Oviedo (EFE).- The advances that are making it possible to understand the essential role that microorganisms play in human health and well-being, and their applications when looking for new effective treatments against antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been recognized today with the awarding of the Princess of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research to American biologists Jeffrey I. Gordon, Peter Greenberg and Bonnie L. Bassler.
Their contributions on the “essential role” of microorganism communities in life on the planet and in that of human beings have been recognized today by the jury that has awarded this award in Oviedo.
Greenberg (New York, 1948), professor of Microbiology at the University of Washington, and Bassler (Chicago, 1962), a researcher at Princeton University, have focused their work on the way in which bacteria communicate with each other (quorum). by emitting chemical signals that modulate their collective behavior.
Professor Gordon (New Orleans, 1947), a researcher at the Center for Genome Sciences at the University of Washington, has been a pioneer in the discovery and understanding of the human microbiome, the immense quantity and diversity of microorganisms that live in the body, and that they have essential roles in health, including metabolism, immune response, and nutrition.
“Both discoveries are enabling innovative therapeutic applications and the search for new effective treatments against antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” reflects the minutes of the jury, chaired by the scientist Pedro Miguel Echenique, who received the same award in 1998.
New ways to attack diseases
With their best knowledge, new ways of attacking diseases or resistant bacteria are being proposed by using therapeutic treatments based on microorganisms instead of antibiotics, or by incorporating them through probiotic products, which are very fashionable today.
Gordon was the pioneer in the study of the human microbiome, the set of microorganisms that inhabit the intestine, and its influence on nutrition and digestion, on diseases such as diabetes and obesity, or on the neurological and immune development of children and young people.
Founding director of the Center for Genome Sciences and Biology at the University of Washington, his research suggests that these microorganisms could be involved in the origin of neurological diseases such as autism spectrum disorders, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.
Gordon was also the promoter of the Human Microbiome Project, which has made it possible to estimate the species that make up the microbiota at around 10,000 and to sequence the genome of more than a hundred of them to date, and he was the one who proposed microbiota transplants as an innovative treatment.
Bonnie Bassler and Everett Peter Greenberg, who were candidates for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year, are pioneers in the study of communication between bacteria through the emission of certain substances, and how the formation of large groups generates behavior different from the one they have. when they are isolated, what is now known as “quorum sensing”, a term coined by Greenberg in 1994.
Each species of bacteria has its language
As they have verified with their separate investigations, each bacterial species has its own molecule, like a language, which is secreted and recognized only by those of its own species, so that they know when there are others around and tend to form a community (the quorum). ) that regulates the expression of some genes.
Their work has made it possible to verify that bacterial communication is important as part of the microbiota of the human organism and for its role in infections, in which there is a stage of low activity until a large group is formed that ends up carrying out a massive attack on the organism.
Based on this phenomenon, antagonist molecules of these substances are being developed to interfere with communication as a possible antimicrobial pathway for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, whose efficacy in mice has already been demonstrated in the laboratory.
Seventh prize to fail this year
The Scientific and Technical Research Award was the seventh to fail of the eight awards that the Princess of Asturias Foundation convenes annually, after last week the International Cooperation Award was granted to the Medicines for Neglected Diseases Initiative, an organization that develops new treatments for patients from poor and vulnerable communities.
In the previous weeks, the Award of Arts was awarded to the American actress Meryl Streep; the one for Communication and Humanities to the Italian philosopher Nuccio Ordine; that of Social Sciences to the French historian Hélène Carrère d’Encausse; the one for Sports to the Kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge, and the one for Letters to the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, while the one for Concord will be awarded on June 14. EFE