Antibiotic Alternatives Rev Up Bacterial Arms Race
Friday, May 29, 2015
More than eight decades have passed since Alexander Fleming’s discovery of a fungus that produced penicillin — a breakthrough that ultimately spawned today’s multibillion-dollar antibiotics industry. Researchers are now looking to nature with renewed vigor for other ways of fighting infection.
Few new antibiotics are in development, and overuse of existing ones has created resistant strains of deadly bacteria. “We need a change from what we have,” says Stephen Baker, head of medicinal chemistry for antibacterials at GlaxoSmithKline in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.
Baker will talk about some of the alternatives to antibiotics on June 2 at the American Society for Microbiology’s annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Source: Scientific American (link opens in a new window)
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