Scientists claim method to kill C diff bug found

SCIENTISTS in University College Cork claimed to have found a “magic bullet” that can kill the deadly hospital superbug C difficile.

Professor Colin Hill and Professor Paul Ross of UCC teamed up with scientists at the University of Alberta in Canada and with experts led by Mary Rea at the Teagasc Moorpark Food Research Centre to form the compound which they believe can eliminate the Clostridium difficile bug without harming other parts of the human gut.

The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Latest figures from the HSE’s Health Protection Surveillance Unit show in one week earlier this month 30 cases of C diff were identified here.

In the past 18 months, a staggering 1,585 C diff cases have been reported, according to the unit, in addition to a further 2,416 cases of rotavirus in the same period. Prof Hill said work on finding a way to kill the C diff bug had been ongoing for the past three years.

He said the most common current treatment for C diff is broad spectrum antibiotics, which in eliminating C diff also removes other gut bacteria, damaging the gut and opening up the possibility of the bug returning.

C diff is naturally present in the human gut but is associated with hospitals as many people develop the bug while on antibiotics which can eliminate other gut bacteria, opening space for C diff to take hold, with sometimes fatal results.

“The key to this bit of research is we were not looking for another broad spectrum antibiotic,” Prof Hill said. “We went looking for a narrow spectrum antibiotic that would not cause damage to the gut.”

The process was tested on a model of the human gut, recreated in a laboratory, and there it was found that the compound, Thuricin CD, actively killed C diff without harming other naturally present bacteria.

The compound was created by screening more than 30,000 bacteria isolated from the human gut, and Prof Hill said the team behind the discovery were more positive about the prospect of it eventually making it onto the market because it was not discovered from a plant source or synthetically manufactured.

However, the compound now needs to be tested on humans and it could take more than 10 years for it to make it through the various procedures that would see it become available in vaccine form.

Prof Hill said the proof of the concept could be significant in “blazing a trail” that could ultimately see the compound reach the marketplace.

* www.pnas.org