Belfast scientists find new way to battle superbugs
Experts from Queen's University Belfast have developed new agents to fight MRSA and other hospital-acquired infections that are resistant to antibiotics. The fluids are a class of ionic liquids that not only kill colonies of these dangerous microbes, but also prevent their growth.
A team of eight researchers from the Queen's University Ionic Liquid Laboratories (QUILL) Research Centre developed the agents, led by Brendan Gilmore, lecturer in pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy, and Martyn Earle, assistant director of QUILL. The discovery is published in the scientific journal Green Chemistry.
Many types of bacteria, such as MRSA, exist in colonies that adhere to the surfaces of materials. The colonies often form coatings, known as biofilms, which protect them from antiseptics, disinfectants, and antibiotics.
Earle said: "We have shown that, when pitted against the ionic liquids we developed and tested, biofilms offer little or no protection to MRSA, or to seven other infectious microorganisms.”
Ionic liquids are salts and consist entirely of electrically charged atoms or groups of atoms. The ionic liquid antibiofilm agents remain liquid at the ambient temperatures found in hospitals. One of the attractions of ionic liquids is the opportunity to tailor their physical, chemical, and biological properties by building specific features into the chemical structures of the positively charged ions (the cations), and/or the negatively charged ions (the anions). Earle added: "Our goal is to design ionic liquids with the lowest possible toxicity to humans while wiping out colonies of bacteria that cause hospital-acquired infections." Microbial biofilms are not only problematic in hospitals, but can also grow inside water pipes and cause pipe blockages in industrial processes.
The commercialisation of this work is being supported through an Invest Northern Ireland Proof of Concept award.
Latest figures from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) indicate that MRSA bloodstream infections continued to fall in England during October to December 2008. Cases reported fell by 7% over the previous quarter (July to September 2008) to 676.
A spokesman from the HPA said the reduction was testament to the “huge efforts” being made across the NHS to tackle the problem, but there was no room for complacency.