Researchers reverse bacterial resistance to antibiotics | Hacker News Reader

Researchers reverse bacterial resistance to antibiotics

kurzweilai.net

74 pointsca98am7921 comments

Pretty interesting!

tldr: Instead of trying a random sequence of antibiotics, the authors present "a precise, ordered schedule of antibiotics that doctors could rely on and know that in the end, resistance will be reversed, and an antibiotic will work"

That optimal scheduling is found using the probability of mutations of the bacteria

This rotation of mechanisms of action to undo resistance is already widely practiced in agriculture with pesticides. It is part of the reason why organic agriculture and its heavy use of pesticides with low rotation is so problematic.

(In the crops I work most in, organic farmers spray a lot more than conventional farmers on balance. As surprising as that might be to people outside of agriculture.)

I must admit that I don't really have the background to process your comment.

Can you... give a paragraph or two on what normal is and what organic farmers are doing differently to cause the difference?

I'm confused too - I thought 'organic' meant no pesticides were used.

It depends quite considerably on which country you're in. In the UK 'organic' is heavily regulated and means pretty much that, in the U.S it's more lax. But my guess is that the poster is saying that because organic farmers have a much smaller range of less potent sprays available, they have to spray more by volume.

Hmmm.. you'd be surprised, mate; I did spend time in the West part of England and the occasional use of artificial pesticide was not uncommon especially when your top soil has been washed away and been battered due to flooding/erosion like it was in 2014 during those storms.

Organic is a label, that while better than conventional is not to be blindly accepted as a panacea--that is why the community part of CSA should not be forgotten.

CSA = Community-supported agriculture

I would be surprised, yes. There is a very short list of pesticides that can be used and a slightly longer list that can be used with specific permission.

Which pesticides were being used on your farm? And did the farm lose organic certification.

But even more - what has pesticide use got to do with top-soil loss? I'm not quite clear.

Usually "organic" means that no synthetic pesticides or genetic modification were used. You are allowed to use pesticides from natural sources. In practice it means that organic farmers are using less effective pesticides and must use more of it to reach the same effectiveness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification

It's a classic Appeal to nature tactic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

There's a variety of differences.

One of them is seeds themselves. Modern GMOs, more than being about being resistant to specific herbicides, are about built in pest control. It's part of the sales pitch to farmers: Buy this new seed, and you'll spend less in pesticides. With a traditional seed, a farmer gets to either lose a lot of yield, or use pesticides. Organic farming doesn't ban all pesticides: Some are considered natural, and are used a whole lot to protect the crop.

The problem is that organic pesticides are not necessarily less toxic for humans, or less likely to harm the environment. In fact, some organic pesticides are very toxic, even though they are 'natural'. It get worse when we take into account that they have to be used in large quantities. Practical toxicity is affected by how much we use, and then ho much actually 'leaks out' of the farm.

We also have the lower yields: A more 'natural' seed tends to yield less in practice, so to get the same number of bushels, you need to plant more plants, and protect more plants. Welcome less forests, and more pesticides!

So the picture of toxicity and environmental impact of organic vs GMO+synthetic pesticides is pretty complicated.

> I must admit that I don't really have the background to process your comment.

> Can you... give a paragraph or two on what normal is and what organic farmers are doing differently to cause the difference?

>> I'm confused too - I thought 'organic' meant no pesticides were used.

I may be wrong, but given the context I think he means to say that organic farmers will regularly spray more frequently (things like neem or DE) which are to protect against pests or compost teas on heavy feeder crops. I never did conventional agriculture, but regularly observed it (vegetable/vineyards) from afar during my apprenticeship in Europe and I think this varies depending on crop (eg something like 50% of all pesticides used in the US is used on cotton for example).

And to add further context depending on the type of organic agriculture (as it encompasses 3 branches in my opinion) you will also want to inoculate your soil bacteria/microorganisms for soil vitality and to fine-tune the microbiology as well as perform homeopathic remedies t follow your growing season.

Source: I'm a Biodyanmic Master Gardener/Farm Manager with a background in Biology.

PS: Nice to see more people involved in tech and Ag, terravion; I'm also merging the two, do you mind if we can chat about your operations tech position?

I just finished my project in Maui and I'm back home in California with only a side project to keep me busy this season and I want to get my head back in; I made some recent headway with the organic/biodynamic community in Sonoma county when I was up there last month that I think may prove useful to your operation.

For many conditions you can't simply rotate antibiotics. Antibiotics have specific targets and different efficacious for reasons that are entirely unrelated to the reasons that bacteria develop resistance, not to mention different pharmacokinetic and other biological properties.

This is something that looks great in a lab but may be very difficult if not often impossible to implement in practice.

And what's the probability your patient will be as well ordered taking their antibiotics? Failing to complete courses is one of the reasons these resistant strains emerge in the first place.

Very cool science!! Real-world applicability? TBD.

Most patients who are subject to resistant strain bacterial infection wind up in hospital quicker. I suspect this research is mainly aimed at either serious/critical acute care or debilitating chronic care situations which tend to be costly not only in monetary terms but also in life and death terms.

Also, the patient has to be sick long enough to withstand cycling multiple whole courses. I guess that limits applicability to a tiny portion of overall cases, like very bad post-op infections, the elderly stuck in hospital beds or something.

There are some really neat things going on here! If you're interested in this, check out a paper by one of my old mentors: Darwinian evolution can follow only very few mutational paths to fitter proteins. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16601193) In general, the more deleterious a mutation, the more mutational paths we see for escaping a local minima. (The rate of compensatory mutation in the DNA bacteriophage phiX174 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15911582)

Journal article here: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

If we're throwing peer reviewed journals, I'd like to add this the mix because its siting in front of my desk:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2364932/pdf/MBD-...

(Check out the more recent citations for further reading)

I'm not diminishing the danger of super bacteria, and I believe being in hospitals is perhaps just as bad as being in some war zone in terms of mortality if you're immuno-compromised or recovering from a disease/surgery, but I find it odd (not really, I've seen the self-defeating internal machinations of academia/pharma with my own eyes) that the advent of using silver as an anti-microbial is so neglected in the narrative; Bosch uses it in Germany in their refrigerators, and companies like DeRoyal sell gauze dressings specifically stated for that purpose.

I dont think that I've ever seen the idea of silver being antimicrobial be neglected. We use burn dressings that are almost completely impregnated with silver, silver nitrate q-tips to stop bleeding(ouch), as well as topical ointments with some silver in it. Silver is pretty widely used in the medical field.

Really? Well, consider you have reiterated one of the ubiquitous applications that I mentioned in my argument, but the use of it to combat the super-bacteria is never considered in these studies; I believe this is more by design than not--in fact I found its absence particular lacking when I was finishing up my studies during the so-called 'pandemic' with H1N1. It was beyond absurd the hysteria that ensued, but perhaps more concerning was the blind and dogmatic line of thinking that occurred that surrounded it all--a (ill founded) faith based confidence in big pharma to solve everything, in this case: Gillenad sciences headed by Don Rumsefeld.

I thought the pervasive theory about how it 'spontaneously emerged in nature' incredibly suspect considering I was completing my courses in Microbio and Biochem and working extensively with bacteriophages to create anti-biotic resistant e. coli with limited success under controlled lab conditions... then I realized my university-health sciences department was heavily funded by a major hospital. And all for something that was patented by Baxter:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/276194 http://www.globalresearch.ca/big-pharma-baxter-files-swine-f...

So I find the use of silver nano-partical therapy, oral or sub-lingual administration or atomized silver inhalation methods are acutely lacking as possible means to combat anti-biotic resistant bacteria/infections, as well as viruses and fungi.

This is brilliant. One of those things that seem obvious once presented.

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