Antibiotic resistance is a billion-dollar problem that health-care professionals say is 鈥渘ot going away鈥� and will only get worse unless the federal government steps in.
But Canadian researchers in Manitoba are trying to blaze a new path using technology called magnetic nanoparticles. And for Winnipeg resident Shane Hartje, their potential success is extremely personal.
On June 5, 2016 he that left him paralyzed below his chest. But it was in the hospital where his problems only became worse: he was infected with a bacterial superbug that was resistant to most antibiotics.
"There was only two types of (I.V.-based) antibiotics that were going to work on the bug and that was it,鈥� Hartje told CTV Winnipeg. He spent several months battling the superbug before it was beaten.
But others aren鈥檛 so lucky.
Antibiotic resistance means that common bacterial infections are forcing doctors to to treat the ever-more resistant bugs.
Frank Schweizer, a professor from the University of Manitoba, called it a 鈥渕ajor problem鈥� because 鈥減eople die because of this."
As stories like Hartje鈥檚 are becoming increasingly prevalent, University of Manitoba researcher Dr. Song Liu is choosing to take a different approach.
He鈥檚 currently coordinating a team attempting to create a 鈥渟eries of material solutions to the problem of bacterial infections,鈥� he told CTV Winnipeg.
Simply put, he wants to use biocides 鈥� poisonous, toxic substances 鈥� to kill the bacteria infecting surface wounds.
, Lui鈥檚 team and another group from the University of Waterloo announced they had developed the biocide as a way to bypass a superbug鈥檚 defences like a 鈥淭rojan horse.鈥�
But the ongoing issue is that these biocides are non-selective. That means 鈥渢hey can also bring harm to our human skin cells.鈥�
For them to be effective Lui鈥檚 team needed to figure out a way to quickly pull the toxic chemicals out of a wound, and their solution involves magnetic nanoparticles.
The work of graduate student Rachel Nickel, part of Lui鈥檚 team, involves coating the toxic biocide onto magnetic nanoparticles which will in turn, disrupt, or heat up and kill the bacteria.
Nickel believes that the nanoparticles could kill the pathogens which cling to medical devices.
"If we can cut down on say 10 per cent or 20 per cent of the hospital-acquired illnesses," Nickel said, it could make a 鈥減retty big difference.鈥�
Manitoba researchers are part of a larger looking into so-called as a way to deal with antibiotic resistance. They are using nanoparticles to target bacteria because they won鈥檛 trigger the bacteria鈥檚 usual response mechanism.
For researchers like Lui, failure to come up with a solution could be catastrophic.
The World Health Organization estimates that each year, . The group expects this number to spike to approximately 10 million by 2050.
From a report from CTV Winnipeg鈥檚 Jon Hendricks
