Scientists in the United States have developed a vital tool in the battle against superbugs by re-engineering a decades-old antibiotic.
A modified version of the antibiotic vancomycin is believed to be much more effective at fighting Enterococci bacteria, which is found in hospitals and can cause dangerous wound and blood infections. The drug, which has been used for 60 years, is described as an antibiotic of last resort, used only after treatment with other antibiotics has failed. But some infections have become resistant even to vancomycin in its current form.
The research team, from The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, described the new drug as "magical" in its strength, the UK Press Association reported..
The study (PDF), published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says the modification gives vancomycin a 1,000-fold increase in activity, so doctors could use less of it to fight infection.
It works on bacteria in three ways to make it harder for them to develop resistance.
"This increases the durability of this antibiotic," said Dale Boger, who led the research and is co-chair of The Scripps Research Institute's chemistry department.
"Organisms just can't simultaneously work to find a way around three independent mechanisms of action," he said. "Even if they found a solution to one of those, the organisms would still be killed by the other two."
It could be years, however, before the completion of clinical trials needed to turn the lab discovery into a mass-produced medicine, Dr. Andrew Edwards, a lecturer in molecular microbiology at Imperial College, London, told CNN)
Me, "What is now necessary is to see if other standard antibiotics can be modified in the same way Vancomycin was. With super bugs forming resistances to standard antibiotics, researchers need to find new ways of modifying standard antibiotics as well just in case even modified Vancomycin fails."
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