Grammar-based peptide fights bacteria

[tocqueville]

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
Wed Oct 18, 1:01 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Using grammar rules alongside test tubes, biologists may have found a promising new way to fight nasty bacteria, including drug-resistant microbes and anthrax.

Studying a potent type of bacteria-fighters found in nature, called antimicrobial peptides, biologists found that they seemed to follow rules of order and placement that are similar to simple grammar laws. Using those new grammar-like rules for how these antimicrobial peptides work, scientists created 40 new artificial bacteria-fighters.

Nearly half of those new germ-fighters vanquished a variety of bacteria and two of them beat anthrax, according to a paper in Thursday's journal Nature.

This potentially creates not just a new type of weapon against hard-to-fight germs, but a way to keep churning out new and different microbe-attackers so that when bacteria evolve new defenses against one drug, doctors won't be stymied.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061018/ap_on_sc/anti_bacterial_grammar_1

[soothsayer]

1. That's so cool! Cracking the code. Nice!

[Warpy]

2. That's great news

because there are NO new antibiotics in the drug pipeline and staph is becoming resistant to vancomycin, the last drug that would kill it.

So far, only a few cases of completely resistant staph have been documented and all have been in hospitals.

This may also be good news for fighting mycobacteria, the ones that cause the completely resistant strains of tuberculosis.

[aquart]

3. Wow! Talk about the value of pure research. YOWZA!

This has made my otherwise grey bleak day.

[Shadowen]

4. It makes we wonder...

...if grammar and the like are a function of a deeper biological imperative, a sort of pre-programmed tendency towards arranging words in certain ways.

That would be so cool.

[Vidar]

6. Your point is well, taken, however in a number of languages

such as Latin & German, word-order is relatively unimportant. The differnce in meaning is instead conveyed bey the ending of the words or "cases".

[eppur_se_muova]

5. May the best grammarians win?

Really interesting post, sorry it's too late to rec.

[bemildred]

7. Sounds like formal language theory.

Not "grammar" as normally used. Recursive rules applied to generation of correct strings of "letters". It would be interesting to see if there are any connections to Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA).

[drm604]

8. You're bringing back memories of my "Formal Languages" course in college.

I took it as one of my CompSci electives, not exactly understanding what it would be about. Finite automata, context free grammars, pumping lemmas, etc. I found it fascinating at the time and it required some real intellectual heavy lifting.

I really haven't used it at all in my career. It might be interesting to study up on it again.

[bemildred]

9. I used it a good deal.

It can be very handy in the right context. I taught it once, too. But you are right, it's pretty abstract, and the demand for such skills is not large, and it's not something that everyone would get into. But I would wager it is relevant to this story.