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SILVER SPRING, Md. It was a Friday in mid-May, and Erik Snesrud was
checking out the first batch of samples under a new directive.
The order had just come in to look for a new gene called mcr-1 that had
already achieved global notoriety among microbiologists. It gives germs the
ability to withstand the effects of colistin, a last-resort antibiotic used to save
the lives of people infected with serious superbugs.
The results were back in minutes. One of the samples some E. coli bacteria
taken from a woman with a urinary tract infection in Pennsylvania carried the
gene.
Snesrud knew he was going to lose his weekend. He prepared to work for the
next 48 hours. "We wanted to know what we were dealing with," he said.
The news startled doctors across the country. Center for Disease Control and
Prevention director Dr. Thomas Frieden upstaged his own speech about Zika
virus last week to warn about what the arrival of mcr-1 means for people
everywhere. "The medicine cabinet is empty for some patients. It is the end of
the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently," he said.
Snesrud, however, wasn't shocked. Once bacteria acquire new characteristics,
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/searching-superbugs-lab-looking-next-big-threat-n582716
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Searching for Superbugs: The Lab Looking for the Next Big Threat - NBC News
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Searching for Superbugs: The Lab Looking for the Next Big Threat - NBC News
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http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/searching-superbugs-lab-looking-next-big-threat-n582716
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Searching for Superbugs: The Lab Looking for the Next Big Threat - NBC News
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From left, Rosslyn Maybank, Ana Ong and Erik Snesrud of the Multidrug Resistant Organism
Repository and Surveillance Network (MRSN) at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
worked overtime to identify the first sample for a U.S. patient carrying the mcr-1 antibiotic
resistance gene. Maggie Fox / NBC News
Another piece of good news: The MRSN team has not yet found another
example of the mcr-1 gene in any of the samples they have tested. "We have
tested about another 40 of them so far. There's no sign of it since," McGann
said.
Related: Superbugs Kill 23,000 People a Year
They are painstakingly going through 40,000 samples of bacteria they have
stored in freezers in their labs inside the main blue and yellow building of the
Walter Reed annex in Silver Spring, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Super-fast sequencers developed in the 15 years since the first human genome
was mapped help a lot. What used to take weeks or months can now be done
in a matter of hours.
A strong work ethic doesn't hurt, either. Snesrud went two days on little or no
sleep; Maybank worked extra hours standing on her feet even though she's
eight months pregnant.
"We pride ourselves on our turnaround time," McGann said.
There aren't many rewards no overtime, no big bonuses for these
government employees. But there are some perks. Snesrud's getting one of
the ultimate honors for a microbiologist a new species named after him. The
team has proposed calling it Pseudomonas snesrudii. It was taken from
someone's skin in Baltimore.
The lab tests samples from around
the world, not only from U.S. military
hospitals but from Israel, France's
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Searching for Superbugs: The Lab Looking for the Next Big Threat - NBC News
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A baumanii was known for causing horrible wound infections among soldiers in
the Vietnam War. The normally harmless bacteria, found in soil and on skin, got
into the wounds of men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, causing
baffling bloodstream infections.
"If this lab had existed 15 years ago, we would have been able to provide
feedback ... so we could make much smarter choices," Hinkle said.
The team would have been able
to sequence the samples quickly
and tell military doctors which
antibiotic to use, and which
patients to isolate so the bug
didn't spread.
Instead, doctors were forced to try one antibiotic after another and had no idea
that certain patients were more dangerous than others. Each one failed.
In the end, it was colistin that worked. That's one reason the team's so
concerned to see mcr-1 and its properties that make colistin useless, too.
The CDC, World Health Organization and other groups warn that it's only a
matter of time before people start becoming infected with ultimate superbugs
that cannot be killed by any of the antibiotics in the arsenal.
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Searching for Superbugs: The Lab Looking for the Next Big Threat - NBC News
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Patrick McGann of the Multidrug Resistant Organism Repository and Surveillance Network
(MRSN) lab at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research points to the screen of a Pacific
Biosciences PacBio sequencer used to help sequence the genome of a sample of E. coli bacteria
that turned out to carry the dreaded mcr-1 resistance gene. Maggie Fox / NBC News
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Searching for Superbugs: The Lab Looking for the Next Big Threat - NBC News
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NEXT STORY Can I Ever Get Pregnant? And Other Questions About Zika Virus
But Zika virus is one that the immune system eventually gets rid of. Several
viruses are known to cause birth defects if the mother is infected during
pregnancy. Rubella, also known as German measles, is an example. But there
was never any evidence that women infected with rubella before they got
pregnant had a higher risk of birth defects in later years.
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Searching for Superbugs: The Lab Looking for the Next Big Threat - NBC News
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even then, it takes a couple of days for the virus to build up enough in the
mosquito's body for the insect to transmit the virus to someone else.
So unless you are in an area where Zika is spreading, it's not time to panic.
Women in Zika zones need to take the strongest precautions, however and
that includes using repellents such as DEET, covering up, and staying inside as
much as possible. Women who become infected do need to see a doctor right
away and get regularly tested and then have their pregnancy carefully
monitored. There is no known way to protect a developing fetus from Zika
infection, but doctors do know that not every woman who gets infected during
pregnancy goes on to have a baby with birth defects.
The CDC expects some local outbreaks of Zika in the states where the Aedes
mosquitoes are common, but nothing like the epidemics in Latin American and
Caribbean countries.
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Searching for Superbugs: The Lab Looking for the Next Big Threat - NBC News
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TOPICS HEALTH NEWS, KIDS' HEALTH, LATIN AMERICA, LATINO, TRAVEL, U.S. NEWS
FIRST PUBLISHED MAY 31 2016, 12:13 PM ET
NEXT STORY WHO Issues Stricter Safe-Sex Guidelines to Prevent Zika
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