Nanoparticles could replace antibiotics
Researchers for IBM's medical arm believe they've found a solution to a problem which kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Drug-resistant bacteria like staph is traditionally targetted by antibiotics which attack its DNA. But now IBM researchers have created a nanotechnology which is attracted to and then drills into the bacteria's cell walls destroying them.
Source: AM | Duration: 3min 37sec
TONY EASTLEY: Think IBM and you think computers.
But the giant company has irons in the medical fire.
It's working on nanotechnology which may lead to a revolutionary way of destroying drug-resistant bacteria which kill hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year, often in hospitals.
Traditional antibiotics try to prevent the bacteria from replicating by interfering with their DNA, but research published in the journal Nature Chemistry reveals IBM engineers have created ultra small particles which simply attack and destroy the cell walls of the nasty bacteria.
Lead scientist Dr Jim Hedrick has been telling Michael Vincent about the particles.
JIM HEDRICK: To give you a perspective, they're approximately 200 nanometres, which is about 50,000 times smaller than your human hair.
And the particle is designed to be cationic - positively charged.
And the bacterial wall has an inherent negative charge to it, and they begin to selectively interact with one another.
MICHAEL VINCENT: And once they hit the bacterial wall, what happens to that wall?
JIM HEDRICK: The wall, it begins to destabilise and the particle basically drills holes into the bacterial wall at which time the contents spill.
MICHAEL VINCENT: It sounds pretty nasty, the effect being that it destroys the bacteria which is obviously the positive end result.
JIM HEDRICK: It's nasty for the bacteria but for example it shows no haemolysis or cytotoxicity to normal cells.
And let me explain what that means.
Red blood cells, for example, are also charged but the polymer does not go after that at all. It's very selective for the bacteria.
And with our collaborators, the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore, we've shown that in small animal studies there is no toxicity to any of the major organs.
MICHAEL VINCENT: So you're convinced that there's no danger here, that the nanoparticles don't remain and they don't attack something else.
JIM HEDRICK: Ah, I obviously can't say for 100 per cent sure because we haven't gone into larger animal models or to clinical trials, but the initial results are extraordinarily promising.
MICHAEL VINCENT: How significant is that? How significant is that for this area which has been so troubled by drug resistant bacteria for so long?
JIM HEDRICK: Well you hit the nail on the head. This is a alternative- this could possibly be an alternative therapy to those drug-resistant bacteria.
You can envisage, you know, detergents or fats in the soap if you will, to wound healing, to catheter coatings, anything that's used inside the body.
It can be dispersed as a liquid in water, as solid form or as a gel.
So we're really quite excited about the ramifications of all this.
MICHAEL VINCENT: So how long before human trials can begin?
JIM HEDRICK: I think it's really, really too early to say just yet.
We're, with our collaborators in Singapore, we're going to go into larger animal models.
And we also have several subsequent generations that we hope to publish by the end of the year that are actually even more potent.
MICHAEL VINCENT: In terms of human trials, though, are we talking sort of two, five, 10 years away?
JIM HEDRICK: I'd say in excess of five. It's too early to say and there's so much between now and then that could possibly happen.
TONY EASTLEY: Dr Jim Hedrick from IBM's Almaden Research Centre speaking to Michael Vincent.