As antibiotic-resistant supergerms carried in food become an increasingly creepy threat, nanotechnology may eventually help to banish bacteria--without killing it. In place of industry-standard antibiotics, researchers at Clemson University are experimenting with new pathogen-disabling nanoparticles to keep South Carolina chickens healthy.
Poultry-farm chickens are ideal incubators for livestock-laden diseases. Due to their weak immune systems and crowded living conditions, the animals can act as carriers for bacteria and fungi that may affect their human consumers. But the epidemiological risks of antibiotic-pumped chickens are just as fierce--one common poultry drug is closely related to an antibiotic used to treat anthrax in humans. When bacteria become immune to the poultry drug, they're one step closer to being immune to the human one.
Rather than relying on antibiotics, professor Jeremy Tzeng's nano-enriched feed will infiltrate chickens' bodies and mimic cell surfaces; tiny pathogens bind to the particles instead of real cells, then flush out through the digestive system--keeping chickens safer and healthier for human consumption. According to Tzeng, microorganisms are less likely to become resistant to this physical purging process than they are to antibiotics.
This new technique wouldn't hit coops tomorrow--Tzeng estimates that three to five years of further testing and development are necessary before poultry health would see significant improvements. And in the meantime, nano-consumption's health effects on birds the humans that eat them remains under scrutiny. Some studies have found an increase in cell death and tissue inflammation in mice and rats fed nanotubes, but researchers at Rice University last year found no evidence of toxicity when they tracked the consumption and absorption of nanoparticles in fruit flies.
A final verdict on the toxicity of nanoparticles is tricky to track and full of variables: "One analysis might indicate toxicity and another might not," says Tzeng. "With each different biological system, there can be a different outcome, so rats and mice can be different from chickens."
Besides avian and human toxicity concerns, Tzeng and his team are working to build more environmentally friendly, biodegradable nanotech. The particles they currently use have a core made from the same non-biodegradable material used in styrofoam.
Furthermore, the nano-feed technology could be used as a diagnostic tool. The Clemson scientists plan to use sensors in testing which pathogens attach to the nanoparticles after they exit the body. This would allow scientists to ensure they've correctly identified and removed the pathogen--or simply to confirm a certain bacteria is present. With more research, Tzeng may be able to fine-tune the interaction between nanoparticles and microorganisms, ultimately targeting extremely specific bacteria, like exact strains of salmonella. (Could produce like America's tainted tomatoes end up on the research docket?)
As a disease treatment and a precision diagnostic tool, nanoparticles may have even greater potential in the increasingly high-tech field of targeted medicine for humans. After all, if they can help replace antibiotics in chickens safely, then one day nanoparticles might just replace our antibiotics as well. It's a long road paved with a lot more testing, but according to Tzeng, "poultry is just the platform we chose to test out. Humans are the final goal."
"Poultry is just the platform we chose to test out," says Jeremy Tzeng, a Clemson University professor who next plans to build sensors to track pathogens and their attachment to nanoparticles as they exit the chicken body. "Humans are the final goal." (Photograph Courtesy of Clemson University)