Chronic infection can prove fatal, particularly to people who have cystic fibrosis or weakened immune systems. Intriguingly, the fearsome single-cell organism also may be able to teach University of Florida researchers how to kill cancer cells. The idea is that if you can trigger cancer cells to go through apoptosis, you can kill them. Pseudomonas may provide an avenue for understanding how to trigger this process. Jin also is looking for better ways to fight Pseudomonas infection, which is linked to 16 percent of hospital-acquired pneumonia cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
People undergoing cancer treatment also are susceptible to severe infection.
Initially when you treat cystic fibrosis patients, for example, you can kill the bacteria. But after a number of years, the bacteria that persist in their lungs become resistant to all antibacterial treatment. Once that is understood, scientists can try to develop treatments that can interfere with key steps in that process, Jin said.