A mother's breast milk is not just good for babies; it can also kill off drug-resistant bacteria.

Scientists from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and University College London (UCL) have transformed a protein found in human breast milk into an artificial virus that distinguishes drug-resistant bacteria and kills them on the spot, a recently published research found out.

Breast milk from mothers have always been most recommended by pediatricians because of its properties that help infants grow in their first months of life. Besides providing nutrition, it also serves as a baby's shield against diseases while his immune system is still in the development stage. Breast milk does this with the help of a key protein called lactoferrin.

Using most of the antimicrobial properties of lactoferrin — which are mainly due to a tiny fragment made up of amino acids — the researchers were able to make the artificial virus capable of killing bacteria almost instantly by punching holes and disrupting their cell membranes. By targeting the membranes, the bacteria will not have the chance to build up their defenses.

The team predicted that copies of the aforementioned fragment need to be grouped together in order to have such a powerful effect in targeting and killing pathogens. So, they re-engineered the protein fragment into a nanoscale building block, which then assembles itself into virus-like capsules.

"The challenge was not just to see the capsules, but to follow their attack on bacterial membranes. The result was striking: the capsules acted as projectiles porating the membranes with bullet speed and efficiency," Hasan Alkassem, one of the researchers, explained to NPL News.

The more remarkable thing, though, that astonished them is that the artificial viruses did not harm even a single human cell. Instead, they do what all viruses do: Once inside a human cell, viruses tend to release their genes that, in turn, hijack the body's cellular machinery to multiply and produce more viruses.

With this mechanism, the artificial viruses from the protein in breast milk has the potential to be developed into tools for gene therapy to cure many diseases.

The findings have been published in Chemical Science.