Superbugs

Bacteria are fast evolving resistance to antibiotics. A long term strategy might be to prevent them from evolving in the first place. A new study has found that bacteria use clever gambles to adapt – and showed how we could rig the game in our favor.

​The growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is seeing scientists get more and more creative in their search for new drugs that might help us maintain the upper hand. Researchers have uncovered what they say is a potential goldmine of antibiotics in the form of fish slime.

Researchers have revealed the discovery of antibiotic-resistant genes in remote Arctic soil samples. The genes in question were only first identified a few years ago and have rapidly spread across 100 countries, into areas thousands of miles away with almost no human presence.

We might be losing the war against bacteria, as they rapidly develop resistance to our best drugs. Now researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have found a way to potentially prevent bacteria from spreading antibiotic resistance to each other.

It almost goes without saying that space is a pretty harsh environment. Now researchers have examined what effects that environment might have on bacteria, and found that the bugs are mutating in response – but that probably isn’t cause for concern.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose an ever-growing threat to human health. But looking to the past might help our future – researchers from Swansea University Medical School have discovered a new potential superbug killer in Irish soil, which has long been believed to have healing properties.

Promising results from a phase 2 human trial into the efficacy of a novel new antibiotic is giving hope to scientists desperate to find a new weapon against the growing global threat of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

What is the impact of antibiotic use on our gut bacteria, and how quickly does our microbiome recover? A new study has examined the regrowth in gut bacteria after major antibiotic interventions, revealing that while much of our microbiome does recover some species could be permanently eradicated.

Bacteria continue to evolve resistance to our best drugs, but probiotics help keep bad bugs at bay. Now, MIT researchers have found a way to combine probiotics and antibiotic drugs into an uneasy alliance that seems to work better than either treatment alone.

Superbugs are evolving to outfox even our very best medicines, presenting a real and emerging danger to humans in every corner of the globe. A new study has explored how they develop in newborns in particular, and how a mother’s breastmilk might help fend them off.

A cheap new diagnostic test from researchers at UC Berkeley promises to effectively identify antibiotic-resistant bacteria in just minutes from a urine sample. The test is currently being commercialized with a view on rolling it out into hospital and clinical settings as soon as possible.

Not all pathogenic bacteria needs to evolve a variant to avoid destruction from antibiotics. A new study has revealed that some bacteria can effectively enter a state of hibernation, waiting for the effects to antibiotics to pass, resulting in persistent and chronic infections.