New powerful antibiotic Teixobactin discovered

U.S. scientists have discovered a new class of antibiotic that can kill many kinds of drug-resistant pathogens, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Many pathogens have evolved to resist antibiotics developed from bacteria that can be grown in labs. So the scientists developed the new drug, known as Teixobactin, by screening 10,000 bacterial strains from soil that cannot be cultured in labs.

To grow germs from soil bacteria, scientists filled a device containing several hundred dotted chambers with cells from different bacterium. The device, which they call the iChip, was then placed in soil to allow the bacteria to grow.

Once the bacteria were cultivated, they were placed in a petri dish and covered by a target bacteria, called Staph. Empty zones in the petri dish signalled that the bacteria below had released an antibiotic that inhibited the growth of the target Staph bacteria.

The newly discovered antibiotic, Teixobactin, kills a class of bacteria called gram-positive bacteria by binding to the building blocks they use to construct their cell walls and causing the cell walls to break down. It is especially effective against bacteria that cause certain types of tuberculosis and pneumonia, and Staphylococcus aureus, which causes MRSA.

Teixobactin, however, does not work against gram-negative bacteria, including bacteria that cause cholera and gonorrhea.

Kim Lewis, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and lead author of the study, told the Wall Street Journal that there could be human trials of Teixobactin in two years. He said the trials could take two to three years.

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