Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 1/20/12

Israeli scientists are reporting that they’ve developed a way to restore antibiotic sensitivity in increasingly resistant bacteria.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University used a process called lysogenization in which they employed bacteriophages to invade the cells of bacteria and restore their antibiotic sensitivity. They isolated genes from resistant bacteria and genetically engineered them to reverse the resistance.

“Broad usage of the proposed system, in contrast to antibiotics and phage therapy, will potentially change the nature of nosocomial infections toward being more susceptible to antibiotics rather than more resistant,” the researchers wrote in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

The news comes just a month after Canadian researchers reported that bacteria in pigs remained largely resistant to antibiotics more than two years after farmers discontinued their use – raising concerns about the long-term effects of antibiotic resistance in both humans and animals. 

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