UK scientists breakthrough could save millions from drug-resistant infections

The study says that an “alternative” antibiotic could be used as a “last resort” against drug-resistant bacteria to save millions of lives from other drug-resistant infections after a British scientific advance. Researchers say they have developed new versions of the molecule teixobactin, which is believed to be able to kill bacteria without damaging mammalian tissue.

Teixobactin was first described as an “alternative to the game” antibiotic in 2015, but a new project has developed “synthetic” classes of the drug, according to the scientists. A team of researchers from the University of Liverpool found that these versions can destroy a wide range of microbes taken from human patients.

They also eliminated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the so-called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria — which are resistant to many widely used antibiotics — in a study in mice. According to a study published in The Lancet in January, more than 1.2 million people died in 2019 from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

The scientists said that tests suggest that in the future, patients can be treated with just one dose of teixobactin per day due to life-threatening systemic resistant bacterial infections. The researchers say the synthetic versions can be stored at room temperature, facilitating global distribution by eliminating the need for cold chains.

Those leading the project, which was conducted in collaboration with the University of Lincoln, hope that the tests could pave the way for low-cost drug production on a large scale. By replacing some of the amino acids in the molecule with cheaper alternatives, they said the cost of the material was reduced by more than 2,000 times.

Lead researcher Dr Ishwar Singh said the breakthrough was an important step in unlocking the full medical potential of teixobactin to overcome antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Dr. said. Singh.

The researcher said the team hopes to eventually receive the synthetic teixobactin for safety testing, which, if successful, could lead to the development of a drug that treats resistant bacterial infections worldwide. Dr Phil Packer, from Innovate UK, the agency that presented the latest project, said the results had been “excellent”.

He said new classes of antibiotics were particularly needed to fight antimicrobial resistance because the existing molecules were already familiar to the bacteria, making resistance more likely to develop. “We are pleased with the results that confirmed the promise of synthetic texobactin to combat resistant bacterial infections when currently used antibiotics do not work,” he said.

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