I just read an interesting book (“THE SECRET LIFE OF GERMS”). It is a harrowing account of how bacteria can kill us…and we humans are making the situation worse by the misuse of antibiotics. because of this carelessness, some strains of bacteria are now emerging, that are immune to all common antibiotic drugs-this is scarey. Also mentioned is the phenomenon of getting a severe infection by going to a hospital-doctors and nurses frequently do not wash their hands well, and thus spread germs around-leading to some very nasty situations.
After reading this, I wonder of large areas (like hospital rooms) can be totally disinfected-is it possible to totally destroy ALL microbial life (with microwaves or gamma radiation)? Seems like there would be a huge market for such a device…also, is it possible to genetically modify these harmful germs, and cause the harmless versions to compete with the dangerous ones? This might be the way to deal with germs like tuberculosis, staph, etc.
What would be the effect if we attempted to destroy all microbial life in certain environments-would this give rise to other problems?
We’d certainly miss E. coli, as they are essential to our metabolism.
well, since bacteria are essential to help dead tissue decay, we’d soon be up to our armpits in dead plant and animal life. They also help fix nitrogen in the soil, to keep it fertile. Without a proper bacterial mix in our colon, we’d all suffer horrible diarrhea. The presence of the normal bacteria in our colons, and genital tracts and skin also prevents more pathogenic strains of bacteria and fungus from taking a foothold.
So if all bacteria were gone, we’d be pretty much in trouble.
I think what he’s asking is could we eliminate all bacteria in a particular place, like an emergency room or other sensitive area, not all bacteria everywhere.
And my answer is, probably not. Internal bacteria aside (you know that the intestines, mouth, and vagina all have symbiotic bacteria, right?), I can’t think of any practical way to eliminate surface bacteria. Sure, we could strip everyone naked and put them through a bleach shower, but that’s a bit rough for patients entering an ER, and the minute you cough or breathe, there would be more bacteria coming out. Dosing the room with constant UV radiation would kill bacteria relatively quickly, but it would also give everyone in the room horrific sunburns.
Also, as Qadgop pointed out, there are normal, healthy skin bacteria that would need to be replaced after you left a sterile room, or you would run the risk of serious infections.
mischievous
p.s. Qadgop, do you offer intelligent responses to every single GQ offered, or only the ones I open up?
We cannot survive without many of our beneficial bacteria.
There is a lot of scary stuff in the world, but all your fears will cease completely upon your very natural death. It is the nature of all DNA that replicate themselves by a sexual method to die. That fact that our DNA have evolved consciousness and intelligence to fill one evolutionary niche after another until we arrived at homo sapiens is a threat only to each individual one of us. The species will not become extinct by bacteria and the DNA our intelligence has evolved to propogate will continue after all of us individuals are gone.
As John Maynard Keynes pointed out: In the long run we are all dead anyway.
OK, so I’ll admit that I am lost.
One interesting consequence of a suddenly germ free world might be a huge epidemic of allergies and autoimmune diseases. There is pretty convincing evidence (IMO) that exposure to germs, especially in childhood, confers protection against such maladies. Likewise, animals raised in completely germ free environments get more autoimmune diseases and allergic conditions than expected.
[Nitpick]I’m not sure if that’s strictly true; if you said “replicate solely by a sexual method” I’d be closer to being convinced.[/nitpick]
My idea regarding genetic modification was: could we breed a harmless, though very tenacious strain of staph bacteria, and set it loose. Would it then out-compete the dangerous strain, and thus remove the threat to humans? Would it also be possible to infect people with the non-harmful versions of dangerous bacteria, so that the dangerous strains would have no way to flourish in the body? Hmm…sounds like I should start filing patent applications!
My idea regarding genetic modification was: could we breed a harmless, though very tenacious strain of staph bacteria, and set it loose. Would it then out-compete the dangerous strain, and thus remove the threat to humans? Would it also be possible to infect people with the non-harmful versions of dangerous bacteria, so that the dangerous strains would have no way to flourish in the body? Hmm…sounds like I should start filing patent applications!
Sure, this sort of thing is a problem for biologists who use bacterial plamids to produce genetically engineered proteins. Bacteria that lose their recombinant plasmid will frequently grow faster than their plasmid containing neighbors. This is one reason why most of the different plasmids used for recombinant protein production contain genes for resistance to an antibiotic. It allows the biologists to knock back the agressive non-plasmid-containing strains.
Natural plasmids which confer drug resistance also have a reproductive cost for the bacteria they infect. That means that the non-resistant bugs frequently grow a bit faster, and will outcompete their difficult to kill cousins.
It’s been done. By evolution (or Mother Nature, or God/ess, whatever). Didn’t you read what Qadgop and I said above? There are harmless bacteria that live on your skin, in your mouth, etc, which protect you from nastier bacteria and other microoorganisms. Some people who study these beneficial strains of bacteria have found evidence that the human body encourages them to stay with as-yet-unidentified nutrients and/or attractive chemicals.
As for outcompeting non-benficial bacteria with mutant variants, it’s not going to happen. Think of it this way (and I’m oversimplifying here, but bear with me): the measure of fitness or “competitiveness” of a mutation to a strain of bacteria is weather or not it increases how many of that bacteria reproduce (i.e. divide). For invasive bacteria, the better they can invade/infect the human body, the more of them can reproduce. Therefore, any strain we introduce into the wild which has less ability to invade human bodies is by definition less fit and will die out.
The only way to go about this is to increase the aggressiveness of bacteria on our bodies. This aggression would have to be specifically directed toward other microorganisms, or else they would end up attacking their human hosts. Since many of these beneficial bacteria have yet to be identified, much less cloned, sequenced, studied, and the host/bacteria signalling worked out, this is a long, long way off. Especially since it is more than likely that ALL of your strains of beneficial bacteria would have to be altered at once, to avoid one from out-competing the others.
Not that people haven’t considered this before (so don’t go counting your patents). It pops up in various science fiction stories and speculative articles in respectable science journals. In some, they propose altering humans to be able to dispense with bacteria, in others, altering bacteria to better suit humans. Either is out of the range of current science.
mischievous
There are rooms that exist that are theoretically devoid of all bacterial life. In my company we call them “Clean Suites”, in other companies they call them “clean rooms” or “sterile suites”. There are various classes of these suites depending upon how clean they actually are, and depending upon whether you are counting bacterial contamination and particulate contamination or just one of these. Clean rooms are used for a variety of reasons. Some are used to keep bacteria in, some used to keep them out, and some aren’t used in regard to bacteria at all, but instead to prevent particulate matter like dust out, and bacterial elimination is just a side benefit.
My company produces recombinant proteins on a large scale, and it is important to prevent bacterial contamination in the bioreactors. However, even with precautions and clean suites, the bioreactors, do still get contaminated on occasion. In addition, it is extremely difficult to find people to work in clean suites. Full gowning is required whenever one enters the suite, and the suite is maintained as a self-contained entity, thus there is no entering or leaving without authorization.
Clean rooms simply aren’t practical to maintain in an environment where people must enter and exit frequently, like a hospital room. In addition to being cumbersome, gowning is quite a difficult and involved process.
I can’t imagine how one would go about finding a gene that would allow a non pathogenic species to out-compete a pathogenic species. One of the reasons for this is that the bacteria will evolve to be the best competitor in its niche. It’s what they do. Since a bacterium can divide every 20 minutes, clones are produced rapidly. This allows a bacterial species to rapidly evolve the best coping mechanism for competition in it’s environment. Generally when a genetic modification is added it doesn’t make the species more competitive, it makes them less. The E. coli species that I used for my small protein production was extremely non-competitive, and had to be coddled and babied so that its wild type cousin wouldn’t contaminate my media and kill my recombinant species by elbowing it out by growing more copiously.
This has already been done with tooth decay bacteria S. Mutans. They found a “super” version, then removed the gene which is the source of tooth decay (by converting carbos to lactic acid which etches dentin/enamel.) The acid-free S. Mutans pushes out the existing version and takes over your mouth, and your teeth stop decaying. A boon to candy companies everywhere?
I think they’ve just completed animal testing and are about to begin human testing.
Unfortunately, that particular strain of S. mutanshas to be “turned on” with a synthetic nutrient. They’ve also genetically modified a strain of Lactobacillus zeae to produce a antibiotic. That’s pretty cool.
Well see if they actually work.
The thing about microbes is they mutate at a very very rapid rate. The non-threatening strain can very well mutate into a deadly strain.
Yet evolution provides us with another method. It turns out that the virulence of a strain will decrease over time, especially those that need to be carried by humans.