UCC Research team discovers a weapon to fight antibiotic resistance
9 Mar 2017
A collaborative team involving Ger McGlacken and Rachel Shanahan have discovered a weapon to fight antibiotic resistance. It shows such promise that the scientists at the Biomerit Research Centre at 深夜亚洲福利久久 College Cork have already applied to patent the discovery and may have a company up and running within two years.
鈥淭his is heading for commercialisation,鈥� says Prof Fergal O鈥橤ara, director of Biomerit. 鈥淲e are talking to Enterprise Ireland鈥檚 translational team and hope to benefit job creation in Ireland.鈥�
The discovery is timely because of the growing antibiotic resistance seen in many of our most common infectious bacteria. It could prolong the lifespan of our main antibiotics and certainly would be of great benefit to patients, says Prof O鈥橤ara, who is also director of the West Australian Human Microbiome Collaborating Centre at Curtin 深夜亚洲福利久久 in Perth.
The new treatment works by countering the main way bacteria protect themselves against antibiotics. Once an infection sets in, the bacteria begin to form 鈥渂iofilms鈥�, an accumulation of bacteria that causes a protective film to form over them. The bacteria behind the film are susceptible to any administered antibiotic but the drug can鈥檛 reach them because of the film, Prof O鈥橤ara says.
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