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Mashed Up Cockroach Brains Kill E. coli, Study Finds

Cockroaches appear to carry a secret weapon that can protect people against deadly superbugs, new research has found.

Dr. Naveed Khan and his team tested mashed up cockroach brains against the E. coli bacteria that cause meningitis and MRSA, the staph bacteria that has become resistant to antibiotics.

A night in a Petri dish together killed 90 percent of the bacteria, Khan told the (Toronto) Star. The insect parts had no effect on human cells, however.

"Some of these insects live in the filthiest places known to man," he said. Because cockroaches can survive the loss of a limb, and the brains of cockroaches are the most protected parts of their bodies, researchers decided to look there for their answers.

Tests also examined the nervous systems of locusts for superbug-fighting power, after realizing locusts were unscathed while soldiers fighting in countries such as Afghanistan were becoming infected with bacteria that resisted treatment.

"What’s exciting is that most research has generally been done on plants," said Khan. A professor of molecular microbiology at the University of Nottingham in England, Khan has returned to his native Pakistan to help with the health disaster that followed devastating floods in the country earlier this year.

"Scientists are missing out. Nobody else has been looking at these insects as a source for much-needed antibiotics," he said.

Their basic analysis of the molecules in the insect brains and nervous systems revealed they are proteins and not fatty acids, a promising sign for development of antibiotics in the future, according to Khan. Khan and his research team are currently extending their studies to see how the insect stew combats other superbugs.
 

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Crew From TV’s ‘Dirty Jobs’
Visits Purdue Entomology

Mike Rowe, host of "Dirty Jobs," which airs on the Discovery Channel, recently spent about eight hours working with Purdue students who study forensic entomology. That’s the process in which insects are used to determine a subject’s time of death and other information to aid in criminal investigations.

Rowe’s crew captured every moment as the students presented him with four dead pigs in different locations, and gave him a hands-on look at how maggots and other insects can be used to determine time of death.

For Rowe, who has done more than 300 dirty jobs since the show began six years ago, his time on Purdue’s campus ranks among the nastiest.

"We were here from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., which for us is about half of the time we would normally spend, but it had three times the stink that we would normally encounter and probably five times the smarts we would normally deal with," he said. "In the end, it was a very compact and efficient ‘Dirty Jobs.’

"You’ve got some really big brains doing some important work, and at the same time you have young kids learning the trade," he said.
 

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UF Workshop Addresses Insect-Based Terrorism

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A recent University of Florida workshop titled "Counteracting Bioterrorist Introduction of Pathogen-Infected Vector Mosquitoes," dealt with the use of pathogen-laced mosquitoes to spread a deadly disease.

Former Florida Governor Bob Graham, co-author of one of the most authoritative studies of terrorist threats against the United States, "World at Risk," gave the plenary address at the event, discussing the overall bioterrorism threat.

How real is the threat? Many of the world’s most dangerous pathogens already are transmitted by arthropods, the animal phylum that includes mosquitoes. But so far the United States has not been exposed to a large-scale spread of vector-borne diseases like Rift Valley, chikungunya fever or Japanese encephalitis. But terrorists with a cursory knowledge of science could potentially release insects carrying these diseases in a state with a tropical climate like Florida’s, according to several experts who spoke at the workshop.

Co-sponsored by UF’s Emerging Pathogens Institute, the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory and the USDA Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology, the two-day workshop brought together experts from a wide variety of disciplines at the state and national level to assess the threat of using mosquitoes as weapons and the preparations the state could take to stave off such an attack.

Currently, there is no organized plan at any governmental level to develop the resources for mosquito control that would prevent such an attack.