BizBIOSCIENCE continued from page 141 Louis Pasteur’s germ research and Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin were the first wave of the revolution. Prior to this work, even minor injuries could lead to infections that could result in death. The first antibiotics were wonder drugs of modern medicine. When they became widely available, they saved lives. Within a 10-year period around the 1950s, the medicine advanced further – introducing new antibiotics, like streptomycin, tetracycline, erythromycin and, later, ciprofloxacin. But science didn’t anticipate the cunning quality of bacteria, Mehren said. “Remember that before invention of penicillin, the expectation was that you would die of infection. We forget that pre-antibiotic era was marked by the fact that if you got an earache you could die. Then along came sulfur and penicillin, and people started getting used to the idea that you could survive these infections. Expectations started to change.” Bacteria then learned how to adapt and resist, Mehren said, forcing physicians to prescribe broad-spectrum cocktails of antibiotic therapies that began to decrease the longterm efficacy of the drugs. “We failed to understand that the biome we were affecting started to evolve itself. When those bacteria began to change, what is now called antimicrobial resistance was bred.” Bitter pills of history
Mehren said we’re passing through a golden age of antibiotic discovery, and on our way to a post-antibiotic era, when antibiotic resistance could raise a grim specter. “That’s what the world is facing today – when bacteria continue to be virulent even in the face of antibiotics. That’s what everyone’s afraid of – a post-antibiotic era where antimicrobials fail to work and we go back to a time when you get an earache and you could die because it got into your bloodstream.” In the face of this doomsday picture, Mehren’s belief in Accelerate’s exquisitely robust tool is farsighted and optimistic. “There’s a way to stop that – and that is by giving antibiotics only to people who need them in the quickest time frame possible.” To deal with a post-antibiotic era, science now agrees that wanton use of broad-spectrum antibiotics contributed to the rise of superbugs. New strategies, like the holy grail of reliable rapid diagnostics that identify both the microbial cause of an infection and its drug resistance profile within hours, is the way to battle resistant incarnations of bacteria. Accelerate’s inroads to solving pieces of the infection-control puzzle are now trailblazing the biosciences. Mehren has ramped up commercial activity for Accelerate’s testing system. Mehren’s mix of hubris and respect for fear continue to inform his business approach, upending medical diagnostics at Accelerate’s headquarters, where whiteboards detail complex team goals and messages that urge, “See it. Own it. Solve it. Do it.” Each word is an omen of how Mehren plans to push Accelerate forward – and open the floodgates to more microbiological ingenuity and impact.
Biz 142 BizTucson
<<<
Fall 2017
www.BizTucson.com