Technology
Antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic drugs are a marked success: in the past 50 years they have driven down deaths due to bacterial infection and are increasingly relied upon to do so today.
However the rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria and difficult or impossible to treat 'superbugs' may herald the end of the antibiotic era. If pathogenic bacteria continue to acquire genes encoding resistance - and the trend shows no sign of slowing, and maybe accelerating- this would represent a very real challenge to public health.
It is considered unlikely that enough new antibiotics will be discovered to combat the renewed threat of infectious disease and indeed those antibiotics that are brought to market would be expected to be similarly susceptible to the spread of resistance.
Procarta is attempting to bring a novel solution to this problem: using nucleic-acid based therapies to restore the efficacy of our current armoury of antibiotics.
Antibiotic drugs are a marked success: in the past 50 years they have driven down deaths due to bacterial infection and are increasingly relied upon to do so today.However the rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria and difficult or impossible to treat 'superbugs' may herald the end of the antibiotic era. If pathogenic bacteria continue to acquire genes encoding resistance - and the trend shows no sign of slowing, and maybe accelerating- this would represent a very real challenge to public health.
It is considered unlikely that enough new antibiotics will be discovered to combat the renewed threat of infectious disease and indeed those antibiotics that are brought to market would be expected to be similarly susceptible to the spread of resistance.
Procarta is attempting to bring a novel solution to this problem: using nucleic-acid based therapies to restore the efficacy of our current armoury of antibiotics.