The Magic Key to Destroy Virulent Bacteria Without Antibiotics

Thanks to Susan Jaggers, a friend of mine who does a wonderful job of staying up-to-date- on the issues that affect those of us with chronic Lyme disease, the following video, approximately 18 minutes, will give you a different kind of hope – one that I am very excited to share.

This presentation was delivered a year ago, and so perhaps you are familiar with the emerging science. I for one would hope that in the last year much more would have been developed using this amazing breakthrough.

The breakthrough began in 2002, when molecular biologist Bonnie Bassler, bearing her microscope on a microbe that lives in the gut of fish, isolated an elusive molecule called AI-2, and uncovered the mechanism behind mysterious behavior called quorum sensing — or bacterial communication.

She showed that bacterial chatter is hardly exceptional or anomolous behavior, as was once thought — and in fact, most bacteria do it, and most do it all the time. (She calls the signaling molecules “bacterial Esperanto.”)

The discovery shows how cell populations use chemical powwows to stage attacks, evade immune systems and forge slimy defenses called biofilms. For that, she’s won a MacArthur “genius” grant — and is giving new hope to frustrated pharmacos seeking new weapons against drug-resistant superbugs.

Bassler teaches molecular biology at Princeton, where she continues her years-long study of V. harveyi, one such social microbe that is mainly responsible for glow-in-the-dark sushi. Following is her lecture on “TED” – “On How Bacteria Talk”