This Germ Could Save Your Life

• Microbiologist David Thaler is one of the primary advocates for using genetically modified bacteria to fight disease instead of cause disease; however, this idea is having a very difficult time of becoming a reality due to the the difficulty being able to perform live tests, on actual people.

• This could become a reality with Jeffrey Hillman's research, which began with him setting up a series of cage matches between colonies of Streptococcus mutans, the sugar-eating bacteria that commonly cause tooth decay, to create a species of super bacteria that could easily wipe out all other bacteria in a person's mouth.

• The difference between these bacteria and their weaker counterparts, is that the genetically modified S. mutans contains a gene from Zymomonas mobilis, used in Mexican beer, so that the S. mutans will produce a harmless alcohol as waste instead of a tooth-destroying acid.

• Later, due to regulations from a special board on the FDA, the bacteria were made to be dependent on a certain amino acid which was made into a special mouthwash to prevent the uncontrolled spread of these bacteria.

• Finally, a in 2006 the bacteria was tested on real people (under heavy laboratory conditions though) and, as predicted, was a success, although it has yet to be tested freely on people with actual medical conditions in an actual environment.

Reflection

When I first spied this article, I thought having bacteria work for me to clean my teeth might be interesting, especially because I have braces, which make it extremely hard to brush and floss my teeth. However, as I read further, I realized that this could become the domestication of bacteria, and the domestication of plants and animals had been such a huge event that it had changed the entire world forever, and enabled a huge leap in progress, the creation of cities include. If more bacteria were “domesticated”, I thought, this would be like the Agricultural revolution from the Neolithic times. In fact, I wasn't at all surprised when one of the scientists described it as “the second Neolithic Revolution” later in the article. As I continued reading, it just seemed like such an ingenious plan that people would be able to “tame” bacteria to do their bidding. On the downside, though, I think that their could be a lot of risk involved in thrusting “safe” bacteria upon humans. The way I see it, scientists will only have one chance to impress the public with this new technology, before it is destroyed by rumors and hysteria.

Source:

Sachs, Jessica S. "This Germ Could Save Your Life | Popular Science." Popular Science | New Technology, Science News, The Future Now. Web. 19 May 2010. .