Tasmanian Devil’s Milk Possible Weapon Against Super-bugs

The Sydney University researchers discovered a possible powerful antidote in Tasmanian Devil’s Milk against antibiotic-resistant superbugs. The milk from the marsupial animal contains essential peptides that seem to fight deadly infections including Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus or MRSA.

Tasmanian Devils developed the milk’s useful component to help their offspring ward diseases and make them stronger in the process. They found an important element called cathelicidins, the infection-fighting factor in the marsupial milk. The Sydney University team initiated an endeavor to imitate the peptides.

Emma Peel, a Ph.D. student researcher said they found six important peptides. These peptides are present in other marsupial’s milk, which she mentioned are also worth studying. The student researcher said, “Tammar wallabies have eight of these peptides and opossums have 12”. She also said that research on koala’s milk is underway. Peel’s work was published in a Nature journal, Scientific Reports.

Thriving in Filth

Scientist believed that the Tasmanian Devil’s habitat served as a suitable sample for research since their offspring thrive in “relatively dirty environment”.

Only a few weeks into pregnancy, Tasmanian devil mothers give birth and the little marsupial snuggle in the mother’s pouch for the next four months.

The Australian researchers successfully imitated six Tasmanian devil’s peptides they discovered. They tested the newly formed peptides in 25 bacteria and six types of fungi.

Saha-CATH5

The Saha-CATH5, one of the synthetic peptides had a positive effect in fighting the MRSA virus. Most of the time, MRSA infection is harmless, numerous people carry the virus on their skin, nose, and throat. But if the virus enters thru an open wound, problems will start to occur. That is why people who stay longer in a hospital are at greater risk.

MRSA can only be treated with medications of combined antibiotics which can withstand resistant problems.

The Saha-CATH5 appears to work on Vancomycin-resistant enterococcus, another hard to kill resistance virus. It also performs well against a fungus called Candida, which usually cause skin infections.

Researchers say that by 2050, superbugs can kill one person every three seconds worldwide. This promotes the immediate need to discover new drugs to combat treatment-resistant infections.

According to Dr. Richard Stabler, “We need to do this hunting in unusual places for new antibiotics. People are beginning to explore and find new molecules”. Stabler is an Associate Professor in Molecular Bacteriology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine,

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