Superbugs

One of humanity’s biggest threats is also the smallest – bacteria. But now, researchers at RMIT in Australia have found a new method for killing these superbugs that they can’t resist – magnetic nanoparticles that physically tear them to shreds.

One of the most alarmingly plausible (and overlooked) doomsday scenarios is the rise of the superbug, bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. But now, scientists have found a new potential treatment – and it was hiding in our skin the whole time.

Researchers have analyzed a weapon that bacteria use to kill each other – a toxic "crossbow bolt" – which could inspire new antibiotics.

A new long-term study has found high levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in wild dolphins, with rates growing over the last decade.

Deadly, drug-resistant forms of K. pneumoniae bacteria are spreading. Thankfully a new vaccine has shown promise in tests on mice.

Researchers at Imperial College London have found that a high-priority superbug resists drugs by closing its pores.

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.

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.

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.

Microorganisms are becoming resistant to drugs, hurtling us towards a terrifying future where once-easily-treated infections become potentially life-threatening again. Now researchers have tested an alternative to antibiotics, using existing drugs to starve a fungal infection of vital nutrients.

The latest newly uncovered threat in the world of superbugs comes from scientists at Cornell University, who have discovered a previously unknown gene that can leap between organisms to facilitate resistance to an important last-resort antibiotic. ​