Discovering Novel Antibiotics Agianst Highly Resistent Gram Negative Pathogens

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Nearly all of us have taken antibiotics: they really are a 'wonder drug' saving millions of lives every year, by specifically killing bacteria. They are rapidly becoming less effective as bacteria develop ways to resist them. An example of this is the spread of MRSA in hospitals. A recent review (The O'Neill Report) conducted by the UK government with the Wellcome Trust concluded that by 2050 antibiotic resistant infections would kill more people each year than cancer, and many common medical procedures such as hip replacements or Caesarean sections will become too dangerous to perform. New antibiotics are badly needed, and soil organisms have been one of the best sources of antibiotics over the last 70 years. However, soil organisms may only make an antibiotic under certain conditions which are hard to copy outside of their natural environment, which makes identification and exploitation difficult. Bactevo have isolated hundreds of organisms from the soil and hard-wired them to make all the chemicals they can make, including antibiotics, all the time. We then screen them for their ability to kill dangerous bacteria. The work is now progressing to advance these chemicals through to the creation of novel, effective antibiotics, ensuring future generations will have access to these vital drugs.