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IBM's Tiny Technology Rips Up Drug-Resistant Germ Cells in Early Research

April 04, 2011 – Comments (2) | RELATED TICKERS: IBM , OPTR , NBY

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), the world’s largest computer-services provider, is developing a technology that searches out drug-resistant germs in the body and destroys them, addressing a $34 billion-a-year public health problem.

Engineers based in IBM’s San Jose, California, facility have created nanoparticles 50,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair that can obliterate the cell walls of drug-resistant bacteria. The structures then harmlessly degrade, leaving no residue, according to a study describing the work in the journal Nature Chemistry.

(from Bloomberg News; find the rest at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-03/ibm-s-tiny-technology-rips-up-drug-resistant-germ-cells-in-early-research.html )