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Behe vs. Mothra (no MRSA)

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In a prior post DRG wonders how could Behe’s EoE inform the development of drugs that fight antibiotic resistant bacteria? Today’s WSJ, for example, describes the problem of MRSA and other superbugs that defy existing antibiotics. Given the expense of the pharmaceutical development process, an ID-oriented research program ought to reduce the cost of development by only focusing on drugs that would require resistant bacteria to evolve beyond the EoE (which Behe shows is not possible).  http://drugwonks.com/

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Barry A, this looks very promising in combating MRSA (mersa): Dr. Cano is so confident of his latest findings that he has founded a company, the Ambergene Corporation, in San Carlos, Calif., to develop pharmaceutical products derived from the putative ancient organisms. Ambergene has already applied for patents for at least three of the new antibiotics he believes the bacteria have helped him to produce. These , Dr. Cano said, could fill therapeutic gaps created by the increasing immunity of certain disease-spreading microbes to antibiotics. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEFD61439F93AA25756C0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=printbornagain77
November 5, 2007
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Maybe the Biologic Institute is accepting donations. I would also wonder if the folks over at ISCID would know of ID researchers that could use support in their work on new medicines.rrf
November 1, 2007
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Nochange, I will look into this and get gack to you.BarryA
November 1, 2007
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I'm being serious. Is there nowhere that I can send money to? Isn't there an organization that funds intelligent design laboratory research that I can donate to? Certainly I don't have Bill Gates style donations to give, but if enough of us send in a check for a few hundred bucks, we could really get rolling. Nothing quite like a disease-curing drug and a couple of Nobel prizes to get the attention of the Darwinistas.Nochange
November 1, 2007
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Nochange, please send all checks to "The Fund for the Relief of Impoverished Lawyers Who Spend Too Much of Their Time Blogging on ID Sites." Send all contributions to my attention, and I will ensure the funds are put to good use. ;-)BarryA
November 1, 2007
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I ask again, where can I donate money? We need to start designing drugs (and I confess, that's not my area of expertise). Let's show the world the Truth? Intelligent Designed drugs! Let's use our superior knowledge of biology to cure some disease! What lab can I send money to? Could we start a biotech company?Nochange
November 1, 2007
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Barry, This is an extremely interesting topic,,,I wonder why it hasn't garnered more responses. Though I should probably go pick up the book,,I believe that Dr. Behe,,describes the process of a supergerm acquiring resistance in this following manner, a rare "lucky" individual in a population will have a "luckily" resistant germ to a new dr^ug, thus this resistant germ spreads throughout the population...This germ becomes problematic and dr^ug B is discovered and developed at which point the resistant germ will again have a "luckily" resistant germ in a rare "lucky" individual and thus repeating the cycle... Thus it goes to reason that the most effective treatment for problematic germs is to hit them all at once with multiple dr^ug co^ktails at the inception of attacking the problem and thus ensuring that the entire population of germs in the entire population of people is wiped out...completely Will this help for already resistant strains, No Of course not...And once the multiple resistant strain is present in a existent population of germs,,,even though the existent population of germs easily out compete the mutated germ (in a dr^ug free environment),,I believe that it will be found that a tiny remnant of the multiple resistant strain will persist in the germ population, for a fairly long time, before it is outcompeted into oblivion...(Of course the more weakened by accumulated mutated resistance of the germ is,,the more quickly the germ will reach zero on the decay curve (that is of course, once the germ is forced into competing with the original strain in a dr^ug free environment)) My first reaction is that the decay curve will reach into many, many, years before a virtual zero is attained on the decay curve for the multiple resistant germs. Thus clearly, the only effective treatment to totally eradicate a existent resistant germ is to develop multiple new dr^ugs (or maybe even a single dr^ug that requires the germ to make too many "lucky" mutations) and deploy them all at once and deny the germ the stepwise fashion it needs to acquire "super-resistance" we are now seeing in hospital germs..bornagain77
November 1, 2007
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For bacteria, Behe estimates that there have 1.E+40 cells in the history of the earth. He would define the edge of evolution for such organisms as the ability to generate two new protein-binding sites via RM+NS. (EoE, p. 143) Accordingly, if a bacterium needs to develop three new protein-protein interactions to resist a new drug, the likelihood of this occuring is extremely low.dgw
October 31, 2007
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BarryA, Have not they been trying to drive HIV past the "Edge of Evolution" with the tails they now use? If so why has this not worked to eradicate HIV? If it is indeed possible, does this mean they are very close to forcing HIV to mutate into oblivion? As a sidelight this site: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i1/superbugs.asp points out that: Superwimps It is precisely because the mutations which give rise to resistance are in some form or another defects, that so-called supergerms are not really ‘super’ at all—they are actually rather ‘wimpy’ compared to their close cousins. When I was finally discharged from hospital, I still had a strain of supergerm colonizing my body. Nothing had been able to get rid of it, after months in hospital. However, I was told that all I had to do on going home was to ‘get outdoors a lot, occasionally even roll in the dirt, and wait.’ In less than two weeks of this advice, the supergerms were gone. Why? The reason is that supergerms are actually defective in other ways, as explained. Therefore, when they are forced to compete with the ordinary bacteria which normally thrive on our skin, they do not have a chance. They thrive in hospital because all the antibiotics and antiseptics being used there keep wiping out the ordinary bacteria which would normally outcompete, wipe out and otherwise keep in check these ‘superwimps’.5 If they are ‘weaker’, then why do they cause so much and misery in hospitals? These bacteria are not more aggressive than their colleagues, it is only that doctors have less power to stop them. Also, those environments which will tend to ‘select’ such resistant germs, like intensive care units, are precisely the places where there will be critically injured people, physically weakened and often with open wounds. This is why more than one microbiologist concerned about these super-infections has mused (only partly tongue in cheek) that the best thing to happen in major hospitals might be to dump truckloads of germ-laden dirt into the corridors, rather than keep on applying more and more chemicals in a never-ending ‘arms race’ against the bacteria. In other words, stop using the antibiotics (which of course is hardly feasible), and all this ‘evolution’ will reverse itself, as the bacterial populations shift back again to favour the more hardy, less resistant varieties. LOL,,,Instead of having piles of dirt and garbage in the hospitals,,I think I like your idea a lot better BarryA!bornagain77
October 31, 2007
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