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Biotech / Medical : Biotech News -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tnsaf who wrote (37)	12/7/1999 2:30:00 PM
From: aknahow	Respond to of 7143

Link for patent news. Better than IBM site. Updated each Tuesday usually before 3 p.m. est. uspto.gov

To: tnsaf who wrote (37)	12/8/1999 1:06:00 AM
From: aknahow	Respond to of 7143

Large segment from company site on antibiotic resistance. The part that deals with what the company is doing is not included. Antibiotic Resistance in Microbes The advent of powerful antibiotics over half a century ago dramatically changed the balance of power between humans and microbes. For several decades after the introduction of penicillin in the 1940s, the total conquest of infectious disease appeared imminent. However, the widespread use of antibiotics has conspired with the astonishing evolutionary flexibility of microbes to snatch away that victory. An increasing number of bacteria, fungi and other microbes are developing resistance to antibiotics. Especially in hospitals (and among patients whose immune systems are compromised by AIDS, chemotherapy, or immunosuppressive drugs), multiple drug resistant (MDR) infections are emerging. This process is now proceeding at a rate faster than the introduction of new antibiotics. How did this happen and what can be done about it? Microbes have been living on this planet many hundreds of millions of years longer than we have. Bacteria in particular have adapted to an extraordinary range of conditions and developed defenses against all sorts of environmental threats. From the bacterial point of view, the human body is just another host to colonize, and antibiotics are just another toxic environmental threat to resist. For organisms with populations that have already adapted to such extreme environments as boiling sulfur springs, learning to live with antibiotics was inevitable. Emerging Resistance Overuse of antibiotics has contributed to the problem. In newly-industrialized nations, indiscriminate use of antibiotics has contributed to the emergence of MDR strains of bacteria such as Pseudomonas, Streptococcus and Staphylococcus. Some countries, including the United States, are also seeing strains of tuberculosis (TB), that are resistant to all available TB drugs. These resistant strains have evolved in large part because many TB patients fail to complete the required lengthy course of antibiotic treatment. Recent increases in resistant bacterial ear and sinus infections in children may have been exacerbated by inappropriate use of antibiotics to treat viral infections. More disturbing is the trend to prescribe second-line and last-resort antibiotics in place of first-line antibiotics, even when there is no reason to suspect resistance to the older drugs. In certain cases, like recurrent lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients, physicians have no choice but to escalate antibiotic treatment, until the infecting bacteria become resistant to all available antibiotics. With the emergence of antibiotic-resistant organisms, the medical community has lost ground in achieving a permanent conquest of microbial infection. But much has been learned in the process. Using a deeper understanding of microbes and their mechanisms of resistance, the biomedical community continues to mount a broad array of defenses against them. Such defenses include renewed attention to medical basics, such as public health measures, for example, in HIV-infected populations that have become breeding grounds for resistant microbes. In hospitals, where the most resistant microbes can infect the most vulnerable patients, there is a resurgence of interest in revitalizing and improving basic techniques (like hand-washing) for preventing the spread of infection. Physicians, nurse practitioners and pharmacists are also becoming more aware of the importance of more careful prescription practice. Pharmaceutical Industry Response Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are developing novel products to overcome resistance. Better understanding of the microbiology and molecular genetics of microbial resistance is leading to the development of a new generation of anti-microbials that use different mechanisms of action to kill bacteria or fungi. New weapons in the fight against microbial infections also include antibiotic adjuvants, drugs combined in antibiotics to enhance or renew their power. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< While the above is not that new IMO it is an interesting summary of the problem. There was more information but it was company specific, not general news.