{"id":97593,"date":"2020-12-14T15:37:14","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T20:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=97593"},"modified":"2020-12-14T18:59:42","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T23:59:42","slug":"an-alternative-to-antiobiotics-smart-researchers-use-lysins-to-selectively-target-bacteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=97593","title":{"rendered":"An alternative to Antiobiotics? SMART researchers use lysins to selectively target bacteria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers from the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG) at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT\u2019s research enterprise in Singapore, have developed a method to produce customizable engineered lysins that can be used to selectively kill bacteria of interest while leaving others unharmed. The discovery presents a promising alternative to antibiotics for treating existing drug-resistant bacteria and bacterial infections without the risk of causing resistance.<\/p>\n<p>Lysins are enzymes produced by bacteriophages to break open the bacteria cells while treating infections, and have demonstrated potential as a novel class of antimicrobials. A major advantage of lysins is that they allow fast and targeted killing against a specific bacterium of choice without inducing resistance.<\/p>\n<p>The emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria has left even minor bacterial infections incurable by many existing antibiotics, with at least 700,000 deaths each year due to drug-resistant diseases, according to the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.mit.edu\/2020\/smart-researchers-use-lysins-selectively-target-bacteria-1210\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">RT SMART researchers use lysins to selectively target bacteria <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3JC9GZqRir\">https:\/\/t.co\/3JC9GZqRir<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zhquqp8mTx\">pic.twitter.com\/zhquqp8mTx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Reluctant Quant (@DrMattCrowson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrMattCrowson\/status\/1337135263454130176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 10, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers from the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG) at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT\u2019s research enterprise in Singapore, have developed a method to produce customizable engineered lysins that can be used to selectively kill bacteria<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=97593\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,104,95,490],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drugsdrug-addiction","category-health-medicine","category-science-technology","category-singapore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97593"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97595,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97593\/revisions\/97595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}