Posted by alexandra_k on March 2, 2020, at 4:42:36
In reply to Re: Fungi and superbugs, posted by alexandra_k on January 11, 2020, at 4:36:59
Seriously, I watched all of it. It was super-cool.
The antibiotics that we have are products of nature that we discovered.
Much as MIT would have us belive otherwise, most of the effective medications that we have were originally derived from organisms that had developed natural resistence.
Then all we do is isolate an effective compound that they produce and then artificially synthesise it en masse in the laboratory for market.
Don't get me wrong I am not attempting to denigrate or belittle the effort that goes into isolating compounds or effectively mass producing them for market.
But I do mean to say that the process of discovery has been more focused on discovering what organisms have solved the problem for us.
Rather than the de novo invention of novel compounds.
I didn't realise that there was so much potential, yet, in fungi.
But that is terrific to know / to hear.
Penicillin is of course fungi. That had natural immunity / resistance to many things.
It is terrific to know / to hear that we have far from exhausted the potential of strains of presently existing, known, fungi.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1106766
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20190907/msgs/1108752.html