Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Study Suggests Platypus Milk Could Be a Vital Tool in Battling Antibiotic Resistant Superbugs

Study Suggests Platypus Milk Could Be a Vital Tool in Battling Antibiotic Resistant Superbugs
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Platypus milk is as unique as the platypus among the mammalian order.

Platypus milk contains special proteins that have the potential to combat the growing world-wide problem of antibiotic resistance.


Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, known as "superbugs," are on the rise across the world in a micro-evolutionary response to decades of antibiotic use to fight bacterial infections. Superbugs arise from genetic mutations in bacterial DNA—a direct consequence of exposure to antibiotics in microbe populations. It's evolution and artificial selection in action, and superbugs are becoming an increasing risk to human and animal health across the planet. Because superbug infections don't respond to conventional antibiotics, researchers have been scrambling to find a solution to what could lead to catastrophic, widespread super-infections, much like how medieval Europe had no defense against the Bubonic Plague which wiped out a quarter of the population in the Middle Ages.

"They are duck-billed, egg-laying, semi-aquatic mammals with poisonous spurs on their webbed feet: the Australian platypus is so weird that early European zoologists thought it must be an elaborate hoax." - The Guardian

Giphy

New research suggests that the strange nature of platypus and their milk, of all things, could be a key ally to doctors desperately seeking a cure for antibiotic resistant bacteria. In a study published in Structural Biology Communications, Australian biochemists, working in tandem with scientists at Deakin University, discovered that platypus milk contains special antibiotic properties, due to the unique way platypus lactate and nurse their young.

Giphy

Lead researcher Janet Newman of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) explains in her study that platypus don't have nipples or mammary glands like other mammals, because they belong to a small group of primitive mammals called monotremes. Monotreme milk is stored in the gut and then excreted through the skin. Because the milk sits in the gut, rather than in an independent system of glands, the milk is exposed to the environment, giving it, in some sense, antimicrobial and immunological properties.

"This special component has antibacterial properties against some of the nastier bugs you find in the environment but not against some bacteria found in the guts of the young," Newman said.

Newman and her team were able to identify that the protein structure of monotreme milk, found only in platypus, could be engineered to fight superbugs. Unlike their placental and marsupial mammalian cousins, monotremes are a small group of mammals that lay eggs, rather than giving birth to live young. Monotremes are a window into mammalian evolutionary history—over thousands of generations, most mammals evolved to form mammary glands, leaving little to no use for the ancient monotreme protein.

"Platypus are such weird animals that it would make sense for them to have weird biochemistry," Newman said in a statement. "By taking a closer look at their milk, we've characterized a new protein that has unique antibacterial properties with the potential to save lives."

The monotreme protein was named the "Shirley Temple" protein, due to its ringlet-like structure, resembling the hair of the 1930's child movie star of the same name. It's so unusual that the special fold in its molecular structure has never been identified in more than 100,000 other types of known proteins.

"That's interesting, because it's the shape of proteins which dictate their function," Newman explained. "So the hope is that the novel structure, in the best possible world, would eventually lead to a therapeutic that is based on a completely different way of dealing with microbial infections than our current antibiotics."

Shirley Temple proteinCSIRO

In 2014, the World Health Organization issued a stern warning that the world may be entering what it calls the "post-antibiotic era," where conventional antibiotics may be rendered ineffective against even the most common types of bacterial infections and injuries.

"Without urgent, coordinated action by many stakeholders, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill," warned WHO's Assistant Director-General for Health Security Dr. Keiji Fukuda. "Effective antibiotics have been one of the pillars allowing us to live longer, live healthier, and benefit from modern medicine. Unless we take significant actions to improve efforts to prevent infections and also change how we produce, prescribe and use antibiotics, the world will lose more and more of these global public health goods and the implications will be devastating."

More from Trending

Dr. Mehmet Oz
Fox News

Dr. Oz Slammed After His 'Credit Card' Health Care Analogy Goes Completely Off The Rails

Snake oil salesman Dr. Mehmet Oz—now the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—was criticized after he tried to discuss U.S. health insurance providers' pledge to speed up the prior authorization process by oddly comparing it to a "credit card," underscoring just how much he doesn't understand the job he currently holds.

Earlier this week, major U.S. health insurers—including Cigna, Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare—announced a set of reforms aimed at simplifying the often frustrating prior authorization process for patients and providers.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots of Jon Ossoff and Russell Vought
@atrupar/X

Jon Ossoff Lays Into Project 2025 Architect For Trying To Gut The CDC In Fiery Takedown

Georgia Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff criticized Project 2025 architect and current Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought during a Senate appropriations hearing for the Trump administration's austere spending cuts that are currently focused on slashing the budget and workforce of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Ossoff pressed Russell Vought on the administration’s decision to cut the agency’s budget by nearly half and on the loss of roughly 25% of its workforce.

Keep ReadingShow less
Jasmine Crockett Calls Out Trump's Hypocrisy By Pointing Out How Melania Got Her Visa
Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for SiriusXM; Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

Jasmine Crockett Calls Out Trump's Hypocrisy By Pointing Out How Melania Got Her Visa

Texas Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett pointed out President Donald Trump's hypocrisy on immigration considering how First Lady Melania Trump's pathway to citizenship was possible because she received an "Einstein visa," which is usually reserved for an individual with "some sort of significant achievement."

Speaking during a House Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Restoring Integrity and Security to the Visa Process,” Crockett noted that “the idea that Trump and my Republican colleagues want to restore integrity and security in the visa process is actually a joke," and harshly criticized the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and visa restrictions.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots of Jennifer Griffin and Pete Hegseth
The Hill

Fox Host Comes To Reporter's Defense After Pete Hegseth Berates Her At Pentagon Briefing

Fox News' chief political analyst Brit Hume came to the defense of Fox national security reporter Jennifer Griffin after their former colleague, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, criticized Griffin as the reporter "who misrepresents the most intentionally what the president says” in a Pentagon news conference.

Hegseth, a former Fox News anchor, had criticized media outlets—including his former network—for what he described as unpatriotic reporting. Hegseth took particular aim at early intelligence assessments suggesting that President Donald Trump's bombing of Iran may not have significantly crippled Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Keep ReadingShow less

Teachers Share The Questions Students Asked In Class That Broke Their Hearts

Being a teacher is a calling.

It is not for the meek or weak of heart.

Keep ReadingShow less