Antibiotic

Antibiotics aren’t picky, blasting good and bad bacteria alike and messing up the delicate balance of the gut microbiome. But now researchers have developed a more targeted approach, with drugs that are able to zero in on specific species of bacteria.

Bacteria are rapidly developing resistance to our best drugs, hurtling us towards a future where antibiotics simply don’t work anymore. Now researchers have uncovered a potentially exploitable chink in the armor of a particularly troublesome group of bacteria.

The over-prescription of antibiotics is a major problem in the world today, leading to the dramatic rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. New research is suggesting not only are antibiotics ineffective for individuals suffering from influenza, but they can worsen the initial viral infection.

Humans are currently locked in an arms race against pathogenic bacteria – and we’re losing. Now scientists have identified the genes responsible for antibiotic resistance in a particularly dangerous superbug, and found a way to thwart them.

A team from Aston University examined almost 20,000 insects collected from hospitals across the UK, and studied the kinds of bacteria they were carrying. The vast majority were found to host potentially harmful bacteria, more than half of which were resistant to some kinds of antibiotics.

New research presented at the the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology has demonstrated a novel topical formation containing cannabidiol (CBD) is effective at killing bacterial infections in the skin. The formulation was also found to kill certain antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria might also be one of the biggest medical issues of the 21st century. Now, a bacterial gene that grants resistance to “last resort” antibiotics has been detected in a patient in the US, for the first time.

A landmark study, led by a team of scientists from King’s College London and the University of Cambridge, has described the mechanism responsible for the hardening of arteries. The research also points to a common antibiotic as a potential new treatment to prevent this condition.

In a huge global study hundreds of rivers around the world have been tested for levels of common antibiotics. It found 65 percent of all samples contained some concentration of antibiotics, with the worst cases showing levels more than 300 times higher than the generally accepted safe threshold.

In the 1990s, the lab of Frances Arnold showed how we can turn evolution to our advantage by manipulating microbes into evolving in a certain way. Now Arnold's team is using the technique to develop new antibiotics.

Tuberculosis is currently curable, but the bacteria responsible for it are fast evolving resistance to our antibiotics, thwarting attempts to keep the disease under control. Scientists have found a new compound that can boost the power of existing antibiotics and even reverse the bugs’ resistance.

Bacteria are quickly evolving resistances to antibiotics, to the extent that our best drugs might not work in the terrifyingly-near future. Now, researchers from Thomas Jefferson University have found a new way to weaken bacterial defenses, slowing down the development of antibiotic resistance.