Sludge Watch ==> MRSA - Staph- killing clays researched in Buffalo

[Maureen Reilly]

Studying staph-killing clays

UB scientists patent Bioclay that uses different method to kill bacteria

By ELLEN GOLDBAUM
Contributing Editor

What makes some clays such powerful antimicrobial agents capable of killing 
MRSA and other virulent bacteria? It's a question that UB researchers have 
been studying for several years.


Rossman Glese and colleagues are studying the surface characteristics of 
naturally occurring antimicrobial clays, some of which have been shown to 
kill MRSA.
PHOTO: ELLEN GOLDBAUM

With funding from the National Institutes of Health-National Center for 
Complementary and Alternative Medicine, UB geologists are studying the 
surface characteristics of naturally occurring antimicrobial clays, 
including some clays from France, to determine why they are such effective 
killers of bacteria.

Researchers from Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space 
Exploration, to whom the UB researchers are under subcontract on that grant, 
have recently shown that French clays can destroy Methicillin-Resistant 
Staphylococcus Aureus, also called MRSA.

The UB researchers also have modified and patented Bioclay, a different type 
of clay that is highly successful in destroying a range of bacterial agents. 
It will soon be tested against MRSA.

Some of the UB researchers' results on the surface characteristics of the 
French clays were presented last month at the annual meeting of the 
Geological Society of America.

Rossman Giese, professor of geology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and 
Tracy Bank, assistant professor of geology, are using several techniques to 
study the French clays, including atomic force microscopy.

In particular, they study the weak interactions that are responsible for the 
stickiness of clay particles.

"We look at the attraction or repulsion between natural and modified clays 
and bacteria," said Giese.

The UB researchers found very little interaction between the French clays 
and one kind of bacterium.

For Bioclay, on the other hand, the killing mechanism may be quite 
different. Unlike antibiotics, which are essentially a chemical weapon 
against bacteria, Giese says he and his colleagues have reason to believe 
that Bioclay kills through purely physical means.

"The bacterium has to come into physical contact with Bioclay in order for 
something to happen," Giese said.

That contact turns deadly.

"The antimicrobial agents in the Bioclay disrupt the cell wall of the 
bacterium, causing the bacterium to leak to death," he explained. "The nice 
thing about that is that it is unlikely that the bacterium can evolve to 
avoid it, so resistance to this antimicrobial clay is unlikely to become a 
problem."

Bioclay has been very effective in lab testing, Giese said.

"Our studies show that when we mix a bit of our modified clay at very low 
levels into sewage sludge that contains all kinds of bacteria, the modified 
clay kills everything," said Giese. "Nothing in the sewage sludge will grow 
in it."

The formulation developed by Giese and colleagues in the geology department 
and in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences was recently licensed 
to a Buffalo start-up company, also called Bioclay Inc.

The first application for that product is to treat HEPA filters in hospitals 
with the clay in order to trap and kill potentially lethal bacteria.

In addition to Giese, other UB researchers who developed Bioclay are Pat 
Costanzo, former faculty member in the Department of Geology; Paul J. 
Kostyniak, professor of pharmacology and toxicology and director of the 
Toxicology Research Center; and Joseph A. Syracuse, research scientist with 
the center.

http://www.buffalo.edu/reporter/vol39/vol39n10/articles/GieseBioclay.html