Factoid:
In the world today, three times more people die of bacterial diseases than die of cancer.
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Quote:
We are about to reenter the pre-antibiotic era because there are pathogen strains now that are resistant to every available antibiotic. -- Dr. Michael J. Mahan, University of California, Santa Barbara
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Gene Found That Activates Illness-Causing Bacteria
Altering certain genes in disease-causing bacteria offers a promising new approach to fighting infectious disease.
Start Date: 5/10/99
Researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) have discovered a gene that is responsible for activating the disease-causing function in salmonella bacteria. When the gene is disabled, the bacteria are rendered harmless. The research was reported in the May 7, 1999 edition of the journal Science.
There are about 2,500 strains of salmonella which cause a variety of diseases in humans, from potentially fatal food poisoning to typhoid fever. According to the Associated Press, some 4 million Americans are affected by salmonella-related diseases each year. Many times that number are affected worldwide.
The new research, led by Dr. Michael J. Mahan, began with the observation that salmonella bacteria seem to "switch on" when inside a host organism, such as a mouse, but remain "switched off" when cultured outside a host. The "switch on" mechanism, they found, is a gene designated DAM, which triggers a chain reaction in the bacteria that results in rapid spread of infection in the host. If the DAM gene is disabled, no infection occurs.
Furthermore, if salmonella with disabled DAM genes are injected into lab mice, they develop powerful immunity to salmonella infection. Mice so treated were found to remain healthy even after receiving thousands of times the lethal dose of active salmonella.
Mahan says that DAM genes are also found in other forms of bacteria responsible for such diseases as cholera, plague and Shigella dysentery. Further research may lead to completely new vaccines and treatments for such diseases.
Though it has not yet been shown that Mahan's approach will work in humans, there is a growing urgency to find alternatives to current antibiotic treatments. Many disease bacteria are developing resistance to even the newest, strongest antibiotics, raising fears that soon such treatments will stop working altogether. Today, as many as 17 million people die each year of bacterial diseases -- three times more than die of cancer. Those numbers are sure to increase dramatically unless new treatments are found.
"We are about to reenter the pre-antibiotic era because there are pathogen strains now that are resistant to every available antibiotic," said Mahan. "This [altering the DAM gene] may buy us some time."
 Excelsior, Michael Lindemann's new novel (written under the pen name Michael Paul), depicts a wholly plausible near future in which human cloning is both widespread and widely abused; terrorists have access to target-specific biological weapons; recreational space travel is commonplace; and mounting pressures of global climate change, environmental decline, population growth and civil unrest inspire radical new approaches to urban security.
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