Teruaki Nakatsuji and Richard Gallo from the University of California, San Diego, have discovered that some bacteria which naturally live on human skin produce chemicals that kill S. aureus—[a bacterium that can cause severe skin infections].
[The duo then] went after the bacteria themselves—isolating them from people with a skin disease called atopic dermatitis (eczema), growing them, and adding them to a cream. The result: a personalized ointment for killing S. aureus—and hopefully treating eczema—using bacteria that come from a person’s own skin.…
The team focused on one [type of bacterium]—a strain of S. hominis called A9…Strain A9 produces several new antibiotics that seem to specifically suppress the growth of S. aureus, including the drug-resistant versions that we know as MRSA.
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Protective staph strains like A9 dominate the skins of healthy people, but…even in people with eczema, the protective strains aren’t totally absent. They’re still there. So what happens if you give them a boost?
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As expected, the levels of S. aureus fell by more than 90 percent. In two cases, the troublesome microbe disappeared entirely.
“It’s a big step towards using microbial therapies to treat skin disease,” says Shruti Naik, from Rockerfeller University.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: A Probiotic Skin Cream Made With a Person’s Own Microbes
