A Next-gen Cure for Killer Infections?

Today, deadly bacteria and viruses like Staphylococcus aureus and HIV run rampant, and because of this, science is doing its best to suppress, if not totally stop, the spread of these highly dangerous bacteria. However, as each day passes, more and more strains are being discovered, one more resistant to medicine and treatment than the other. Even now, when medicine has gotten very far, they still haven't found a way to cure the most dreaded diseases. However, this may all change with the discovery of one man named Kary Mullis. This man isn't your ordinary, run-of-the-mill researcher. Rather, he is a chemist who received a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1998 for finding a way to copy a strand of DNA.

The above video is a talk given by him in February 2009. It's entitled "Kary Mullis' next-gen cure for killer infections". Just looking at the title made me interested. The level of medicine today is already pretty high, right? And yet, they can't cure some of the deadliest diseases on Earth. You might think that this "next-gen" cure is some kind of wonder drug or possibly a very complicated procedure. You thought wrong. In fact, his proposed cure is a back-to-the-basics technology. It's simple yet innovative. Take a certain molecule, called alpha-gal epitope, that white blood cells love to eat, slap it onto a bacteria, and the white blood cell will eat it along witl the bacteria. Simple, right?

Now, let me delve further into the details. The way he presented it was very simple. All he had was his brain, a model of a molecule, and some slides. That's it. Yet, it was very comprehensive, so much that an ordinary high school student would easily understand it. The molecule alpha-gal epitope, he said, is something our cells “love to eat”. He had an idea. He said, ”If I could take this molecule, slap it onto a bacteria, a pathogen that was harmful to me...the immune system could immediately respond and take it out.” To simplify things further, he compared it to someone who was stopped for a traffic violation and suddenly the cop drops a bag of marijuana to your car and charged you with possession of marijuana. It was a “very, very fast way to get people of the street.” Same thing with the bacteria. Take the bacteria, clamp it onto the molecule, and it will be taken off your body quickly. However, for certain bacteria, it isn’t that simple. Our antibiotics now are getting less efficient due to the rise of tougher, more resistant bacteria. In order to solve this, he took some collaborators and started working on it. He said that if you could attach the molecule to a DNA aptamer, it will track down and “consume” the bacteria, thereby killing them. He tried this method on some rats infected with anthrax. And the result? 100% survival rate. After being given the procedure, the anthrax in the rats’ bodies was completely eliminated. And it was all thanks to a simple yet very effective procedure.

Even though his talk was short (lasting for only 5 minutes), it was full of information and ideas. I want to be a doctor someday, so this particular topic piqued my interest. Imagine all the possibilities this discovery could offer. Maybe, just maybe, even the toughest of the bacteria will be eliminated thanks to this. Millions of lives will be saved; mankind won’t have to worry anymore because of Kary Mullis’ discovery. Even the scientists at Yale have taken up his idea. Their method may not be exactly the same as his, but the concept is very similar. They are trying to see if it can be a possible cure for HIV and prostate cancer. They called it "antibody-recruiting molecule targeting HIV" (ARM-H) and "antibody-recruiting molecule targeting prostate cancer" (ARM-P). They said that since it won’t target necessary biological functions of the body, side effects could be lessened. It’s also cheap.

(The original article can be found at this link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091105165527.htm)

I think that, with the arrival of Mullis’ discovery, more lives can be saved. More deaths can be prevented. Even though it’s still young, it has lots of potential to truly be a next-gen cure for killer infections.

P.S. Before I forget, here is the link of the original website where the video came from:
http://www.ted.com/talks/kary_mullis_next_gen_cure_for_killer_infections.html