Although they have been around since the '60s, MRSA, and in general Hospital Acquired Infections have taken on a new urgency in the medical research spectrum (if you want more basic information, I am linking my older posts below). This should not be very surprising, since you would want to leave the Hospital healthy, not trading in one bug for another to be re-gifted to anyone who comes in contact with you.
Getting to the roots
For the longest time, it was assumed that MRSA was a cause for worry to folks that visited Hospitals and the effects on the larger society were not known. However, Hospital/Healthcare Acquired Infections have found their way into communities" and are now called "Community MRSA" and other names. It has been noted that these drug-resistant strains are adding, and not taking away from the hospital strains. All this has resulted in a general sense of urgency to try and understand the disease much better.
With modern biological tools such as very high-throughput gene sequencing, getting to the pathological history of microorganisms has become more detailed, if not easy or expensive. This is exactly what a team of international scientists at Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute are purported to have done. They took 63 strains of MRSA from across the world, ranging a timespan of twenty years from 1983 to 2003 and used DNA to try and understand the spread and maturation of the bacteria.
The results can only be termed ground-breaking at the least. The study was able to make it's unique findings because earlier genetic study techniques, were unable to pick through the minute changes and differences in strains. Without identifying these minute changes, such research and conclusions were previously not feasible.
1. The disease, as predicted, started in Europe and spread through South America and Asia. Where North America fits in is not clear yet (I haven't read the Science paper yet), but the very origin of the disease appears to be in Europe, not so unusually, coinciding with the time when antibiotics first saw heavy use, in the 1960s.
2. The rate of mutation in the bacteria appears to be about six weeks.
3. MRSA appears to have been created out of patients or their visitors bringing non-resistant bacteria to the hospitals rather than via transfer from patient to patient. This is a key finding, and it still may need verification, yet, it represents a large opportunity spectrum to fend off the origin and spread of the disease. We will revisit this later.
Opportunities
There are unique opportunities here, from a biotechnology perspective:
1. This study, with 62 samples was merely proof of concept, a starting point for very high-throughput genetic sequencing. There is a lot more work to be done to identify the origin, spread and other aspects of MRSA. A smart company could develop set of protocols and develop niche leadership, in quickly identifying and laying out the modes by which MRSA and other Hospital Acquired Infections spread. Such data would be invaluable for government and private healthcare organizations in the fight to fend off the HAI from affecting large portions of the public.
2. There appear to be lots of opportunities for bioengineering solutions, or medical device solutions that can help at prevention. Device solutions could either be consumer based, providing solutions for public places where MRSA can be found, or they can be based in the hospital setting where they can provide much needed protection against increasing rates of infection.
More on the MRSA coming soon...
Previous Posts:
1. http://chaaraka.blogspot.com/2009/11/looking-for-lucrative-socially.html
2. http://chaaraka.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-on-mrsa-business-opportunities-and.html
3. http://chaaraka.blogspot.com/2009/12/quick-update-one-more-on-mrsa-this-time.html
References:
1. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wirestory?id=9625552&page=1
2. http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/635225.html
3. http://globalhealth.kff.org/Daily-Reports/2010/January/22/GH-012210-MRSA.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kff%2Fkdghpr+%28Kaiser+Daily+Global+Health+Policy+Report%29
Showing posts with label MRSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MRSA. Show all posts
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Quick Update: One more on MRSA - this time on potential cures
On my last post on MRSA, I had talked about how after having posted once, I was seeing MRSA everywhere (not the real stuff, just articles on it).
Interestingly, the trend continues. This past week, I came to know about the fact that researchers at the University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories had come up with a new innovation in the war against MRSA.
They found that a single protein can alter the virulent MRSA and other bacteria into harmless versions of the same. This is effected by inhibiting the signaling molecules of the cell. It is believed that the breakthrough can prevent the bacteria from ever turning virulent.
Of course, the study has a long way to go, since this demonstration was done on a single bacterium after isolating it. Such isolation in healthcare settings are a long way away, but the fact that there is a promise is key.
Here is a story on this. The paper itself has been published in Nature Chemical Biology:
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/12/04/Nipping-MRSA-in-the-bud/UPI-35051259963505/
Interestingly, the trend continues. This past week, I came to know about the fact that researchers at the University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories had come up with a new innovation in the war against MRSA.
They found that a single protein can alter the virulent MRSA and other bacteria into harmless versions of the same. This is effected by inhibiting the signaling molecules of the cell. It is believed that the breakthrough can prevent the bacteria from ever turning virulent.
Of course, the study has a long way to go, since this demonstration was done on a single bacterium after isolating it. Such isolation in healthcare settings are a long way away, but the fact that there is a promise is key.
Here is a story on this. The paper itself has been published in Nature Chemical Biology:
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/12/04/Nipping-MRSA-in-the-bud/UPI-35051259963505/
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Looking for a lucrative, socially responsible healthcare opportunity? How about healthcare-associated-infections?
Last week I was invited to review a site by Kimberly-Clark on healthcare associated infections. As I started going through it, I was reminded of some news on the availability of federal funds for Healthcare Associated Infection remedies. I thought I would talk a little bit about both and let you know of the opportunity space ahead.
MRSA
A few years ago, MRSA entered our vocabulary and Hospital Acquired Infections or, as I guess the kids now call them "Healthcare-Associated Infections" became famous. Why did they become famous?
It was found out that the developed nations were not much better off than developing nations when it came to HAI. The condition is defined as infections that you pick up as a consequence of being treated in a healthcare setting, that is, infections that you did not have when you first went in for treatment.
It is also a big deal because the current strains of HAI that infect people are much more resistant than they used to be. Some scary statistics portend that more people die from HAI in the US than from AIDS itself, on an annual basis.
Just what the heck is MRSA?
MRSA, at least in the medical field stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Over the last few decades hospitals have been treating every possible disease condition with antibiotics. Methicillin is just one such antibiotic in the same family as penicillin and is very commonly used in the treatment of staphylococcal bacteria. Over years of treatment, the bacteria, which have the freedom to evolve much quicker than we can, have developed an amazing amount of resistance to antibiotics.
Antibiotic resistant bacteria represent a deadly threat to anyone who comes under attack by them. As I mentioned before, people do not really stand much of a chance in this battle, and even if they recover, it is a long and hard battle. MRSA is just one example out of what really exists out there. It is also just one example of the possibilities that exist for drug-resistant microorganisms to evolve in the future with much more vigor than they have already done.
The Broader Outlook
Healthcare Associated Infection or abbreviated HAI, by definition, goes broader than MRSA and other resistant strains. Any disease condition acquired in a healthcare setting is termed HAI. This is key. Why?
It is quite possible that any strain of any microorganism that you pick up in a healthcare setting can be quite harmful to you. It is also not a function of healthcare to cure you of one condition and leave you with another, possibly worse.
How do we fight HAI?
Alright, now that you are reasonably scared, you might wonder as to the methods you can adopt to fight HAI, not just on a temporary basis, but on a more permanent basis. Let us take a look.
1. Awareness - The first step, as with everything is learning about and acknowledging the problem exists. Doctors, Hospital Managers and people in the general healthcare know the problem exists. However, there is more to awareness than simply acknowledging that it exists.
This is where I believe the website I mentioned, and similar efforts come into frey.
http://haiwatchnews.com/
It appears to be a website developed by Kimberly Clark, and while they themselves benefit from more awareness about HAI, I think it is a good move, and looks very much like well-fulfilled corporate social responsibility.
The impact information is all on the website - a predicted 100,000 deaths in the US, much worse across the world, and an annual impact of $6.7bn to the economy.
How exactly can awareness be spread? HAIwatchnews is part of a larger website:
http://www.haiwatch.com/
Haiwatch contains a lot of information, resources for clinical information and so on, that will not only be useful for people that work in healthcare, but also to you, the medical device designer.
2. Prevention
I am tempted to call this section "Opportunities" because you can take a look at the causes and think of them as opportunities. The three major HAI sources seem to be:
2.1.1 Ventilator Associated Pneumonia
2.1.2 Surgical Site Infections
2.1.3 Cross Contamination
Surgical Site Infections and Cross Contamination are rather easy to understand and obvious. Ventilator Associated Pneumonia happens in patients who have been intubated and have a tube flushing oxygen through to their lungs. Unfortunately, this opens up a can of microorganisms, so to speak, since this simply provides them direct access to the lungs, and consequently causes pneumonia.
So, the prevention part comes in two different ways:
2.2.1 Good medical/clinical practices, and
2.2.2 Medical Device and Bioengineered solutions
3. The Opportunity Landscape
Obviously, there are a few opportunities available in the landscape here:
How about, say better ventilation systems? A very good microfiber that rests in the tube as a one-way filter, filtering out particulate matter, bacteria and anything else that they can capture.
How about specific types of coating and sealing that make it impossible for bacteria to reside on hospital surfaces? This appears to be a tried and tired idea. Obviously, it's not working, so there are some big gaps somewhere, right?
There are several other brainstorms that I can think of (and you can pay me for.. :) ), but the general landscape is wide and is something more interesting to get into, rather than yet another half-baked, ineffective piece of drug-coated plumbing, balloon or cement that has you faking and contorting clinical trial results, lying to the FDA and other wonders that "major players" are constantly getting into....
4. Federal Funding
You didn't think I was going to wind you up and send you off empty handed, did you? Not at all!
The funding, about $40 million, is of course not directly available for the design of the next solution, but it is available for states to create awareness, improve processes etc. So, if you did develop a quick and "definitely not" dirty solution to the HAI problem, you could find it easy to convince healthcare service providers to apply for the funds that may in turn see your device or solution getting used...
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/feds-offer-40m-stimulus-funds-fight-healthcare-associated-infections/2009-09-02?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
And then again, there's the NIH, and of course the venture capitalists...
MRSA
A few years ago, MRSA entered our vocabulary and Hospital Acquired Infections or, as I guess the kids now call them "Healthcare-Associated Infections" became famous. Why did they become famous?
It was found out that the developed nations were not much better off than developing nations when it came to HAI. The condition is defined as infections that you pick up as a consequence of being treated in a healthcare setting, that is, infections that you did not have when you first went in for treatment.
It is also a big deal because the current strains of HAI that infect people are much more resistant than they used to be. Some scary statistics portend that more people die from HAI in the US than from AIDS itself, on an annual basis.
Just what the heck is MRSA?
MRSA, at least in the medical field stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Over the last few decades hospitals have been treating every possible disease condition with antibiotics. Methicillin is just one such antibiotic in the same family as penicillin and is very commonly used in the treatment of staphylococcal bacteria. Over years of treatment, the bacteria, which have the freedom to evolve much quicker than we can, have developed an amazing amount of resistance to antibiotics.
Antibiotic resistant bacteria represent a deadly threat to anyone who comes under attack by them. As I mentioned before, people do not really stand much of a chance in this battle, and even if they recover, it is a long and hard battle. MRSA is just one example out of what really exists out there. It is also just one example of the possibilities that exist for drug-resistant microorganisms to evolve in the future with much more vigor than they have already done.
The Broader Outlook
Healthcare Associated Infection or abbreviated HAI, by definition, goes broader than MRSA and other resistant strains. Any disease condition acquired in a healthcare setting is termed HAI. This is key. Why?
It is quite possible that any strain of any microorganism that you pick up in a healthcare setting can be quite harmful to you. It is also not a function of healthcare to cure you of one condition and leave you with another, possibly worse.
How do we fight HAI?
Alright, now that you are reasonably scared, you might wonder as to the methods you can adopt to fight HAI, not just on a temporary basis, but on a more permanent basis. Let us take a look.
1. Awareness - The first step, as with everything is learning about and acknowledging the problem exists. Doctors, Hospital Managers and people in the general healthcare know the problem exists. However, there is more to awareness than simply acknowledging that it exists.
This is where I believe the website I mentioned, and similar efforts come into frey.
http://haiwatchnews.com/
It appears to be a website developed by Kimberly Clark, and while they themselves benefit from more awareness about HAI, I think it is a good move, and looks very much like well-fulfilled corporate social responsibility.
The impact information is all on the website - a predicted 100,000 deaths in the US, much worse across the world, and an annual impact of $6.7bn to the economy.
How exactly can awareness be spread? HAIwatchnews is part of a larger website:
http://www.haiwatch.com/
Haiwatch contains a lot of information, resources for clinical information and so on, that will not only be useful for people that work in healthcare, but also to you, the medical device designer.
2. Prevention
I am tempted to call this section "Opportunities" because you can take a look at the causes and think of them as opportunities. The three major HAI sources seem to be:
2.1.1 Ventilator Associated Pneumonia
2.1.2 Surgical Site Infections
2.1.3 Cross Contamination
Surgical Site Infections and Cross Contamination are rather easy to understand and obvious. Ventilator Associated Pneumonia happens in patients who have been intubated and have a tube flushing oxygen through to their lungs. Unfortunately, this opens up a can of microorganisms, so to speak, since this simply provides them direct access to the lungs, and consequently causes pneumonia.
So, the prevention part comes in two different ways:
2.2.1 Good medical/clinical practices, and
2.2.2 Medical Device and Bioengineered solutions
3. The Opportunity Landscape
Obviously, there are a few opportunities available in the landscape here:
How about, say better ventilation systems? A very good microfiber that rests in the tube as a one-way filter, filtering out particulate matter, bacteria and anything else that they can capture.
How about specific types of coating and sealing that make it impossible for bacteria to reside on hospital surfaces? This appears to be a tried and tired idea. Obviously, it's not working, so there are some big gaps somewhere, right?
There are several other brainstorms that I can think of (and you can pay me for.. :) ), but the general landscape is wide and is something more interesting to get into, rather than yet another half-baked, ineffective piece of drug-coated plumbing, balloon or cement that has you faking and contorting clinical trial results, lying to the FDA and other wonders that "major players" are constantly getting into....
4. Federal Funding
You didn't think I was going to wind you up and send you off empty handed, did you? Not at all!
The funding, about $40 million, is of course not directly available for the design of the next solution, but it is available for states to create awareness, improve processes etc. So, if you did develop a quick and "definitely not" dirty solution to the HAI problem, you could find it easy to convince healthcare service providers to apply for the funds that may in turn see your device or solution getting used...
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/feds-offer-40m-stimulus-funds-fight-healthcare-associated-infections/2009-09-02?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
And then again, there's the NIH, and of course the venture capitalists...
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
MRSA, UCSF, Homophobia and General Idiocy - how they destroyed one school's credibility
[Click on Post Title for Link to External Article]
Here is how they linked MRSA to gay men in San Francisco.
They had a suspicion that MRSA and MSM had a link, so...
They took a look at a few charts in San Francisco.
They took a look at a few charts in Boston, because gay men don't (or maybe can't?) live there (another stereotype - hey, when you are dealing with one, why not throw in a few more..).
And they said, well yes, people in San Francisco have MRSA infections. San Francisco has the Castro Area. Another stereotype of the Castro? Gay Men having anal sex in abandon.
Now, lets put two and two together and publish a "scientific" paper.
Why do they "regret" the fact that they were trying to stress "general population" and "Mommy, no one gets what I am trying to say, boohoo?!!"?
What, do you think we are all just a bunch of idiots?
You work at the University of California, "SAN FRANCISCO"
In case you need more help, the University of California where you work, is in San Francisco.
San Francisco is in the United States! Whopee!
And in the US, there are people who don't like gay men.
So, how is it that you did not realize that your irresponsible "scientific" publication will be misused?
See here is my gripe. Commonsense and Scientific Prowess cannot be independent of each other.
It may very well be true that MSM may have higher incidences of MRSA and that may be linked back to unsafe sex practices. It is not just your responsibility to point, laugh and then leave. As scientists and Doctors, it is your primary responsibility to make sure messages come across in the right way.
Here are some hints for your next publication, "There may be a link. Further reports are needed. While we continue our research, we are asking people to practice safer sex. There is some indication that MSM may be at higher risk, and so our message reaches out to them as well".
This way you wont hand out a bunch of homophobes some premium quality PR material.
Or, here is another hint. Now that your irresponsibility has become so self-evident, please, just don't publish anymore...
Add to Onlywire
Here is how they linked MRSA to gay men in San Francisco.
They had a suspicion that MRSA and MSM had a link, so...
They took a look at a few charts in San Francisco.
They took a look at a few charts in Boston, because gay men don't (or maybe can't?) live there (another stereotype - hey, when you are dealing with one, why not throw in a few more..).
And they said, well yes, people in San Francisco have MRSA infections. San Francisco has the Castro Area. Another stereotype of the Castro? Gay Men having anal sex in abandon.
Now, lets put two and two together and publish a "scientific" paper.
Why do they "regret" the fact that they were trying to stress "general population" and "Mommy, no one gets what I am trying to say, boohoo?!!"?
What, do you think we are all just a bunch of idiots?
You work at the University of California, "SAN FRANCISCO"
In case you need more help, the University of California where you work, is in San Francisco.
San Francisco is in the United States! Whopee!
And in the US, there are people who don't like gay men.
So, how is it that you did not realize that your irresponsible "scientific" publication will be misused?
See here is my gripe. Commonsense and Scientific Prowess cannot be independent of each other.
It may very well be true that MSM may have higher incidences of MRSA and that may be linked back to unsafe sex practices. It is not just your responsibility to point, laugh and then leave. As scientists and Doctors, it is your primary responsibility to make sure messages come across in the right way.
Here are some hints for your next publication, "There may be a link. Further reports are needed. While we continue our research, we are asking people to practice safer sex. There is some indication that MSM may be at higher risk, and so our message reaches out to them as well".
This way you wont hand out a bunch of homophobes some premium quality PR material.
Or, here is another hint. Now that your irresponsibility has become so self-evident, please, just don't publish anymore...
Add to Onlywire
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