A University of Iowa researcher finds new, genetic clues to why some bacteria are resistant to antibiotics. University of Iowa microbiologist Peter Greenberg, principal investigator on the study, says they’ve identified the 75 genes inside the bacteria cells that, for example, colonize in the lungs of people who have cystic fibrosis.
Greenberg says it’s an exciting discovery, because if they’d found a thousand genes, they wouldn’t know where to begin the next phase of research. Seventy-five is a much more manageable number of genes to investigate.
Greenberg says their work was aided by the recent human genome project which has laid out the interior maps of human cells. The study, however, deals with a limited kind of anti-biotic resistant strains of bacteria. The study’s findings have been published in the October 25th issue of the journal Nature.
