Hi, I've been doing research for drugs to overcome antibiotic resistance, but if a drug involves killing off bacteria, won't they eventually develop antibiotic resistance no matter what type of mechanism the drug uses to kill the bacteria? The reason why I say this is because as bacteria proliferates at a high rate, mutation is common and eventually, the bacteria will develop a mutation that allows it to proliferate in high numbers in presence of the drug.
The only way I can think of that doesn't involve killing the bacteria is to allow pathogenic bacteria to coexist in our body without causing huge problems such as the use of (nanoparticle) decoys: Article Neutralization of cholera toxin with nanoparticle decoys for...
What about using predatory bacteria? Will predated bacteria eventually develop resistance against predatory bacteria?
I do not think we should develop predatory bacteria because that will have a great influence on the whole ecosystem on earth. That is kind of dangerous. I do agree with the coexist part and that is happening. For example, many countries are testing vaccines for COVID-19. We will be able to coexist with COVID-19 after injecting the vaccine.
Xin Ren , I definitely see your point regarding predatory bacteria. Thanks, that was insightful.
You are normally correct.
Bacteria tend to find solutions to all antimicrobial drugs.
They will probably find a solution for anything else you throw at them like predatory bacteria using the same mechanism.
What is now highly discussed is using more complex treatments to avoid the lone survivors. This is often called "Antibioitics Cocktail Therapy"
Briefly, if drug A kills 99% of bacteria, and drug B kills 99% of bacteria - then together they (SHOULD) have 100% coverage. No survivours --> No resistance
If you want to read up on the "cocktail" approach. Better start here:
Chait, R., Craney, A. & Kishony, R. Antibiotic interactions that select against resistance. Nature 446, 668–671 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05685
And generally Prof. Roy Kishony from Israel is the expert
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