'Game-changing' antibiotic could be used as a 'last line of defence' against superbugs to save millions of lives from drug-resistant infections, study suggest
Written by sidhanta
Written by sidhanta
A 'game-changing' antibiotic could save millions of lives lost to superbugs worldwide each year, a study suggests.
In a breakthrough, British scientists have developed synthetic versions of the compound teixobactin — the first new antibiotic discovered in decades.
The man-made drugs were able to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria in mice without harming healthy tissue in research led by the University of Liverpool.
Teixobactin was originally discovered in 2015 after being extracted from a field in Maine in the US, in what was hailed as a watershed moment in the growing fight against antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
But its roll out has been held back because the natural compound is expensive and difficult to produce.
The team in Liverpool were able to reproduce teixobactin synthetically, keeping the same superbug-busting properties of the original while costing 2,000 time less.
It successfully eradicated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — a superbug known as MRSA, which is resistant to several widely used antibiotics — in mice.
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