked with researchers in Singapore (Dr. Yi Ying Yang is the co-senior author).  IBM partnered with these folks who did the biological testing for which IBM lacks the facilities; the results were published their results in Nature Chemistry.

They are creating nanoparticles (materials some 50000 times thinner than human hair) that target the bacterial membrane, but are (presumably) harmless in the body.  The nanoparticle is based upon  a backbone (central element) that is water soluble and targeted at the membrane. (The backbone has an electrical charge opposite to that of the membrane.)  To this central component of the molecule, hydrophobic components are attached.  Once placed in water, the hydrophobic ends contort the compound into a spherical nanoparticle (where the central component is the membrane-attacking component).  Conventional nanoparticles are non-biodegradable polymers; these compounds are biodegradable and metal free.

The array of three new polymers was tested against Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (called MRSA), Enterococcus faecalis,  and Cryptococcus neoformans, and some fungi. The nanoparticles were able to permeate the gram positive microbes and kill them, as well as some of the fungi.  IBM is also developing nanoparticles that will be effective against gram negative bacteria, as well.  The particles can be produced with various shapes, charges, water solubility, among other material  properties.  It is not clear if the preferred avenue of administration will be intravenous injection or gel application to a wound or as preclusion against infection.

There is no guarantee that these lab experiments will translate to similar actions in the complex environment our bodies provide (vs. controlled theaters in the lab).  This has happened with other (non-nanoparticle) therapies that have targeted the bacterial membrane. Nor has it been determined that these nanoparticles are safe for use with humans; those tests are also on-going.

Oh, and don’t expect IBM to venture into the pharmaceutical business, either.  It will partner/license this technology, assuming it continues to show promise, to another entity that operates in this arena.  (IBM already generates some  $1 billion a year from intellectual property licenses!)

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