Researchers Wage Communication Warfare on Bacteria
When a strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria begins an assault on the human body, doctors usually have few tools to fall back on, save more antibiotics and crossed fingers. But a group of researchers is developing a new weapon in the fight against potentially threatening bacteria, taking a page from DARPA's playbook. Rather than attacking the bacteria directly, researchers are disrupting their communications, causing coordinated attacks to fall apart before they've begun. In the case of infection, bacteria often rely on a chemical language known as "quorum sensing" that helps individual bacteria determine the number of brethren it has in the immediate vicinity. Each bacterium secretes a particular molecule into the environment that other bacteria can sense, providing a sort of bacterial sound-off. Often, this is a battle cry; if enough allies are present the attack is given the green light and infection begins. Like a filibustering senator,...