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ResistiCure - Solving Antibiotic Resistance One Enzyme at a Tim
Have you ever fallen sick, went to the doctor and ended up with a strip of antibiotics with no idea why you were given it in the first place? Me too, and this overprescription of antibiotics is the leading cause for the antibiotic resistance epidemic. This increases cost of hospital stays, medicinal cost and chances of permanent organ damage!
The Modern Problem
- Ever since penicillin was discovered, bacteria have gotten more and more resistant to its efficacy and mode of action.
- Penicillin is a B-Lactam antibiotic and is one of the more simpler antibiotics in modern medicine, but bacteria are finding new and improved methods to resist and bypass its mode of action by mutations, causing an epidemic of antibiotic resistance.
- Once mutated bacteria gain resistance they form superbugs which spread like wildfire in hospitals causing severe public health threats. One might go to the hospital for treatment and end up getting infected by one of these 'superbugs' which have an extremely high mortality rate.
- To treat these resistant infections, more and stronger antibiotics are prescribed which ironically lead to development of resistance for the stronger variations of the antibiotics. (https://youtu.be/DqfAqIlZDQE?si=XXE_p0cBYO2aeGST)
The Gap
- The main gap in the products to overcome antibiotic resistance are - i) Low efficacyii) High rates of mutations to new solutions which limit long term effectiveness of the new therapeutics synthesised.iii) Lack of efficient drug delivery systems and specificity.
The Solution
- Broad spectrum inhibition: Creating inhibitors which bind to multiple types of B-lactamases ensuring effectiveness against diverse resistant strains, which directly addresses the specificity issue.
- Improved drug delivery: Using nano-carriers and cell penetrating peptides which help enzyme inhibitors cross bacterial cell walls.
- Using AI to design inhibitors for high specificity and low toxicity which quickly responds to resistant mutations. Making the drug highly personalized.
Why it matters to me:
- Furthering progress in this area is vital for us as a society to thrive in this modern era of mutating resistant pathogens.
- As a biotechnology student who wants to eventually go into the field of immunology and clinical research this topic is highly important and dear to me.
