Light-activated nanoparticles can supercharge current antibiotics

Light-activated nanoparticles, also known as quantum dots, can provide a crucial boost in effectiveness for antibiotic treatments used to combat drug-resistant superbugs such as E. coli and Salmonella, new University of Colorado Boulder research shows. 

Multi-drug resistant pathogens, which evolve their defenses faster than new antibiotic treatments can be developed to treat them, cost the United States an estimated $20 billion in direct healthcare costs and an additional $35 billion in lost productivity in 2013.

CU Boulder researchers, however, were able to re-potentiate existing antibiotics for certain clinical isolate infections by introducing nano-engineered quantum dots, which can be deployed selectively and activated or de-activated using specific wavelengths of light.

Rather than attacking the infecting bacteria conventionally, the dots release superoxide, a chemical species that interferes with the bacteria's metabolic and cellular processes, triggering a fight response that makes it more susceptible to the original antibiotic.

"We've developed a one-two knockout punch," said Prashant Nagpal, an assistant professor in CU Boulder's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (CHBE) and the co-lead author of the study. "The bacteria's natural fight reaction [to the dots] actually leaves it more vulnerable."

The findings, which were published today in the journal Science Advances, show that the dots reduced the effective antibiotic resistance of the clinical isolate infections by a factor of 1,000 without producing adverse side effects.