Science Forums 2

[bumab]

I was thinking about possible new solutions to the common problem of clogged arteries. As we all know, most older folk have large plaque deposits in their arteries, especially around the heart. These deposits form thrombuses (throbii?) which protrude into the artieries, attracting platelets and various other things, eventually leading to heart attacks.

My background is ecology, so I was thinking about how milfoil is often controlled in lakes. Tetraploid fish are introduced which eat the milfoil, however since the tetraploidy prevents them from viable reproduction, there's no invasive species problem- they die off in one generation.

So- back to the arteries. If one could devlope a strain of bacteria which eat plaque (it's a fatty deposit, so it's probably possible), you could simply introduce the critters and have them reduce the levels of plaque, while avoiding surgury or the stints, which don't help that much in the long run. The hard part is controlling them past that first generation. I was thinking two possible solutions. Genetic "adjustment" to remove genes resonsible for spindle formation or some other thing that would prevent the bacteria from splitting, thus avoiding reproduction. Or, genetic modification to make the strain especially weak to anti-biotics, and kill them off with a massive IV dose every 6 hours or so, then introduce more. Various methods could be used to insure only modified bacteria are introduced, like flourescent tagging to the introduced DNA, then simply grab the ones that glow for introduction.

Obviously, some difficulties left to work out, but it seems like a good new direction for medicine to go. why look for nanobots wheh there's millions of nature made ones available for use right now?

what do you think- pie in the sky or possibility?