My wife had a recent episode with a recurring infection-antibiotic #1 didn’t work, antibiotic #2 didn’t work-finally her doctor prescribed Cypro-which (thankfully) knocked out the infection.
Now, given that many antibiotics are becoming useless (due to the bacteria involved evolving resistance), have researchers looked in to modifying disease germs?
My idea would be to modify disease so that they live within the host (us) without killing us. Then, the harmless strains wold crowd out the deadly ones, and save us from them. Would this idea work?
One problem is, some of the things that make disease bacteria harmful are also things that make them more likely to spread. Cholera is an example of this. It causes large quantities of diarrhea, which contain cholera bacteria. The diarrhea is a way to spread cholera bacteria to other people. Cholera bacteria that didn’t cause diarrhea would spread much less efficiently than ones that do, and would get out-competed. And then we’re right back where we started.
We genetically modify bacteria and viruses (including pathogenic ones) in my laboratory on a daily basis.
it is, in general, much easier to make something more pathogenic than less pathogenic. We are currently doing this for certain pathogens that do not affect humans, but rather pest organisms.
There are plenty of people looking at ways to attenuate pathogens by genetic engineering. This is more often done on viruses rather than bacteria for purposes of developing vaccines (vaccines are much easier in general to make for viruses rather that bacteria).
Many vaccines are made from attenuated strains of viruses, and in the case of the TB vaccine, it is made from BCG, an attenuated strain derived from Mycobacterium bovis, which is related to M. tuberculosis (causes TB in humans).
Have they gotten anywhere using bateriophages? I remember reading a while back that they were being investigated as a means of stopping resistant strains of bacteria.
You can make some bacteria or virus less virulent, or less dangerous to the host. But how do you make it so it outcompetes the “bad” version? By definition, something that grows in the gut faster and more densely than normal cholera probably means a lot of foreign orgnaisms in your gut. then what? You have to train your body not to attack that?
The reason many diseases are bad and quite “catching” is because they excel at the process of infecting and have been selected for the most effective ability to be passed on to others.
the other problem is the same as with any organism - what if it has unforseen side effects - what if, for example, your “fixed” cholera turns out to not give you the runs, but it turns out that long-term exposure induces colon cancer? You have to be very careful when monkeying with new/foreign organisms.
Another risk - some organisms have a habit of swapping chunks of DNA. What if your enhanced bug picks up the necessary “make you real sick” genes from a wild bug?