Discovering Novel Antibiotics Agianst Highly Resistent Gram Negative Pathogens

几乎所有人都服用过抗生素：它们确实是一种“特效药”，通过专门杀死细菌，每年挽救数百万人的生命。由于细菌找到了抵抗它们的方法，它们正迅速变得不那么有效。这方面的一个例子是MRSA在医院的传播。英国政府和惠康基金会（Wellcome Trust）最近进行的一项审查（奥尼尔报告）得出结论，到2050年，抗生素耐药性感染每年导致的死亡人数将超过癌症，许多常见的医疗手术，如髋关节置换术或剖腹产，将变得过于危险而无法进行。我们迫切需要新的抗生素，而在过去70年里，土壤生物一直是抗生素的最佳来源之一。然而，土壤生物可能只在某些条件下产生抗生素，这些条件在其自然环境之外很难复制，这使得鉴定和开发变得困难。Bactevo已经从土壤中分离出数百种生物，并将它们硬连接起来，以制造所有它们能制造的化学物质，包括抗生素。然后我们筛选它们杀死危险细菌的能力。这项工作目前正在取得进展，将这些化学物质推进到创造新型有效抗生素的过程中，确保子孙后代能够获得这些至关重要的药物。

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.