New Antibiotic Can Kill Resistant Bugs

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New Antibiotic Can Kill Resistant Bugs


Using soil from a grassy field in Maine and a miniaturized diffusion chamber, scientists have cultivated a microbe that could help tame the spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

When tricked into growing in a lab, the microbe makes a compound that kills strains of tuberculosis, MRSA and other deadly pathogens that are immune to even the most powerful drugs. Tests in mice showed that the newfound molecule is “exquisitely active against some very hard-to-deal-with bugs,” said Northeastern University microbiologist Kim Lewis, the senior author of a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Trials on mice showed that the molecule, which they called teixobactin, rapidly cleared infections of drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, according to the study. They also felled two kinds of bacteria that cause serious infections of heart tissue, Lewis said.

The compound attacks these and other gram-positive bacteria by binding to chemicals essential to forming cell walls, causing them to break down.

“Not only one target is attacked, but multiple targets, and they are all lethal,” said study coauthor Tanja Schneider of the University of Bonn in Germany.

Researchers said they would work to broaden the spectrum of bacteria the molecule can fight, and tinker with its chemistry to ensure it can be administered in reasonable doses.

Although the study represents a “new twist” in the effort to develop new antibiotics, it remains untested in humans, said Dr. Richard Seabrook, head of business development at the London-based Wellcome Trust, which was not involved in the study.

“We will not know whether teixobactin will be effective in humans until this research is taken from animal testing in the lab to clinical trials,” he said.

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