What’s the News: Scientists are using nanoparticles to develop ways to fight bacteria that are resistant to conventional antibiotics. These tiny drugs physically punch holes through bacteria instead of killing them chemically, which means that they could be especially effective on antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains like the dangerous methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). “The applications are going to be very diverse, whether we’re talking about wound healing or dressing, skin infection, and quite possibly injections into the bloodstream,” James Hedrick, master inventor at IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, told Popular Science.How the Heck:Developed by IBM (yes, that IBM), but tested at the Singapore Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, the nanoparticles are made of bits of polycarbonate plastic that are amphilic: with one part that’s attracted to water (hydrophilic), and another that’s attracted to fats (hydrophobic). This means when you inject these particles into blood, for example, the hydrophilic parts of the polycarbonates hide within the hydrophobic parts, forming self-assembled clots about 200 nanometers wide.
These nanoparticles then glom onto certain kinds of bacteria, including drug-resistant staph, because of ...
"should this work against the New Delhi Superbug?
