Combination therapy shows promise in treating devastating cystic fibrosis
April 25th, 2011 - 6:33 pm ICT by ANIWashington, Apr 25 (ANI): A new study has suggested that an over-the-counter drug used to treat diarrhea combined with minocycline, an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, could one day change the lives of those living with cystic fibrosis.
Researchers at McMaster University have discovered this creative approach to tackle antibiotic resistance to bacterial infections, a frequent complication of those with cystic fibrosis.
“Antibiotic resistance is having a profound effect on known drugs that are used to treat illness and disease,” says researcher Eric Brown, professor and chair of McMaster’s Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences and member of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR).
Brown, who made the discovery in collaboration with McMaster researchers Gerry Wright and Brian Coombes, found that the combination of these two drugs inhibits the growth of bacteria after screening a collection of previously approved non-antibiotic drugs within McMaster’s Centre for Microbial Chemical Biology.
Their screening revealed that this particular combination using the anti-diarrhea drug loperamide increases the efficacy of the antibiotic minocycline against multidrug resistant P. aeruginosa.
“Typically it takes 13 to 15 years to develop a drug,” said Brown.
“We think that this approach could cut drug development time in half,” he added. (ANI)
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