With many disease-causing bacteria ratcheting up their shields against current drugs, new tactics are vital to protect people from treatment-resistant infections.
Lowering mutation rates in harmful bacteria might be an as yet untried way to hinder the emergence of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens. This proposed strategy comes from recent findings in infectious disease research at UW Medicine in Seattle.
The report on this work is published this week in Molecular Cell, one of the journals of Cell Press. The lead author is Mark N. Ragheb, an M.D./Ph.D. student at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The senior researcher is Houra Merrikh, associate professor of microbiology at the UW medical school.
While most efforts against antimicrobial resistance concentrate on producing better antibiotics, the scientists note, “History shows that resistance arises regardless of the nature or potency of new drugs.”
Deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections, they explain, have reached alarming numbers worldwide, and show signs of surpassing mortality from other causes by mid-century.
