Wasp Venom To Keep Catheters Sterile?

Avoiding urinary tract infections (UTI) by trying to keep a catheter sterile has been a difficult challenge. Studies show that standard antimicrobial treatments, at least for folks with indwelling catheters, are not effective at preventing UTIs. For more on that, see my post – Urinary Tract Infection and Catheter Care.

So we are always looking for better ways to prevent bacteria from ultimately causing UTIs. So how is this for an odd idea? Wasp venom peptides. I know, weird right? Here is a study from Singapore showing that Polybia-MPI, a peptide from the venom of wasps, looks to be very promising as a catheter coating to help prevent UTIs.

Here is an article with more details: https://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/08/antimicrobial-peptide-wasp-venom-catheter-bacteria