Author
Dom Galeon
April 17, 2017

In Brief

An innovative study in the University of Wisconsin-Madison could soon put an end to drug-resistant bacteria by using an edible version of CRISPR. This probiotic could target specific bacteria, making it more effective than antibiotics.
Targeted and Edible

As antibiotic resistance continues to grow, scientists are desperately trying to figure out how to best fight bacterium like Clostridium difficile, which can cause fatal infections in hospitals and nursing homes. C. difficile has been ranked by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a top drug-resistant threat responsible for about 15,000 deaths per year. Several means are being explored to counter the pandemic, the most recent coming from a project funded by the National Institute of Health.

The proposed solution uses CRISPR, the world’s most precise and efficient gene editing technology currently available. Jan-Peter van Pijkeren, a food scientist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is creating a probiotic cocktail that patients can swallow as a liquid or pill.

The cocktail of bacteria will include a bacteriophage – a virus that infects bacteria – capable of carrying a customized, false, CRISPR message to C. difficile. This message would cause C. difficile to make lethal cuts to its own DNA.

Better Than Antibiotics

SNIP