Obliterating Disease With Nanodrills

Researchers from Rice, Texas A&M, and Biola University succeeded in developing an effective treatment for antibiotic resistant bacteria. Using light-activated cellular ‘drills’ known as cell-penetrating self-assembling peptide nanomaterials (CSPNs), the team uncovered a way to get inanimate objects to wreak havoc on their defenceless targets.

These tiny organisms that the group has been trying to target, known as superbugs, are becoming a severe issue. Think of them as bacteria capable
of evolving to overcome our current antibiotic treatments to them, and their ability to do this only keeps improving.

In fact, these antimicrobial-resistant bugs are such a problem, that by
2050, they’re predicted to take 10 million lives a year — far surpassing the mortality rate of cancer. With the growing terror that lies with superbugs, new antibiotics aren’t something we should be relying on either:

Antibiotics destroy all life, meaning that during the process of treatment, your medicine could be killing you instead of the bacteria.

With our drug-development process taking decades and billions of dollars to complete, targeting the bugs before serious damage is almost zero. Even…