June 16, 2011

No one will argue that the opening antibiotics It has made a breakthrough in medicine and helped save many lives. But viruses and bacteria mutate to develop resistance to drugs, and the effectiveness of the latter is greatly reduced. A fight with some infectious diseases existing medicines no longer possible.

The World Health Organization has provided data for 2010 on the infection tubercle bacillus Resistant to most antibiotics. Over 500 thousand people became ill, a third of them died. Margaret Chan , Director of the WHO, said to widespread pathogens is unreasonably frequent use of medications.

German researchers Institute of Cellular Therapy and Immunology Fraunhofer   announced the discovery of antimicrobial Peptides Killing most microorganisms. During development, emphasis was placed on creating sequences of fewer than 20 amino acids. These peptides carry the amino acid residues with positive charge, so attracted to the cell membrane of pathogens with a negative charge and penetrate therein.

The bactericidal effect , Occurs within minutes, in concentrations that are ten times lower than that of conventional antibiotics. Another of the major advantages is the safety of such peptides - they act selectively and do not damage healthy cells.

The use of antimicrobial peptides in the food industry will be able to significantly raise the economy of the countries, as the loss of food contamination by various bacteria are enormous. And adding them in the manufacture of food products will significantly increase the shelf life. Moreover, the tests have not shown any harmful or allergenicity thereof.

In a short time the main project leader Dr. Schubert hopes to begin testing the efficacy of antimicrobial peptides against infections in animals.