11/18/2023 0 Comments Serial killer geneToo much might have been made too soon of early findings that made correlations between alleles of certain genes and tendencies to antisocial or criminal behaviour. Partly for this reason, the study of behavioural genetics remains a controversial topic, with disagreement not just over the science itself, but even more so about the therapeutic, societal and legal implications. DOI: 10.The notion that genes play an important role in many diseases has been widely accepted, but many find it much harder to acknowledge a similar link with particular behaviour or even predisposition to crime. But SNIPR BIOME’s goal of using CRISPR to precisely target only harmful bacteria may revitalize this technique, allowing us to continue vanquishing our bacterial foes without promoting drug resistance. Phage therapy, tempting though it is in theory, has a checkered history at best. coli were resistant to the phage cocktail. coli in the feces, and none of the recovered E. In mice, oral administration of SNIPR001 reduced the amount of target E. The researchers showed that SNIPR001 was well-tolerated in Göttingen minipigs-after oral administration, the pigs did not exhibit any clinical, biochemical, hematological, or immunological effects, and no phages were found in their blood, so there was no systemic exposure. But four engineered phages do not make a drug the team confirmed that SNIPR001 remains stable for five months in storage and that it does not affect any other gut bacteria. coli panel alone and in combination, they decided that a group of four of them was the most effective, naming the mixture SNIPR001. AdvertisementĪfter testing the ability of these eight engineered phages to kill the E. This approach has been shown to prevent the evolution of resistance. They then engineered these phages to carry the genes that encode the CRISPR DNA-editing system, along with the RNAs needed to target editing to a number of essential genes in the E. They settled on a set of eight different phages. coli strains taken from people with bloodstream or urinary tract infections, as well as from the guts of healthy people. They started by screening 162 phages to find those that would infect a broad range of E. The team at SNIPR BIOME engineers bacteriophages, viruses that target bacteria, to make them hyper-selective. coli is already resistant to fluoroquinolones, the antibiotics commonly used to treat these types of infections. The mortality rate from such infections in these patients is around 15–20 percent. The chemotherapy these patients need can cause immunosuppression along with increased intestinal permeability, so they can't fight off any infections they may get from bacteria that escape from their guts into their bloodstream. The drug is designed for people with cancers involving blood cells. Its first drug-SNIPR001-is currently in clinical trials. Enter SNIPR BIOME, a Danish company founded to do just that. Ideally, we need precision antimicrobials that can target only the harmful bacteria while ignoring the other species we need in our bodies, leaving them to thrive. They're effective at eliminating pathogens, sure, but they're not so great for maintaining a healthy microbiome. Broad-spectrum antibiotics are akin to nuclear bombs, obliterating every prokaryote they meet.
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