Nanotechnology promises low-cost method to squash superbugs

Posted by Jim Lewis on April 14th, 2011

While we push for the development of atomically precise productive nanosystems to manufacture microscopic robots for advanced nanomedicine, current day nanotechnology is providing promising candidates for near-term treatment of unmet medical needs: drug delivery vehicles, scaffolds for tissue engineering, and now, a way to kill drug-resistant “superbugs” while sparing blood cells. This advance is described over at Nanotechnology Now. From “IBN and IBM Co-Develop New Weapon Against Drug-Resistant Superbugs“:

This topic is one I am very interested in following a health scare nearly 4 years ago  when a foot infection failed to respond to antibiotics, probably due to drug resistance. What followed was 3 operations and 2 three week stints in hospital, and I still had an infected foot. Only final treatment of the wound with silver impregnated gauze finally allowed the skin graft to heal properly. The bug was the common Pseudomonas, and is a common cause of serious tropical infections causing amputation in our Kimberley region, especially so for diabetics.