What is antibiotic resistance?
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria develop from the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, which are often wrongly or unnecessarily prescribed or taken.
If used correctly, antibiotics destroy disease-causing bacteria, but many people use them improperly by attempting to treat a problem antibiotics cannot solve.
“If you take an antibiotic when you have a viral infection like the flu, the drug won’t affect the viruses making you sick,” News in Health, a website run by the National Institutes of Health, part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, said.
It will instead destroy various other bacteria, some of which are beneficial, that aid the body to fight infection and remain healthy.
“Bacteria that are tough enough to survive the drug will have a chance to grow and quickly multiply [and] these drug-resistant strains may even spread to other people,” News in Health added.
Why are we talking about this?
A damage-free and significantly cheaper antibiotic, which uses new versions of the molecule teixobactin, was discovered that may prevent millions of deaths caused by antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’ globally.
A team of researchers from the University of Lincoln succeeded in destroying a ‘superbug’ called MRSA in mice, without harming the tissue of the rodents, which beforehand was repellent to common antibiotics.
"Our ultimate goal is to have a number of viable drugs from our modular synthetic teixobactin platform which can be used as a 'last line of defence' against superbugs to save lives currently lost due to AMR," Ishwar Singh, lead researcher, commented.
Antibiotic resistance is a subset of Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which occurs when microbes evolve mechanisms that protect them from the effects of antimicrobials
Some amino acids were substituted for cheaper alternatives, which the researchers said slashed the cost by 2,000 times when produced on a large scale.
These antibiotics can be kept at room temperature, which facilitates global distribution and storage.
"It is fantastic to see such innovative work like this happening in the UK - another clear example of this country being at the forefront of scientific advancements which can benefit people across the world," Sajid Javid, Health Secretary, said.
Why is it important?
Drug-resistant infections will kill an estimated 10mln people per year across the globe by 2050, according to an AMR review ordered by the UK government.
Over 1.2mln people died from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections in 2019, The Lancet said, while health experts have been persistently warning global leaders of the ever-increasing issue.
Normally, “bacterial infections that were treatable for decades are no longer responding to antibiotics, even the newer ones,” Dennis Dixon, an National Institutes of Health expert in bacterial and fungal diseases, said.
When will this drug enter the market?
Singh said he hoped to eventually get synthetic teixobactin ready for safety testing, which, if successful, could lead to a drug being developed to treat resistant bacterial infections worldwide.
Although he failed to put a time frame on when the drug could likely enter the market.
Are there any other next-generation antibiotics?
In November, The University of Manchester discovered a new way of manipulating key enzymes in bacteria that may pave the way for a new generation of antibiotic treatments.
The CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can make new NRPS enzymes that deliver clinically important antibiotics and are prolific producers of natural antibiotics such as penicillin.
Nonribosomal peptides (NRP) are a class of peptide secondary metabolites, usually produced by microorganisms like bacteria and fungi.