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Your article on microbial-efflux-pump research immediately caused me to relate the phenomenon to immune system response. Have the researchers considered the possibility of such a response triggering the formation of efflux pumps, either specific to the triggering “foreign” body or to a group of bodies similar to the cow pox-small pox link?

Robert E. Hubbard
Winter Haven, Fla.

The subject is a good one for future research, says Paul M. Tulkens of the Catholic University of Louvan in Brussels, Belgium. He is unaware of any current research on the topic, although last year researchers showed that antibodies could inhibit an efflux pump found in cancer cells that have multidrug resistance .–D. Christensen