Flesh-Eating Strep Bacteria May Be Defanged by Man-Made Protein

[flashl]

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- A vaccine using an altered protein found on the streptococcus A bacteria could protect people from strep throat, toxic shock syndrome and flesh-eating bacteria, researchers said.

Scientists for the first time copied a protein called M1 that controls the strep bacteria's virulence and manipulated its amino acids to make it safer, according to a study to be published tomorrow in the journal Science. The man-made protein, when injected in mice, provoked an immune response that shows potential strength as a vaccine, the research said.

Strep throat, rheumatic fever, the skin infection impetigo and other forms of strep infect 18 million people worldwide each year, killing 500,000, according to the World Health Organization's Web site. The germ has vexed vaccine-makers because the M1 protein is so similar to heart, lung and other human tissue that it tricks the body into attacking itself.

The man-made protein is "safer than the original version of M1, which has serious drawbacks to use in a vaccine,'' said study author Partho Ghosh, a chemistry professor at the University of California, San Diego, in a statement.


Bloomberg

[ananda]

1. Hallelujah!

And Hurray!!!!!!!!!

[aquart]

2. Allow me to feel bitter for a moment.

Why do the successes come after we've lost so many of our best?