Scientists Wage War On Anthrax

Anthrax is almost always fatal when it infects the lungs, but nearly all forms of skin infections can be treated. Now, a group of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin have figured why. After a skin infection, special immune system cells called neutrophils rush to the site, identify and kill the spores.

However, during a lung infection, the number of neutrophils summoned for defense is markedly fewer and not enough to kill the bacteria, allowing inhaled spores to produce more bacteria and spread through the body. Now, researchers have identified the protein neutrophils use to stop skin infections, called alpha-defensin, and hope that this discovery will help to develop new drugs against the lung form of anthrax, possibly an alpha-defensin inhalant.

This research is detailed in the November issue of the journal PloS Pathogen Neutrophils.