EDITORIAL: Are Bacteria, Viruses And Cancer Cells Having Their Own Research Labs Somewhere In The Universe Developing Their Resistance Strategies. Is Modern Medicine Looking At The Wrong Perspectives?
Source: EDITORIAl, Thailand Medical News Oct 29, 2019 5 years, 2 weeks, 2 days, 1 hour ago
I know that I might get criticized by some in the medical community as being the owner of numerous
medical online portals and also medical print media, I should not be making such comments. But seriously think about what I am stating. This article is purely to invoke some deep and critical thinking.
One cannot help but to question whether there is an inert superior intelligence in bacteria, viruses and even cancer cells as even though mankind has made tremendous progress in healthcare and medicine with through extensive research with the aid of new diagnostic tools, new tech including AI and Big Data and made major progress in studying these livings structure and the advance of genomics, yet despite every few steps taken forward by intelligent humans, all it needs is just one step by these ‘brainless” living structures to mess up all our most grandeur goals and objectives of finding the ultimate cure for some ailment or disease.
From our own cells that have turned cancerous to various bacteria and viruses, they are constantly mutating or adapting through various intelligent techniques to escape the drugs and treatment protocols that we keep on developing through extensive research, great minds collaborating together and the usage of high tech computational platforms
Take the case of the extremely drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria. It’s a cause of sepsis and also often found in hospital infections. These bacteria have been evolving over the years, developing resistant to first line antibiotics and drugs and subsequently to all known antimicrobials lines including last resorts drugs and as scientist keep on developing newer drugs, it still develops resistant. It took researchers so much time and efforts to find an antimicrobial that would deal with it after even it develope resistant to piperacilline-tazobactam and carbapenems. The latest last line drug ceftolozane-tazobactam only worked with the bacteria strains for a few days before resistant was developed. Interestingly when the scientists discovered how the bacteria manage to do this by performing whole genome sequencing on these mutated isolates, investigators identified the single mutation in a gene that encodes a natural enzyme, cephalosporinase. (Overexpression of cephalosporinase causes resistance to nearly all antimicrobials) . But when the researchers tried to find a new way to deal with these mutations, the bacteria simply manifested a new form of mutation in seconds!
The same for the HIV virus, which many medical researchers claim that they are closer to a cure in the meanwhile, new research is showing that new strains of the virus is emerging, some even more virulent that ever and growing resistant to existing drugs.
The same goes for
Tuberculosis, STDs like
Gonorrhea,
Syphilis,
Herpes, where both
bacteria and
viruses responsible for the diseases are mutating and developing newer drug resistance forms that also have more disturbing symptoms.
Why we eve
n have new strains of
fungi that are not only drug resistant but now even able to cause. deaths in humans through many ways.
When it comes to
cancer, many oncologists and researchers will tell you we have come a long way with genomics, gene-editing, immunotherapy, AI in Medical imaging etc but in terms of progress all they can give is so called improved quality of life or survival periods being extended but at very high financial costs. But at the end of the day when you look at statistics, more people are getting cancer and dying from it despite whatever one can say.
But the main point of this editorial is simply to question ….despite all these medical and research advances…have we really progressed in medical and healthcare in terms of the numbers of humans saved despite all the discoveries and advances etc or perhaps we are looking at the wrong perspectives…we seem to be delving deeper and deeper into a more micro detailing without looking at a macro perspective of things. Pardon my rantings, but I am simply asking.
